Glucksmann Siblings: Melanie, Theodore, Sarah, and Jacob
In 1880, Alexander Glucksmann, a native of Koblin, Prussia, and his wife, the former Minna Michelson, were living in Alexandria, Louisiana, where he worked as a grocer. During the Civil War, he had served as a Private in Company G of the Confederacy’s First Louisiana Calvary.
In 1884, just months after giving birth to a fifth child, named Touro, Minna admitted the four elder children to the Home in New Orleans: Melanie (9), Theodore (7), Sarah (5), and Jacob (3). The registry tersely explains, “Both parents living; father insane.” Alexander died in 1891 while Jacob was still living in the Home.
Alexander Glucksmann’s bronze marker in the Jewish Cemetery in Clinton, Louisiana, that the United Daughters of the Confederacy obtained in 1953, commemorates his Civil War military service in the Confederate Army.
Upon Sarah’s discharge in 1888, according to the Home’s registry, her “mother sent her to British Honduras in charge of her uncle.” After returning to New Orleans, Sarah married Paul Bango, with whom she moved to Baton Rouge and had two surviving children, Henry and Amelia. For reasons not recorded, Henry and Amelia were admitted to the Home in 1914, where they remained until 1925. Sarah died in 1948, three years before her husband Paul.
Melanie remained in the Home until 1889, when she was discharged into the care (and presumably the employ) of Gustave Lehmann, a wholesale dry goods merchant. She married Joseph Gorney, with whom she had two children, before she died in 1914 at age 37.
Theodore also remained in the Home until 1889, when he returned to his mother. After an apprenticeship in a machine shop, he spent his career as a machinist, moving to New York for several years before returning to New Orleans. Theodore raised a family with his wife, the former Mina Schwartz. He died in 1963, at age 86.
Minna Michelson Glucksmann, left, with her son Theodore’s wife (also named Mina), and two of his children, c. 1907. From Ancestry.com.
Theodore Glucksmann holding a medallion he sent to President Harry S. Truman as a gift in 1945.
Jacob remained in the Home until 1893, when he, too, rejoined his family. By 1918, a decade after serving in the Spanish American War, Jacob was living in New York where he worked as a theatrical technician for Klaw & Erlanger, an entertainment management and production company. He was a lifetime member of the Theatrical Stage Employees Union and served as property manager with the “Welcome Stranger” company in New York and the road company of “Ben Hur.” After returning to New Orleans in his retirement, Jacob died in 1956 at age 76 and was buried in Congregation Dispersed of Judah Cemetery.
Jacob Glucksmann, undated. Courtesy of Michael Kern, great grandson of Theodore Glucksmann.
Jacob was not the only member of his family in the entertainment industry. His younger brother, Touro, was a projectionist at the Orpheum Theater, and their mother, Minna Michelson Glucksmann, who died in 1936, for many years supplied costumes to vaudeville and circus performers, as well as to Mardi Gras revelers.
New Orleans States, March 3, 1916.
Minna Glucksmann’s costume shop on Rampart Street, undated. Courtesy of Michael Kern.