Rose & Jake Levine

Siblings Rose (5) and Jake (3) Levine arrived at the Home from Lafayette, Louisiana in May 1929. As reported in the registry, because they were considered carriers of diphtheria, the siblings were sent to Charity Hospital and returned to the Home two weeks later.

In January 1942, Rose graduated from Joseph Kohn High School for Girls. The next month, she was discharged to her father, Max Levine, in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

By the end of the year, while serving in the United Service Organization (USO), Rose married Robert Mills, an artist from Columbia, South Carolina. On the occasion of her marriage, Rose received a payment from the Home’s Simon Gumbel Dowry Fund, for which she wrote a letter of thanks to Superintendent Harry Ginsburg. Read Rose’s letter to “Uncle Harry” here.

After the war, and an initial stint as a telephone operator, Rose began a fifty-year-career with the State of South Carolina between its Legislative Council for the General Assembly and the Department of Revenue. According to her obituary, she retired in 2019 at the age of 95, and died three years later.

Jake remained in the Home until 1943, following his graduation from Isidore Newman School. By December 1943, he was stationed at the Army Air Force Technical Training Center in Gulfport Field, Mississippi before serving in the China-Burma-India region assigned as a an aircraft radar specialist. He wrote a lengthy letter to “Uncle Harry,” asking for a copy of his birth certificate and sending his regards to “all the boys and girls and everyone at home.” Read Jake’s letter and Superintendent Ginsburg’s response here. 

He later graduated from Louisiana State University with a B.S. degree in Petroleum Engineering and spent his career  working for Shell Oil, Esso subsidiary – Creole, and Conoco. He remained a lifelong LSU Tigers fan.

In 1954, he married Wilma Glen Cole, with whom he had two children.

Jake Levine died in 2012 at the age of 87 in Corpus Christi, Texas.