Rosetta, Emanuel, and Ralph Ginsberg
In October 1923, Dora Esther Brown Ginsberg was struck by a truck while crossing a street in New Orleans and was fatally injured. One month later, Dora’s widowed husband, Morris, admitted their two eldest children, Rosetta (8) and Emanuel (6) to the Home. Two years later, when he reached the age of three, Ralph joined his older siblings.
Rosetta Ginsberg, left, with siblings Paul and Dora Hosen, in the Home’s courtyard, 1926. From the scrapbook of Bessie Mashinka Rothstein, courtesy of Bessie’s daughter, Debbie Wizig.
Rosetta Ginsberg, right, with “TR,” who appears to be Thelma Rosenbaum, 1930. From the scrapbook of Bessie Mashinka Rothstein (twin sister of Pearl Mashinka), courtesy of Bessie’s daughter, Debbie Wizig.
Rosetta lived in the Home until 1932, when she graduated from Isidore Newman School with a long list of accomplishments. As a member of Newman’s Glee Club, Rosetta performed in operettas, including “The Dragon of Wu Foo” and “The Maid and the Middy.” In 1931, she also earned a lettered sweater for hiking at least 100 blocks a week and one long hike each month. In 1932, she received Newman’s Walter A. Lurie Prize in Latin.
Rosetta Ginsberg, Isidore Newman School Pioneer, 1932.
Rosetta remained under the care of the Home as a non-resident ward until 1934, while she attended Newcomb College. At Newcomb, as a member of the debate club, she argued that modern advertising was not detrimental to society. She also was a member of Alpha Epsilon Phi Sorority and the drama and glee clubs. In 1938, two years after receiving her bachelor of science degree from Newcomb, Rosetta graduated Summa Cum Laude from Loyola University’s inaugural graduating class of medical technology.
After marrying Bernard Michaelson and moving to Baton Rouge, Rosetta worked as a medical technician for a chemical company.
Rosetta died in 2004 at age 88 in Aurora, Colorado.
Rosetta Ginsberg, Newcomb College, from Tulane Jambalaya, 1933
Emanuel, who was born with a cleft lip and palate, later recalled receiving excellent medical care while in the Home, including several surgeries at Touro Infirmary by Dr. Isidore Cohn, a noted surgeon and the Home’s surgical advisor. Emanuel also took advantage of the Home’s farming and animal programs, personally tending to a six foot by six foot plot in the institution’s backyard where he raised corn and radishes and tended to nearly two dozen chickens, earning a feature article with his photo in the New Orleans Item: “Boy Runs Thriving ‘Farm,’; Goat Needed! – Operates in Backyard of Jewish Home” (May 15, 1931).
Due to Emanuel’s keen interest in farming, the Home transferred the boy from Isidore Newman School to the National Farm School in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, where in 1936 he completed his secondary education.
After he and his siblings changed their last name to Gayner, Emanuel married Helen Essig and raised a son. In 1950, the census reported that Emanuel was living with his family in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and working as a laborer in a creamery. Emanuel died in 1993 at age 75, and was buried in York County, Pennsylvania.
Emanuel Ginsberg, National Farm School yearbook, 1936. Emanuel’s classmates noted the good care he took of his Grand Champion Ayrshire cow, Esther, and believed “that in the dairy field he will go far.”
In Emanuel's Words
In September 1983, Emanuel (Ginsberg) Gayner, recounted his memories of his youth in the Jewish Orphans’ Home, including his important relationship with Home employee Bill Parker, watching athletics at neighboring New Orleans University, tending his garden, and attending the National Farm School. Read a summary of Emanuel’s recollections here.
Ralph, the youngest sibling, lived in the Home until 1939. At the Home’s anniversary celebration that year, Ralph moderated a panel discussion among fellow Home residents on the hot topic of the time, “Should Roosevelt be elected president for a third term?'”
Attending Newman School from Kindergarten through graduation, Ralph paricipated in a range of activities and student leadership. One of seven students chosen to speak at commencement, Ralph addressed the topic, “Youth and Our Attitudes Toward War.” He also received the Pioneer Business Prize for Excellence in Management and the Jaqueline Trautman Katz Prize for Excellence in Chemistry.
Ralph Ginsberg, Isidore Newman School Pioneer, 1939.
Ralph received his undergraduate degree from LSU in Baton Rouge before serving as a First Lieutenant in the Army during World War II. After his discharge, he returned to LSU where he earned his Masters in Business Administration in 1949.
Ralph Ginsberg, Louisiana State University yearbook, 1942.
According to the 1950 census, Ralph was living in New Orleans, where he worked as a census taker for the federal government. He later married Gertrude Isabel Heerens Anderson.
In 1983, he was living in Denver Colorado. When JCRS Executive Director Viola Weiss sought former Home residents to participate in the Alumni Project, he expressed his willingness to be interviewed. Although no record exists whether the interview occurred, he wrote that he hoped that the project would emphasize Home employees who supervised the children, “particularly Wanda Eleanore Packard who had such a beautiful impact on our lives.”
Ralph died in 2008 and was buried in Fort Logan National Cemetery in Denver.
From Find A Grave.