Sylvia, Bernard, Albert, & Herman Fox
To improve his wife’s mental health after the loss of two children to measles, Samuel Fox moved with their four surviving children from Cincinnati, Ohio to New Orleans, where he ran a tailoring business on Rampart Street. Despite the move, Samuel’s wife’s health did not improve and she was hospitalized. In 1925, based on advice from one of his customers, Samuel admitted the four children to the Home: Sylvia (11), Bernard (5), Albert (3), and Herman (2).
Sylvia, the oldest sibling, lived in the Home until 1931, when she graduated from Joseph Kohn Commercial High School for Girls. She returned to Cincinnati under the care of an uncle. In 1934, when Sylvia married Armand Joseph, Edith Deutsch Lashman, the widow of Superintendent Ed Lashman and the Home’s Field Director, attended the wedding.
Sylvia Fox, undated, from Bessie Mashinka Rothstein’s scrapbook. Courtesy of Debbie Wizig.
Bernard, Albert, and Herman, remained in the Home until November 1935, when they returned to their father’s care in New Orleans. Albert continued his studies at Newman School through high school in 1938 before attending LSU School of Engineering. He served in the Pacific in World War II and later served in the U.S. Army Reserve from which he retired as a major. He spent his career as a homebuilder in his business, Fox Remodeling. He met his wife, the former Honore Schill, while at LSU and also while working as a counselor at the Home’s summer camp in Bay St. Louis. They raised three children.
Albert died in 2010 at the age of 89.
Albert Fox, Isidore Newman School Pioneer, 1938.
In 2004, Albert Fox was interviewed by Al Stein of the Institute for Southern Jewish Life about his recollections of his childhood in the Home. Watch the video interview here.
In his 2004 interview, Albert Fox fondly recalled Wanda Packard, a supervisor during his time in the Home.
In December 2021, Albert’s granddaughter, Abby Wetsman, who taught at the Jewish Community Day School in Metairie, Louisiana, produced “A Chanukah Extravaganza” based upon her grandfather’s childhood in the Home. Watch the video of the production here.
In Albert Fox's Own Words
In 1983, Albert Fox participated in the Jewish Children’s Home Alumni Project. Read a summary of volunteer Pearl Grossman’s interview of Fox here.