Category Archives: Uncategorized

All Blue-Eyed People Have This One Thing In Common

Every blue-eyed person on the planet is descended from a single European who lived around 6,000 to 10,000 years ago, and who first developed a specific mutation that accounts for the now widespread iris coloration. Originally, all humans had brown eyes, although … Continue reading

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Eduard Scharff to marry Esther Marx

Pappy’s aunt, Hattie Marx, wrote her close friend, Mrs. Susan (?) Hamm from Galveston to inform her that hattie’s sister Esther Marx (Pappy’s mother) would become engaged to Eduard Scharff of Jennings, La. Below is a copy of the postcard … Continue reading

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Ward Belmont College

Both Jean Bloom Ghertner and Faylese Scharff  Gruber attended Ward-Belmont College on the grounds of the Antebellum estate of Adelicia Hayes Franklin Acklen Cheatham in Nashville, Tennessee. “It was regarded as a very prestigious “finishing school” by the more aristocratic families of Middle Tennessee, … Continue reading

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R.I.P. Faylese Gruber (1926-2015)

Faylese Scharff Gruber passed away peacefully the morning of February 21, 2015. I can’t say enough superlatives about this gracious, lovely lady. Faylese Fanny Scharff was named in honor of her grandmother, Fanny Fay Levy (1875-1925) who had died a … Continue reading

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Ed just sent this photo

This is another photo of Pappy (right) with his cousins when he was in Germany studying for Bar Mitzvah. Here’s the one I’ve used before.

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Bloom family furniture

In 2011 Bob Rosen (1947-2013) sent me these photos of his bedroom furniture. He told me it was from the Bloom family, my ancestors from Pine Bluff. I don’t recall if Bob told me whose house this came from.

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Frances Jean Bloom Ghertner (1921-1978)

I came across this picture of my mom in a batch of scans from Memphis. She has the ever present cigarette in her hand. She’d toss it on the ground, temporarily, to make a golf shot but not for a … Continue reading

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Shotgun apartment in 1940s

During World War II, Em & Pappy’s family lived for a while in Muskogee, Oklahoma; and that’s where Faylese met Leslie. The Army base there is Camp Gruber. They lived in a ‘shotgun’ apartment. There was no hallway, each room … Continue reading

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