Tanya visits Dora, January 2011

This post is written by Fisher Picture guest blogger, Dora.

The Fishers have a large, close extended family. I feel so lucky to know and be close with so many of us- Fishers, Cohens, Weinbergers, Fong-Cohens, Luxenburgs, now even some Amiras (venturing into 3rd cousin territory)!

This weekend, second cousin Tanya came to visit me in Chicago. Many of my friends say to me, "what does it mean to be second cousins?". So let this post explain how we are related.

We share great grandparents, Mollie and Isaac Cohen.



Our grandmothers are sisters, Rae Luxenburg and Sue Fisher, both pictured here on the left in this whimsical picture (on the right is Marci, Tanya's aunt and my dad's first cousin)

Our fathers are first cousins, Josh and Verne.

Verne with his aunt, my grandmother, Sue, in 1996.



I'm pictured here with Tanya's grandmother, my great aunt Rae, at my grandparents 50th anniversary 15 years ago:



Tanya, with her mother Susie and grandmother Rae (my great aunt), as a baby:



All this makes us second cousins!

Photo taken 5 minutes ago at a cafe in Chicago:



So fun to have you here, Tanya, and may our families continue to be close for generations to come.

Fishers and Cohens (almost certainly Bronx, NY, about 1950)

This is my favorite of all the family pictures, having all four of my grandparents, and almost all their children, in one photo. I don't know where this was--Betty and I noodled over it, and eliminated all the likely places, but I'm sure it was someone in our family's apartment. I don't know the event either, but given how everyone is dressed, it could well have been a Passover celebration. In any case, in this photo are:
[Back row] Annie, Sam
[3rd row] Jerry, Betty, Mollie, Isaac, Sue
[2nd row] Rae, Paul, Rose, Sol
[Front row] Josh, Willa

Missing are Bud and Harry Cohen, plus my father (who undoubtedly took the picture). As always, click on the picture for a much larger version.

Betty's and Rae's Families (Bronx, NY, and California, ~1957 and ~1995)

Back in Miami, and now I have access to the 6,000 old family pictures again.

The left-most child below is my cousin Verne (Cousin #17/Ray's #2), who I've somehow missed in all these pictures. Just two more of my 19 first cousins to go! To the right of him are his sister Marci, and Ilene and Larry in front of Betty and George.



And here are the four of them again, about 50 years later.

Rae and Molly (Los Angeles, CA, Jan 1961)

Rae and her mother.

Marci and Larry (various places and times)

The two oldest of my 19 first cousins were born when I was about nine years old: Betty's son Larry, and Rae's daughter Marci (Cousin #15/Rae's #1). I saw a lot of both of them at first, but I saw little of Marci after she was very small, since I was in Syracuse and Rae at some point moved to California. I continued to see a lot of Larry, since he has always lived in the NY area, and I stayed with Betty a lot when I was a teenager racing off to NYC at every opportunity. Here is Marci with Elizabeth just before my parents' 50th anniversary party.


And Marci and Larry with their mothers. I believe that Larry was born in the fall of 1954, and I would guess he's a little over two here.


And Larry, with his wife Judy, at our house in Woodbridge, sometime in the mid-to-late 1980s.

Sundays in Van Cortland Park (Bronx, NY, around 1950)

My parents' move to Syracuse in 1952 took me away from my extended family, and it removed me from the ethnic world I was often part of, especially on my mother's side of the family. Many Sundays each summer, Turks and Greeks would gather in Van Cortland Park, with tons of food, music and dancing, like out of a movie. The kids would run free, and Paul and I in particular would explore the park.

My grandfather, Isaac, was an accomplished darbuka player (I am told he earned money playing in Turkish nightclubs in lower Manhattan at night). Here he is, below, with Rae, my mother, and my grandmother Molly looking on:


Betty and my grandparents.



My grandparents dancing.


My grandfather doing the DJ honors. I wonder if that's Paul, Harry and Bud's back on the left?

Betty and Annie (various locations, around 1954)

My mother was the oldest of 6 siblings, my father the oldest of 4. They were married when they were 17 and 16 years old, respectively, and their families lived on Washington Avenue in the Bronx, just a few blocks away from each other. As a result, all the kids in both families hung out together, and were all friends to some extent.

The best of friends were my father's sister Annie and my mother's sister Betty. They married Stretch and George, respectively, a few apart in January, 1954.


Betty (left) and Annie at Betty's wedding.


At Betty's wedding, that's Annie's husband Stretch (Irving Jacobson) standing next to Betty's father at the alter.


Betty and George (not quite married yet) at Annie's wedding. They got married right after that.


And finally, Betty and her sisters Rae and Sue at Annie's wedding. (My mother undoubtedly did the annotating.)

My Mother and Her Siblings (Unknown place, about 1977)

It's Sunday, so family event. Left to right: Paul, Bud, HWMNBN; Betty, Rae, Sue.
I thought I had a better shot from this same event, but I couldn't find one. My wild guess is that this was from the early 1980s. [Update: HWMNBN can date it to about 1977.]