cohens corner genealogy

Pearl Lombrozo and Leon Merzon

        

  

Please see the Lombrozo Index for a listing of all pages dealing with the Lombrozo's
This page contains 3 pictures and 1 tree.  Please click a picture or scroll down.
Please read Memories of Pearl and Leon.
         

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Pearl (Lombrozo) Merzon (c.1940)     

                   Moshe/Morris                       Joe                              
                                                                                    



I am very sorry to report that Pearl Merzon died January, 24 2004 at the age of 93 and buried at the Eden Cemetery in San Fernando (Los Angeles), California next to her husband Leon.  Jack and Mary Kagia and Morris Lombrozo is also buried at that same cemetery. 

From the memories of Andrew Doran, Rochelle Merzon and others:

When Pearl (the youngest daughter of Nathan and Rachel) and her three brothers and sister Mary were in Istanbul, Pearl was still very young.  Her older siblings sent her to live in an orphanage because they couldn't easily take care of her.  Their father Nathan  had died in 1917-18 and their mother in 1919-20.  

The two oldest brothers were in the two different Russian Armies.  Joe, one of the brothers had been conscripted into one of the armies.  Pearl traveling with her brother Morris left Feodosia and went to Constantinople, Istanbul.  Joe when he was on leave from the Russian army caught up with the family in Istanbul and wanted them all to return to Russia as he now had some standing with his army commission.  The wheels had already been set in motion to come to the US, however, and the family then went over together three years later, arriving in Providence, Rhode Island avoiding Ellis Island.  

Pearl being the youngest (13 years old) was the most "American" of the family and her nieces and nephews remember her and Leon as the people who introduced them to the "finer" things of American life in the 30's, from Circuses to Symphonies, as well new clothes for special events, while their parents struggled to provide the necessities in the Depression.

"Pearl" was called "Pollia" by her family,  Pearl is her American name.

Pearl remembered signing Nathan Lombrozo (Son of Morris and Liza) up for Bronx Science High School and defending Leon Lombrozo's strange "Science Projects.  Leon had at one time dissected something on his mother's Kosher kitchen table.

Pearl was a milliner in New York.  She took a bus trip across the US to Los Angeles in the early 1930's (before she was married) with one of her good friends.  As she described to Andrew on many occasions, LA was absolute paradise to her eyes at that time.  She vowed to raise her family there,  and soon after Rochelle was born in 1940, they moved out west.  

Both Pearl and her husband were story tellers.  Leon was all about adventure.  He once told a story about strange fruits in Cuba; Lemons the size of your head that tasted "sweet as sugar."  Pearl was all about the feelings connected to everything from being orphaned in an epidemic to seeing an African Usher in an elaborate uniform in front of a Movie theater in Constantinople.  

Leon (Pearl's husband) came to the US from Warsaw at age 15 by way of Cuba a few years earlier.  He may have arrived in Havana around 1921.  At that time one could get into the US on the Cuban quota after spending about 2 years there.  However, after a year in Cuba they changed the requirements so that one needed to spend 5 years in Cuba before being allowed into the US.  Leon didn't want to wait so he came into NY illegally, smuggled in by the cook on a boat.  He had fake papers from Tamany Hall and everything.  He finally received his US citizenship in the mid 1970's after being in the US for 50 years.

           This picture was taken around 1918.                         To see the entire picture please click on the picture below. 
 Morris         Jospeh  Sam                                                    It is a large file and make take a few moments to download.      
 
                                    Old Family ss.gif (173784 bytes)

             Mary          Pearl    Rachel     Yehuda                                            
                                                             (Yeudan?)