Louis Bogage Family
Louis Bogage Family Photo Album
Lazer's Early Life in America
Those first years in America were challenging for all of the Eastern European immigrants, but for Louis Bogage it appears to have been especially difficult. Searching for a vocation, he traveled from Worcester to New York City to Trenton and back again. And as the last Boguslavsky sibling to arrive in the US and the only one to come without a spouse, he was also a young man in search of a mate.
By early 1915, he was living in New York City where he found work painting apartments in Harlem and discovered Annie Dobrin, a fellow immigrant from Vitebsk, Russia, who had arrived in the U.S. in 1912. They were married on August 7, 1915, at the Uptown Talmud Torah, and began their married life on East 110th Street. Their child, Benjamin, was born on September 29, 1916. (On Ben's birth certificate, his father's occupation is listed as "pickles" -- he sold pickles.) Annie died at Sydenham Hospital on October 8, 1916 from complications of childbirth, termed labor pneumonia.
Without a mother to care for him, Ben lived alternately with Chaika in Worcester and Feige in Trenton. Sometime around 1917-1918, Lazer moved to Trenton and worked at the Trenton Watch Company with Yoine. While there he met and married Sarah Laden (originally, Sura Ladyzhinsky), daughter of Joseph and Golde Laden, at 10 pm on a Saturday night in May 1918, with "John Bogage" of 191 Locust Street as a witness.(Talk:Early Life in America)
By 1919, Lazer was back in Worcester where he was selling curtains door-to-door. Behind one of those doors was Rebecca Fishman, a forewoman in a waist (women's shirt) factory, and her family. Becky and her family (her widowed mother Esther and brothers Nathan and David) had immigrated in 1906, two years after her mother's younger sister Golda/Gussie had immigrated to New York with her husband. It's not clear why Esther brought her family to Worcester, but by 1930 she had moved them to the Bronx, not far from Golda and her family. (Talk:Early Life in America)
Lazer and Becky were married in Worcester on February 9, 1920, and by 1922, he had moved his small family (Becky and Ben) to Trenton.
Trenton
Caroline (Croyna, named after her father's mother) was born in 1924 followed by Joseph Solomon (named after both grandfathers) two years later. Marion Theresa, born in 1929, died three days after her birth.
The three decades in Trenton were challenging. Lazer worked in a number of different jobs, mostly as a collector and/or salesman. In 1926 his occupation was listed in the city directory as "ice cream parlor," (Talk:Trenton) and on the 1930 census, his occupation was listed as a collector for a poultry store. In the 1940's, he worked for Kaplan's, a retail clothing store in Trenton. The tell-tale sign of their economic instability, however, was the fact that during this period, the family moved across the city at least eight times, from one rental unit to another.
All was not doom and gloom, however: there were long car rides to Becky's family in the Bronx and Lazer's family in Worcester. (Talk:Trenton) Summers were punctuated by trips to Belmar and then Surf City where, more often than not, the family crowded in a one-room rental so that they could enjoy the beach.
The children attended school, grew up, married and started their own families. Ben married Esther Karasic of Asbury Park, NJ in 1938, served in the army during WWII, and had three children: Mitchell, Frank, and Anne. Caroline married Harry Schlam of Pointville, NJ (who also served in the army during the war) in 1943 and had four children: Estelle, Mark, David, and Barbara. Joe served in the navy during WWII and married Shirley Berk of Trenton in 1949. They had three children: Nancy, Alan, and Barry.
Bogage and Sons
After the war, Lazer started his own business, with his sons, across the Delaware River in the small town (population c. 10,000) of Bristol, PA. Bogage and Sons opened on Farragut Ave and moved one year later to a larger, more visible location at Radcliffe and Market Streets. By February, 1950, Bogage and Sons filled a double storefront on the town's main street (an early Bristol version of a department store). The store served the community as a retail establishment where people could purchase women's, men's, boys' clothing, as well as fine jewelry. It also provided fur storage and jewelry repair services. All purchases could be made on credit with "no money down ... and pay as low as $1.25 a week!"
After some years of discord with his father, Ben left the family business. Joe followed in 1954, and Bogage and Sons closed in 1955. (Talk:Bogage and Sons)
Lazer went back on the road in 1955 -- going door to door, taking orders for merchandise that he would purchase on his weekly trips to Philadelphia, then selling and collecting weekly payments for those purchases. (Talk:Bogage and Sons)
Lazer's Later Years
Becky died in July 1962 at age 69, and Lazer was on his own again. When he married Esther Wolin a couple of years later, he became Lou and she was Grandma Cookie. With none of his immigrant baggage and no hint of the Eastern European accent, she was his opposite in many ways. They lived in her Levittown home and then moved to an apartment at the High Gate in Trenton. Esther died of cancer in July, 1981, at the age of 82.
Louis Bogage had buried four wives.
During his last years, he continued to socialize and live independently until July, 1984, when he fell and broke his hip. He died in November, 1984.
As a child of the shtetl in late nineteenth century Eastern Europe, Lazer came of age at a time and place where oppression, fear, and poverty drove every decision, every act. It was a time when the only hope lay across the sea in a world unfathomable, a time when even his mother knew that his only option was to leave her and all that he knew. Perhaps, as a teenager, it was an adventure, and he knew that he would have the support of his older siblings when he arrived. Even so, he seemed to be constantly astonished by what he found in America, greeting friends and family through the years with, "You like this country?!" as if to say, "Isn't this amazing? Can you believe this?" Always with a smile, a pat on the back, and a chuckle. (Talk: Lazer's Later Years)