DE BEAR? DE BAER? DE BEER?
THE DE BEAR'S
I have a educated suspicion that, when the De Bears came over from Holland, there was a different spelling. I had hoped it was De Beers and that I was the heir to the great diamond dynasty that was founded by Cecil Rhodes in South Africa.
I had you going for a moment, didn't I? ... But, alas, they were two brothers, Boers, who settled as farmers in the Orange Free State who just happened to discover diamonds on their land and they were forced by the British government to sell their farm for next to nothing. So much for a name!
My De Bears were very likely De Baer which is more prevalent in Dutch records. So, unlike my Frankfort family, I have had more difficulty tracking them back in time.
Solomon De Bear
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| Solomon De Bear |
My great-grandfather, Solomon was born in New York City in 1861, one of nine children and the only male! They were by order of birth: Esther, (who died in infancy), Solomon, Flora, Paulimia, Louisa (who also died in infancy), Leah, Lillian, Fanny, and Emma. Starting out in New York City as a child, the family moved somewhere around 1870 to the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia, for a few years and lived at 316 Lombard Street in, what is now a very hip part of the city, attracting many Millenials. Back then, it was a multi-family dwelling built in 1800. The son of a friend of mine actually lives down the street!
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| 316 Lombard Street, Philadelphia as it is today |
By 1880, they were back in NYC, having added more little sisters for him (and having lost one - Louisa) , living at 88 Lewis St. which no longer exists. It would have been just under the Williamsburg Bridge on the Manhattan side. I've crossed over that bridge numerous times to visit our kids in Brooklyn without even realizing that my "roots" were right beneath me! The neighborhood was mainly Irish, German, and like the DeBears, Dutch. In the census, Solomon, at age 19, was listed as a "shipping clerk". I'm not sure when Solomon actually became an accomplished photographer or how, but I do know he had a studio on the Boardwalk in Coney Island and was working with original tintypes. When he passed away at age 55 in 1916, his obituary was in a national journal, the Bulletin of Photography, with advertisements above and below the notice for Kodak and Haloid (now Xerox), both based right here in Rochester. The one little surprise I discovered in his obituary was that, besides photography, he was also, as a young man, a manager for private theatrical performances in New York City! He was one of the first managers to obtain the services of the famous comedy duo, Weber and Fields for the stage. They were the same duo on which Neil Simon based his comedy, "The Sunshine Boys" starring Jack Lemon and Walter Matthau. Here's a little clip of Weber and Fields:
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| Solomon's obituary from 1916 Photography's come a long way since then! |
When Solomon died, he left his wife, Sarah Frankfort DeBear with two children, my grandmother Hannah and her brother Ira. (More on the Debear and Mayer kids later). Sarah re-married Jacob Wolff, a German, in 1918. Oddly enough, he, too, like his in-laws, was a cigar maker. Other than that, I know nothing of Jacob.
Solomon's parents
These were my paternal great-great grandparents and I continue to trace their families back in time. Solomon's father, Israel, emigrated from Holland in January, 1853, arriving in NYC from Rotterdam on the Astracan. He was 22 and a carpenter. His name on the ship's register was actually De Beer so more confusion to my search!
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| What the Astracan would have looked like |
He lived at first as a "boarder", along with his brother, Meyer, with whom he had come to America, in the household of the Goodhart family, also from Holland, ...Emanuel and Sophia, along with their 5 kids. These must have been very crowded conditions. Israel became a cabinet maker, married Theresa Kurtz who was born to a German family in NYC, and, after having 3 kids, moved to Philadelphia as noted above for a few years before returning to New York.
With that many kids, the DeBears spread out all over...so, if you meet a DeBear, just like the Frankfort side, we are probably related! There is very little I know of my great-great grandmother Theresa other than Israel and Theresa lay at rest today in the old Washington Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY. Theresa died in 1887.
To tie up lose ends on this branch of my family, as mentioned before, Solomon and Sarah had three children, Godfrey who died in infancy, my grandmother Hannah (Helen), and her younger brother, Ira. Ira passed away in 1939 at the young age of 47. He and his wife, Beatrice Wittenberg DeBear had two sons, Jay who died in 1998 and Clifford who still lives today on Long Island. As previously mentioned, I am in touch with Clifford's daughter, Cheryl Burgos-DeBear, in Texas, thanks to the wonders of DNA and Ancestry.com.
NEXT: GRANDPA LEO...AN INTERESTING FELLOW!
I guess De Beer was the original name. It is rather common in The Netherlands and the Flemish region of Belgium. In Dutch language, it means The Bear. Jan De Beer, for instance, was a famous Antwerp painter. Beer (variants= Baer, Ber ) is also an ashkenazi name. Incidentally (the world is small ! ), my maternal great-grandmother was born Beer !
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