Person:Bertha Littman (1)

Early Life

Betty Littman was born in 1864, in a place called Ribnicsek, just outside the town of Kirchdorf / Szepes-Váralja, in the northern reaches of the Kingdom of Hungary. Although it was part of Hungary at the time, the area was primarily populated by German immigrants, and German was the common language. Today, the town is called Spišské Podhradie, in Spiš region, in northeastern Slovakia. The village is very scenic, with interesting history. Betty grew up at the foot of a hill topped by the commanding ruins of the 12th century Spiš castle. The town's synagogue, though long disused, is one of the few in the region that has been preserved.

Immigration to America

She arrived in New York in late 1887, traveling with her sister Lena. She was single and 23, and her sister was two years older and engaged or perhaps already married to a husband who had gone ahead to Chicago. The story told by her granddaughter is that Betty had come to visit some cousins in New York when she received word that something had befallen her family back home, and that she should stay in New York. Her father had died five years prior to her emigration. Her mother died about six months after Betty arrived in New York, so perhaps that was the event that signaled she should stay. It is not known whom she stayed with in New York in the four plus years between her arrival and her marriage.

Marriage And Family

While in New York, she met Louis Brautman, a Jewish immigrant from Kishinev whom she married. Together they raised five daughters. She lived to age 68 (though she only claimed 62), and was survived by her husband, three daughters, and several granddaughters. (See family page for more about her married life.)

order for grave stone

1. ↑ Židovská obec Huncovce (Kežmarok). Matrika, 1833-1942. (Salt Lake City, Utah: Mikrofilmy boli zhotoven? Genealogickou spolocnostou ?t?tu Utah, 1991)
   May 1864.

   LITTMAN, Betty; b. 10-May-1864; David (father), Sali SCHON (mother); Hunfalu (town registered) / 165b-02 (record num), Tatra (jaras), Szepes (megye); Ribnicsak (town born). FHL 1739204, item 7. (Note: Ribnicsek was the name of a rural spot just outside the town of Kirchdorf / Szepes-Váralja. See parents' page for more details.)

   Betty Littman 1864 birth registry
2. ↑ Szepeshely, family 26, in Magyar Statisztikai Hivatal. Népszámlálás, 1869 : Szepes (megye). (Salt Lake City, Utah: Filmre vette a Genealogical Society of Utah, 2000)
   10 Jan 1870.
   David Litmann family in 1869 census in Szepeshely
3. ↑ Her records in America have her 6 or more years younger than she seems to really be. Hungarian records document her birthdate as 10 May 1864, and an 1869 Hungarian census concords with 1864 as her birth year. However, her June 1892 marriage license gives her age as 20, which would indicate birth late 1871 or early 1872, and her Sept 1932 death cert gives her age as 62 (as does her gravestone), making her birth 1870 (or late 1869). A handwritten list of family vital dates (circa 1950, written by her daughter Fanny) gives her birth date as 30 May 1870 (this is the only American source of a specific date). The JewishGen index of the birth record says 10 May vs. 30 May, but we should get a look at the actual birth record to see if it may have been mis-transcribed in the index.
   
   Most of Betty's American documents (marriage cert, Fanny's birth cert, Bertha's death cert) give Hungary as her birthplace, but a few documents incorrectly give her birthplace as Bohemia.
4. ↑ ^4.0 4.1 Betty Brautman's gravestone in Mt. Zion Cemetery, Queens, NY
5. ↑ ^5.0 5.1 1932 death certificate
6. ↑ SS Elbe (Bremen to New York, 1887)