Busting the Family Legend Bubble

 

Do you have any relatives whose mission it is to "help" you reconstruct the family tree by sharing their ancestral stories? I have a genealogy friend who was rich in such assistance—until she learned how to research those details for herself. When she turned around to present the facts she had discovered to those ill-informed older relatives, one aunt actually told her she liked the family myth better.

I might be in such a bind right now, myself. My brother, much older than I am and, unlike me, privileged to have personally known our grandfather, has made it quite public that his grandfather was an entertainer. Specifically, my brother has mentioned that his grandfather was part of "Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show." While I have tried to find the source for such information, the more I look, the more I realize that might, in itself, have become a family legend.

While a name like that might mean instant recognition, Buffalo Bill's Wild West was an extravaganza which may have pre-dated my grandfather's earliest years, and certainly missed him by many miles. First of all, contrary to popular opinion, the word "Show" was never part of the touring act's name. The originator of this Wild West show, William Frederick Cody, founded the show in 1883; at that point, my grandfather would have been seven years of age. More to the point, that seven-year-old wasn't even living in the United States at that time.

Another complicating factor: the show was said to have been founded in the vicinity of Nebraska, far from the New York City region where my immigrant grandfather arrived as a child in 1884. Granted, Buffalo Bill's entourage was enormous, and the acts varied. Perhaps a juggler like my grandfather could have found a place in one of the acts, though the western theme—and location—might have made that less than likely. But the fact that the show, in its many iterations, made several European tours keeps me on the fence over whether this would be a likely family fact or fun family legend.

For now—and especially since I no longer have the option of asking my older relatives for more details—knowing that Buffalo Bill's programs centered on Wild West themes in western locations makes me disinclined to think a Polish immigrant would be a likely participant in a circus-like extravaganza such as that. While I can't find any smoking gun declaring the story convincingly false, let's just say it would be quite a stretch to envision my grandfather as part—even a small part—of Buffalo Bill's Wild West. 

Finding the Finding Aids

 

In searching for background information on personal family stories, delving into the social history of our ancestor's lifetime can bolster our research success. In the case of one report—or perhaps we should say, family legend—about my paternal grandfather, that search leads us to the history of American vaudeville. And because the vaudeville touring circuit involved so many people in a wide variety of locations, seeking  a resource like a finding aid is our best tactic.

With the many resources available now online, I was delighted to discover there was an entity known as the American Vaudeville Museum. If you haven't heard of it, no surprise there, as it was located in Edgewood, New Mexico. For ten years—from 1998 to 2008—the museum shared its resources by publishing a quarterly magazine, Vaudeville Times, which featured four to ten profiles of vaudevillians in each edition. Copies of those journals can still be found for sale today in locations from eBay to Amazon.

Better yet, after the museum's doors closed, founders Frank Cullen and Donald McNeilly made arrangements to donate significant portions of the museum's holdings to the Special Collections division of the library at the University of Arizona, some of which is available to search online. Articles explaining the essence of vaudeville through its history, key originators, and notable performers, combined with a searchable list of vaudeville names and topics, all made the transition to the library's website, but somehow, that wasn't enough for the founders, as judging by a note posted on the museum's original website. Instead, the museum's founders recommended researchers look to the archives of the Shubert Foundation, home of the records of the Shubert brothers, theater entrepreneurs well known for their efforts in the entertainment industry, first in upstate New York and extending into Manhattan and beyond.

Though the Shubert Archive is open to "qualified researchers" by application and appointment, there are other resources online which can help start the research process. While I look for clues as to my grandfather's involvement in vaudeville, I found simple lists of performers at Wikipedia to be a first step. True, that edges on needle-in-haystack status, but it's a start.

Still, the more I explore the history of the vaudeville entertainment genre, the more I tend to doubt this family legend. It's not so much the timeline, or even the enormity of the scope—thousands of performers in multiple circuits across America and into Europe—but one simple detail cited by my brother which just doesn't line up with history. We'll pop that family legend bubble tomorrow.

The Other Question

 

There's another research question to grapple with before this month comes to a close. When I started this month's project, my hope was to track my father's music career from his early adulthood. After all, even though he was only one generation removed from me, there was a lot of life story that I didn't know much about. I was curious. Now that digitized genealogy and general history resources can be found at the click of a mouse, this was my golden moment.

Granted, I found a lot of newspaper reports on my dad, thanks to leads my brother provided. Not hints given to me, personally—hey, I was the kid sister; what would I know?—but to several interviewers documenting his own career over the years (for which I'm grateful), and also, once again, thanks to the archiving essence of our now digitized world.

Before I close out this month's family research project, though, there is one other question I need to answer. The month started out with me wondering what my brother meant when he said he descended from a line of entertainers—both his father and his grandfather. My dad I always knew about—but what about my grandfather? He was dead before I was born; I never met him. What little I had gleaned about his life and his personality from older siblings and cousins led me to understand they too knew little about his background. This would be my month to track down an answer to that other question: just what entertainment this grandfather might have provided in his younger years.

The trick in researching such a question lies in the fact that this was the man who changed his name upon arrival on American shores. Known in his homeland by the Polish equivalent of the name Theodore J. Puchalski, once in New York, he reversed order on his given names to become "John T." Whether he used his surname, originally Puchalski, or opted for a more streamlined American version for this entertainment diversion, I can't tell.

Theodore J.—or John T.—was born in 1876. Though the information on his petition for naturalization states he arrived in New York in 1884, I have not been able to find any trace of him in records before the 1905 New York State census. By that point, he would have been almost thirty years of age—hiding a good ten to perhaps twelve years of the possible work my brother alluded to.

After that point—state enumerations did not include information on occupation—the federal census records were of no help, though they did confirm some details my older sister had shared with me about our grandfather. He was either listed as a "machinist" or working at a printing press. For one census, he was listed as a "foreman" but the enumerator didn't follow instructions for how to enter the type of industry—and had sloppy handwriting on top of that. I think I can be safe in saying he wasn't serving as a foreman for any night club acts.

As for the most obvious possibility for how the man could have been an entertainer—if you guessed vaudeville, we are both on the same page—there may be some clues. Both my older sister and my cousin—the oldest of the surviving grandchildren—have told me stories of how John T. was a juggler and had a friend who was a professional wrestler. But before we get lost in conjecture, let's get the overview of the historical setting of the era in which vaudeville flourished, tomorrow.

Demise of a Favorite

 

If you can believe a little girl's memories of conversations held long ago, it was the Roxy which was New Yorkers' favorite movie theater, but Radio City Music Hall which attracted the know-nothing tourists who flocked to the city. While the memory of that young girl might have been faulty, I found it somewhat vindicating to note a simple Wikipedia statement that Radio City Music Hall clocked more tourists in a year than the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building combined—or, closer to the time period we're discussing, that Radio City remained successful, regardless of the status of the city's economic, business, and entertainment sectors as a whole. Perhaps my mother was right, and it was the city's visitors who fueled the competition even though the true New Yorkers preferred the Roxy.

Whatever the case, it was the Roxy's demise which came before any problems overtook their competitor. Despite the size of a city like New York, perhaps it was the sheer numbers of tourists which turned the tables for the opulent and beloved Roxy, after all—or was it?

While my mother didn't share much about her work experience prior to settling down to mundane, suburban family life—nor did my dad add any commentary to fill in the blanks—I remember her fixing the blame for the Roxy's demise upon federal anti-trust laws. That, for a kid in grade school, was far more than I could take in, but somehow I remembered it. But I never saw any explanation of it that could bolster those childhood memories. Now, knowing how to research my family's history, it turns out I have the tools needed to ferret out those statements made so long ago.

To go back and explore what became of the Roxy, we need to also examine the timeline of their competitor, Radio City Music Hall. When Radio City staged its live show on opening night, almost ninety one years ago on December 27, 1932, reviews were negative. Early in 1933, the management opted to copy the Roxy's more successful formula of coupling live shows on stage with the showing of featured movies.

Embedded in that plan at Radio City was the decision to feature films produced by one company, RKO Pictures. From the start, the description of RKO's formation paints a portrait of mergers just daring government officials to cry "anti-trust." RKO became a film production and distribution company through the 1928 merger of three corporations: a theater chain, a "film booking" concern, and the well-known corporation, RCA.

Meanwhile, as the country clawed its way out of the Depression of the 1930s, the federal Antitrust Division of the U.S. Justice Department, influenced by key economists, entered an era of robust antitrust enforcement. Their goal was to "de-concentrate" large corporations and promote competition.

Changes were also happening, back at the Roxy. Though Samuel Rothafel—whose brainchild movie palace still bore his Roxy nickname—had long left the organization, by 1955 his son Robert Rothafel was back there, designated as the Roxy's managing director. One year later, the Roxy was acquired by Rockefeller Center, the same entity at which Radio City operated. The two competitors were now owned by the same corporation.

I first spotted that information through a curious entry within the holdings of the New York Pubic Library's archives. Apparently, an unpublished autobiographical typescript, along with several mementos, had been donated to the library by John Joseph North, a former usher at the Roxy in 1951. Currently held under the title, "Roxy Theatre Reminiscences," the collection at the Billy Rose Theatre Division included a note that the Roxy was "taken over in the late 1950s by Rockefeller Center, which ran it as a first-run movie house without a stage show."

By 1960, the archival notes continued, the Roxy was demolished "as Rockefeller Center expanded."

This, of course, helps me zero in on my father's career timeline, for without a stage show at the Roxy, there was no need for any musicians, and certainly no reason to keep a music arranger on staff. If I'm reading this collection of notes correctly, that means my dad was out of work at the Roxy by 1956. No wonder my brother had framed it as "after the Roxy" when he mentioned my dad's next gig was with the Versailles. There was no need to wait around for the soon-to-come wrecking ball at this theater.

For the larger picture—the social and economic history behind my own family's personal story—seeing one of two competing businesses cave to the other certainly could qualify as a possible target for antitrust legal action, yet I still can't find any actual statements to that effect. All I'm left with is a childhood memory of what my mom affirmed was the cause of the Roxy's demise. It may take many more hours poring over sixty year old newspaper headlines before I get the scoop.

Whatever the reason, that became the end of an entertainment paradise which flourished during a time period I can barely imagine. Times change, and I have no way now to experience what it might have been like to live the life such a milieu supported. But I can at least take a long look at what might have been and let it broaden my understanding of the people shaped by its influences.

After the Roxy

 

Some people can point to a specific pivotal moment in their life which changed everything that was to follow. In one way, it seems as if my father could have said the same of his own life, if only he were one to talk about himself. At least in my brother's recounting of my dad's music career, it would seem that way. I've been able to find interviews of my actor brother, posted online, in which he explained that after our dad had been the music arranger for the Roxy, he went on to work for another club, the Versailles. Specifically, he'd insert this comment to mark the timeline: "after the Roxy closed."

"After the Roxy" became not only an epitaph for my dad's career, but a running commentary over the years for my mother. Life definitely changed—but whether it was after the Roxy closed its doors at the last, or when the two left its employ, I can't yet tell. For the sake of delving further into the work history of these two people significant to no one else but my own family, I want to explore this turning point more closely.

The Roxy officially closed its doors on March 29, 1960. I'm certain my family had moved from the city to the more family-friendly suburbs by that point. By then, it would not have been feasible for my father to continue working for another theater or night club in the city, given a commute situation, even though New York train lines might have made that possible for city employees with the typical daytime work schedule. If he did take on another such position in the city at the close of the Roxy, such a commute doesn't seem reasonable for anyone keeping a performer's hours. I suspect the theater's timeline and that of my dad would no longer coincide.

Though my mother didn't provide many details about this former life, one thing I remember her mentioning was that the Roxy met its demise on account of something she called anti-trust laws. 

When I look for specific mentions of such a possibility involving the Roxy, I don't find any such explicit statements. However, though I am certainly no attorney, it doesn't take much digging to uncover what did impact the theater's timeline—and, ultimately, the career timeline of those who remained among the musicians, dancers, comedians, and supporting performers who made up the cast of the live shows featured at this once-renowned New York City movie palace. We'll take some time tomorrow to explore that history leading up to the Roxy's closing night.

Timeline of a Dancing Line

 

It's hard enough trying to formulate a timeline for an ancestor's life, without adding the ever-moving picture surrounding that life's story. Yet, to understand our ancestors a bit more deeply, exploring the life surrounding theirs is an imperative.

I've been exploring the details I can find on my own father's life from reports shared by other family members. One of those people was my own mother, who also worked in the same "show biz" world surrounding my father, and later, my brother.

Placing my mother within the timeline of the family story is somewhat challenging. Though I knew she was part of the stage show at the Roxy Theater, specifically in the precision dance line featured at the Roxy's live shows, that line has been mistakenly labeled by other, incorrect names.

Let's take yet another detour from our story to examine the timeline of that named group, and see why my mother couldn't have been part of that particular retinue. For that exercise, we need to return to the story of the Roxy's impresario, Samuel Rothafel, when he first discovered an American dance troupe known as the Missouri Rockets. Impressed, Rothafel brought the ensemble to New York City to be the featured dance team at his new movie palace, called the Roxy after his own nickname.

Naturally, Rothafel had to add his own signature touch to that addition, and the Missouri Rockets became known as the Roxyettes. By 1932, however, Rothafel parted ways with the theater now known by his own nickname, and he headed to a competing New York venue, Radio City Music Hall. Many of the Roxy's star performers followed Rothafel's move, including the Roxyettes by November of 1932.

By 1935, the Roxyettes, now at Radio City Music Hall, became known simply as the Rockettes, possibly as fallout of a legal struggle to determine who, exactly, owned the rights to the nickname Roxy. (Apparently, Rothafel's new patron at Rockefeller Center lost that battle, for the movie theater adjoining the new Radio City Music Hall, which had also been dubbed a Roxy theater, subsequently changed its name to a more germane "the Center Theater.")

Placing all this in the context of my mother's own timeline, if she arrived at the Roxy in the late 1940s, that would have been long after the Roxyettes had moved on to Radio City Music Hall. She certainly never danced with the Rockettes, themselves, so that leaves me wondering just what it was that the Roxy called their new precision dancers. Using the troupe's own timeline to match up to my mother's tenure there at the Roxy tells me I'll have to look for another name for the dance company's identity.

As for my dad's work history there, I found a few more references—but wouldn't you know it, checking those stories against the stark history of the establishment doesn't seem to add up. Before the Roxy finally shuttered its palatial doors, there had to be more to their story.

A Dancing Detour

 

There has been much written about the value of the so-called "FAN Club"—an acronym referring to the friends, associates, and neighbors of our difficult-to-research ancestors, but I don't suppose much has been said about its usefulness in helping to compose a life timeline for that mystery relative. In the case of reconstructing the timeline of my own father's career, that is exactly what I am doing, thanks mostly to the published interviews with his actor son who carried forward that entertainment legacy to the next generation.

Still, that technique, based upon only one other person, can only afford us so much of a glimpse of what we've been missing in our research. Like the concept of triangulation, the process works so much better when we have not just one vantage point, but at least two. In this case, that is where my mother's own career timeline comes in.

I already know that, because of her much younger age, my mother did not arrive in New York City until at least the mid-1940s. Because she was trying to break into show biz as an outsider, she started small, ever watchful for the next big break. A 1947 caption to a newspaper photo from the place where she was born in Iowa helped me pinpoint one of her earlier engagements at a place said to be New York's newest nightclub, called Vanity Fair. But I always knew that she had worked at the Roxy, so the Vanity Fair engagement must have predated that.

It is hard to envision the lavish presentation and surrounding opulence that was the experience of the Roxy Theater. If you are curious, I did find a blog post worth checking out which not only ran through the theater's history but provided several detailed photos of the venue from various perspectives.

With "world's largest" a seeming mantra guiding the theater's development and operation, one photo (below) from my mother's portfolio can give an idea of the "variety show" nature of the offerings during the live performances sandwiched in between the premiered movies at the theater. (Though she didn't dance en pointe, my mother sits just to the right of the middle in the front row, wearing toe shoes.)

Though you might assume, from her photo, that this was her gig with the Rockettes, there is an explanation for why, though she was a line dancer, that was not the correct designation for the ensemble when she was working at the Roxy. However, to explain that complex history, we'll need to save those details for another post.

From these brief details and scant information on dates, we can assume that from my father's contracts to play aboard trans-Atlantic steamships during the 1920s, to his brief gig as a resort musician in New Hampshire while the stock market melted down back in the city, to his wartime years at The Boulevard, he eventually became part of the immense orchestra featured at the Roxy by the late 1940s.

 

Above: Example of cast from a 1940s style variety show as featured at New York's Roxy Theater; from the private collection of the author.

Legendary Opulence, an Unparalleled Trendsetter, and a Nickname with Staying Power

 

Nicknames can sometimes define a person, but when we talk about the person to whom my father owed his future—and mainstay—place of employment, it was the man who bestowed meaning to his own nickname.

The Roxy—not the nightclub people talked about, up through the earlier years of our own century, but a previous hot spot well known to New Yorkers almost a century ago—started out as the dream of a film producer. Herbert Lubin—also called Bert Lubin—was known for his movies in the 1920s. Investing in his own dream to create the world's finest movie palace in New York City, Lubin brought in the talent to convert that dream into reality, including an innovative theater operator by the name of Samuel Rothafel.

If you didn't recognize the name of that immigrant impresario, it might be an understandable slip on your part. After all, it is likely you weren't around in New York City in 1927, when ten million Americans would tune in to his radio broadcasts every Monday.

At Lubin's invitation—not to mention, substantial financial enticement—Rothafel was free to implement Lubin's dream with his own ideas about theatrical design and production values. As we look back on Rothafel's achievement, he may be hailed as an "unparalleled trendsetter," but his opulent ideas cost Lubin a near brush with bankruptcy. While Lubin's original plan had been to make this the flagship of a series of six such theaters in the metro area, a week before opening day, he sold his controlling interest in the project to William Fox, founder of Fox Studios, and moved on. 

As for the brilliant—albeit lavish—Rothafel, he remained with his dream project from its opening day on March 11, 1927, through the 1929 stock market crash, and on until 1932, when he left the theater named for him and which contained so much of his innovative talent. Its lavish appearance—everything from the columned Grand Foyer with its "world's largest oval rug" to its immense theater-sized pipe organ—bore the fingerprints of Rothafel's inspiration. Despite Rothafel's ties to this historic theater, he left for a better opportunity at Rockefeller Center, where he opened another theater whose name may be more familiar to us today: Radio City Music Hall.

As for the movie palace he left behind, the theater continued to offer its featured combination of first-run movies and live shows. Both my father and my mother, having worked there, shared stories of performing at the once-glamorous venue that was, up until the end of March, 1960, a part of the city's heritage.

Now, I doubt many people at all would recognize the name of the innovative man, Samuel Rothafel, who made the theater the place it became. But some might recognize the nickname Rothafel was known by, the name by which the theater itself was called: the Roxy. That was the place where my musician dad played his trombone in the orchestra, and my mom eventually became a dancer with the "Roxyettes." It is through their stories that I know anything at all about the Roxy—but in learning more about that New York City fixture of the 1940s, it will help me understand more about my own parents. And it certainly helps me understand the origin of what seemed to me to be an unusual name for a movie theater. 

The Next Move

 

Despite being in the midst of a difficult economic depression, any musician moving to New York City in the 1930s would still have had several choices for where to work in such a center of entertainment. When my dad returned to the city after a brief—and sad—moment in the entertainment scene in remote Manchester, New Hampshire, he could have grabbed a gig almost anywhere. Thankfully, reading through the many interviews of my brother, an actor in the next generation who followed in his father's footsteps, I can now piece together my dad's story.

One of the places where my dad worked, beginning in the 1930s, was with band leader Paul Ash. To get an idea of what the band might have been like, I perused old newspapers for any headings about Paul Ash. 

It turns out there were many mentions. What confused me was that the articles seemed to come from newspapers in many different locations, while I knew my dad's home base became solely New York City after his return home. From a brief biography of Paul Ash, I learned he was not only an "orchestra leader" but had performed in vaudeville and was also a composer and recording artist, perhaps explaining the widespread reportage about the man.

Looking further, I also spotted several newspaper reports as far back as the 1920s, indicating Paul Ash had previously worked in the Chicago area. Apparently, working relations there were rocky, for some newspaper articles mentioned his involvement in lawsuits and other legal action. However, a 1926 insertion in The New York Sun mentioned one detail keeping the Ash act in Chicago. Under the title, "$1,000,000 Contract Tied to His Long Hair," the stipulations for his continued work in Chicago were reported to include "his agreement not to change his flowing hair, get fat, or have his face altered." The contract was binding for five years.

By 1933, though, the million-dollar Paul Ash was advertising his "New Acts Reviewed in New York" in Billboard, and Chicago was a scene from his past. By then, my dad was back in New York, and though I'll probably never learn how he came to be part of the "orchestra" conducted by Paul Ash there, his tenure with the band was likely a long one—and, ironically, a run that was only ended thanks to legal action, not a waning audience.

That longstanding act with Paul Ash was featured at a place New Yorkers called the Roxy—a place from the city's past that we'll consider tomorrow. 

And Then There was a Son

 

In trying to assemble the details of my father's life—since so much of it happened before I was even born—I guess I should be glad that he had a son. Not only that, but be glad that he had a son who followed in his footsteps, for it was that son whose online biographical sketches have filled in some of the blanks in the saga for me.

With the son's arrival in 1934, that pinpointed the fact that my dad and his bride had left their first home together in Manchester, New Hampshire. Leaving behind some painful memories with the death of their firstborn Maureen—and, likely, a lackluster entertainment scene for the household's musician breadwinner—the couple returned to family in the New York City area.

From that point, I'd have had trouble spotting my dad's career trajectory, if it hadn't been for the fact that his son very shortly afterwards followed in his footsteps. Researching the story thus means I am following two story lines: both my dad's and my brother's. From clues gleaned years later from interviews posted online of my brother after his passing, I'll be taking keywords and key names and researching them to explore the work life of my father from the early 1930s through the point at which we had first found him in his successes during the war years.

Without that additional resource of parenthetical comments about my father, drawn from articles about my brother, I'd have been at a loss to know what was next for my dad. I wondered, at one point, whether he returned to playing for the bands on ocean-going vessels, as he had done during his single years. One photo from his younger years, sent to me recently by my cousin, had always stumped me, due to the enigmatic background—could it have been during a smoke break while on a ship? Hard to tell.

This week will see us taking a detour to scour newspaper mentions of possible bands with which my father might have played during that decade of the 1930s, after his return to New York City. The online resources now available to us can be a great help in becoming familiar with the social history of our ancestors' times. That fact will be no different for my father—or for any near relatives of the previous generation.

 

Above image: Where is this? My father, caught by the camera while on a smoke break at an unidentified location, probably in his twenties or early thirties, leaves me with many unanswered questions.

Shaped by the Times in Which we Live

 

We are all shaped by the times in which we live. Understanding our ancestors begins with discovering the challenges they grappled with during their lifetime.

Perhaps, in retrospect, it was poor timing to celebrate one's wedding less than three months before the start of the Great Depression. But if people had any idea what was about to hit them before the Wall Street Crash of 1929, they all would have made different choices.

As for my musician father and his bride, their choice as newlyweds was to move from thriving New York City to Manchester, New Hampshire—supposedly so my dad could take on a gig at a resort in lovely northern New England. That, at least, was the indication he provided when the 1930 U.S census was taken. He reported working as a musician for a band when the enumerator stopped at his door on April 9.

What would entice a New York City musician to move from a lively entertainment scene to set up residence in a remote city of less than eighty thousand people? When I first considered that question, I had the romantic vision of a scenario similar to the plot of the 1954 movie, White Christmas—a once-thriving resort now on the verge of bankruptcy but about to be revived by the influx of some talented entertainers. 

In reality, Manchester had already been on a downhill slide, by then a longstanding indicator of my dad's ill-fated move. Early in the 1920s, a nine-month strike by workers at two major textile companies had hit the city hard, and the textile industry in Manchester began its slow decline. By 1930, the population had shrunk by two percent over that previous rocky decade, not a good omen for the softer "industries" such as entertainment.

For Manchester, my dad's new home, there was more turmoil ahead. One of the two companies emerging from the strike ended up filing for bankruptcy in 1935. A year later, a devastating flood damaged city infrastructure as well as industrial complexes along the river's edge. 

By then, however, my dad was long gone from the area—and for reasons beyond the economic problems. In the winter of 1933, he and his bride had welcomed the arrival of their firstborn child, naming her Maureen, just as the economy had hit bottom and was beginning its long climb back to normal. 

The child was not to be welcomed into their home, however, for another set of devastating reasons having nothing to do with the economy: Maureen was born with spina bifida, compounded by meningitis, and spent the remaining twenty three days of her life in an institution—an "infant asylum."

Far from family members who could provide help for the new mother—or at least consolation to the couple following their tragic loss—their decision to return to New York City must have made sense on so many more levels than simply the economic.

Whatever the decision process and the timeline of the move, by 1934 it was easy to see that the young couple was back home in the city, for that was the arrival, in September, of their newborn son. Leaving a sad episode of their life, a less than successful career venture, but more importantly, a precious firstborn child, must have been difficult, but in those troubled times, it was best to be closer to the support of a family network.