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Nettie LefkowitzFrom The Peopling of New York CityNettie Lefkowitz was one of the girls that I found very little information on. In David Von Drehle’s book I found that she was twenty-three years old. She died from asphyxiation and she was burned. She lived at 27 East 3 Street and her brother, Archer, identified her. She also appeared on multiple newspapers on March 28.[1] According to Nettie Lefkowitz death certificate number 10279, she was twenty-three years old. She was single and worked as a draper at the Triangle factory. She was born in Romania as her parents were. Her father’s name was Solomon and her mother’s name was Bertrude Euster. She lived in the United States and New York City for one and the half-year. She died at 23 Washington Place and was buried in Montefiore Springfield Cemetery on March 27, 1911. The undertakers name was Hannry Wolfman from 188 Wathens Street.[2] In “The New York Times” article “27 More Identified in Morgue Search” she was listed as Lefkowitz, Nettie, 23, of East Third Street. This is the only information that I was able to find on Lefkowitz, Nettie. She was very hard to find any information on and I do not think that she disappeared in the historical records but her name was probably spelled wrong. I found many Lefkowitz but none of them match the one I was looking for.[3] Some of the sources that I tried in looking for her were Leon Stein’s The Triangle Fire, which had no information on her. The New York City Directories at the New Public Library and Brooklyn College Library which had people under the name of Lefkowitz but I could not tell which one was Nettie. I also tired to recognize her in the Report of the Red Cross Emergency Relief Committee of the Charity organization society of the City of N.Y. However, because I had so little information about who she was I did not find anything. I even tried the “Jewish Genealogy” database but failed. And “Heritage Quest Online” and “Castle Garden” had no results on Nettie Lefkowitz.[4] The case that was the closest to Nettie Lefkowitz in the Red Cross Emergency Relief Committee of the Charity organization society of the City of N.Y. book was case number 51. It read, “No. 51 (Rumanian) A girl of 23 was killed, the oldest of six children, the three youngest being still with the parents in Romania. She had been in New York over three years; a brother of 21 had been here about two years and could no do more than support himself. She was supporting a sister of 19, who had only recently come over and was a dressmaker’s apprentice, as well as sending money regularly to her parents. Our European correspondent reported that he found the family “really in distress,” as they had been burned out of their home a few days before. Rumor was running through the quarter that their daughter had been killed in the fire in New York, but they did not believe it because they had received some money for Passover from their son, who wrote that, thanks to God, his sisters were both very well. The father was a peddler, making about two Frances a day in the summer, and one franc in winter. The 17 years old son was a carpenter, earning up to 40 Frances a month, and the daughter to him was apprenticed to a dressmaker who gave her 1.50 Frances a week. Pending receipt of information from Europe money was given at interval to the son to send home, and on June 5 $3300.00 was sent through him. A monthly allowance was given to the sister until October, by which time she was earning enough to pay her board in an uncle’ family. A final grant of $50.00 was made to her to provide her with winter clothing. The children here had not, up to November, received any word from their parents about the calamity which had befallen them in April ($585.00)." [5] References
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