Forgetting fathers : untold stories from an orphaned past / David Marshall.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Marshall, David, 1953 December 20- author.

Series:

Excelsior Editions

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Marshall, David, 1953---Family.

Marshall, David.

Marshall family.

Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York.

Jews--New York (State)--New York--Biography.

Jews.

Jewish orphanages--New York (State)--New York--Biography.

Jewish orphanages.

Jews, Belarusian--New York (State)--New York--Biography.

Jews, Belarusian.

Death certificates--New York (State)--New York.

Death certificates.

New York (N.Y.)--Biography.

New York (N.Y.).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (348 p.)

Place of Publication:

Albany, New York : excelsior editions, 2015.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

An eloquent personal reflection on the fascination of family history and the desire to both discover and escape origins.In Forgetting Fathers, David Marshall weaves together the stories of his grandfather and great-grandfather with his own quest to solve the mystery of his family's past. Beginning as a search for his lost family name, Marshall attempts to understand the origins of his grandfather, who spent part of his childhood in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of the City of New York. He also reconstructs the life and death of his great-grandfather, a Russian immigrant tailor who died at age thirty-six in a private sanitarium dedicated to the treatment of mental and nervous diseases. The narrative becomes a detective story that reflects on our ambivalence about origins, the relation between history and mourning, and the compulsion to search for life stories. Forgetting Fathers combines historical accounts based on records, reports, and public documents with autobiographical reflections and speculations. Included throughout are photographs, newspaper clippings, and facsimiles of original documents that provide a sense of both the texture of the times and the fabric of archival and genealogical research.

Contents:

Contents; Note to the Reader; Preface; 1. Presented to David Marshall; 2. Finding Names; 3. Inscribing Names; 4. A Posthumous Child; 5. Traces of the Father; 6. Traces of the Tailor: Becoming a Contractor; 7. Traces of the Tailor: On Strike; 8. Special Circumstances of the Case; 9. Reading the Death Certificate; 10. Reading the Death Certificate: The Place of Death; 11. Reading the Death Certificate: The Name of the Physician; 12. Reading the Death Certificate: The Name of the Disease; 13. The Case of H. W.; 14. The Pavilion for the Insane; 15. The Place of Burial: Machpelah

16. Saying Kaddish for a Ghost17. Picturing a Future; 18. Picturing a Past; 19. A Ghost and a Memory; 20. Searches and Signs; 21. Returning to Machpelah; Notes

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781438458939

1438458932

OCLC:

941695446