From Europe to Bay Minette, Alabama and Pasadena, California

In compiling notes on the history of the Press family, I was struck by my grandparents' exceptional courage and achievement.

Isadore Press was born in Vyshnivetz around 1882 and Rebecca Plotka was born in Kolodne in 1885 (Both are in Ukraine today). According to the Wikipedia article on the history of the Jews in Poland, the assassination of Alexander II in 1881 was falsely blamed on the Jews,  prompting a large-scale wave of pogroms throughout 1881–1884. The new czar, Alexander III, blamed the Jews for the riots and issued a series of harsh restrictions on Jewish movements. The pogroms and restrictions prompted a wave of Jewish emigration to the United States. 

Morris Plotka, Grandma's nephew, recalled that Grandpa Press was drafted into the Russian army in 1905 and taken away from his family. He was sent by an officer to mail a letter and never returned. He and Grandma fled to Lemberg Austria, where Rachel was born in 1905. 

At ages 20 and 23, they were refugees with a baby living in a foreign country! Could they get by speaking Yiddish? Did they speak German? Grandpa worked as a tailor, and they had enough money to leave for the US in 1907. Before they left, Grandma took Rachel back to Poland to say goodbye to her family and left immediately. Did she ever see her mother and father again? 

In 1907 they went to New York where Grandpa went to work as a tailor in a factory, and they had three more children, Joe, Harry, and Dave. Grandpa must have been an outstanding worker because Morris Plotka recalled that he was a foreman and as part of management, crossed a picket line during a strike. While in New York, they sent boat fare for Grandpa’s brothers Ysrul and Shaye and Grandma’s brother Menachem-Mendel and his son Isadore. 

Around 1913, a colony of 10 or 20 (I’ve read both) Jewish families left for Bay Minette Alabama where they bought 25 acres of farmland and Grandpa opened a tailor shop. They lived in a small four-room house with six kids and built a smaller “shack” for three Plotkas. (I believe it was Menachem-Mendel and his sons Isadore and Morris Plotka).

When I visited the house in 1956 or 7 an elderly couple lived there. They recalled that the tree in the front yard had been planted by a Russian. There was also a well with a water pump in the front yard and an ice box. Since the Press family lived there years before Roosevelt’s Rural Electrification Act, it is unlikely they had electricity or indoor plumbing. They must have used a wood stove for heating and cooking.  

They grew vegetables and yams, and Grandma had a roadside stand as well as cooking, canning, driving a horse and buggy into town every day, and watching the kids.

Pasadena, 1949

When their daughter, Rachel, was old enough to be married, there were no suitable Jewish boys, so they left Alabama for Pasadena, Califonia. (The Plotkas moved to Mobile, Alabama).

I can’t imagine having the courage to take the risks my grandparents took in their early 20s and their generosity, sense of family, and their hard work and energy. Yet, when I met them, they were unassuming grandparents. Grandma had a pantry full of pastry and preserves and Grandpa had a tailor shop where I could sit on the floor and play with empty spools. I was afraid of the mangle and I remember him picking me up and kissing me with his mustache.

I wish I could tell them how much I love and admire them today.