In Honor of Mother’s Day

I get “geeked out” looking at old things, stuff, history. I could spend hours looking through the JMM’s extensive collection that includes more than 11,000 objects, 55,000 photos and thousands of boxes of archival documents that tell the stories of more than two hundred years of everyday Jewish life in Maryland.

Being that Mother’s Day will be here this weekend, I thought it would be fun to do a search through the collections, and see what kinds of cool stuff I find about mothers.

Here is an image of one of the matriarchs of the famed Hutzler family, Ella Gutman Hutzler -wife of David Hutzler. Ella Gutman Hutzler (1855-1942) was the daughter of Joel Gutman, of Joel Gutman and Co., the first downtown department store (1852) located on Eutaw Street. Hutzler Brothers Company was founded in 1858 by Abram G. Hutzler, son of German-Jewish immigrants when he took over a small shop operated by his brother in-law, Elkan Bamberger. The original store dealt mainly in laces, fine fabrics and fancy goods, the majority of which were imported from Europe.

This is a lovely photograph taken in 1918 of Ruth Greensfelder Frank with her daughter Carol Jean Frank as a baby. .I was struck by the beauty of the mother and the simplicity of the photograph of mother and baby. How sweet!

This black and white photograph is from the JCC Collection. The photo is taken at a desk in the lobby at the Park Heights JCC in 1972. In this shot, there is a mother, her children, a stroller, along with other people. Our records indicate that there are many unidentified people in the photo. Can we be like the Baltimore Jewish Times- Can You Identify This Picture? If so, please contact Joanna Church, the JMM’s Collections Manage. Joanna’s email – jchurch@jewishmuseummd.org

This little gold pendant is has the Hebrew word on it – EMA or mother. The pendant belonged to Sylvia Simmie/Sima Ziegler Schneider and was a symbol for the women’s group AMIT – American Mizrachi Women. AMIT is an American-based religious Zionist organization that was established in 1925. They first created vocational schools for religious girls in Palestine and have helped shape the educational and social welfare landscape in the State of Israel for nine decades.

I thought that this was so perfect for Mother’s Day! What nice Jewish kid does not want to support their own Jewish mother!

Finally, I could not finish this blogpost without including my own beautiful mother, Barbara Levy Dackman. Here she is posing on her wedding day (February 4, 1951), the portrait was taken by Bachrach Photographers which was founded here in Baltimore in 1868. The studio’s founder, David Bachrach, took the only photograph at Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. This painting of my mother now hangs in my brother’s home.

You can see this beautiful painting along with other things about brides, weddings and marriages starting on June 18th, at the JMM’s next original exhibition, Just Married! Wedding Stories From Jewish Maryland. The exhibit will be on display from June 18th through September 17th.

Happy Mother’s Day!

A blog post by Education Director Ilene Dackman-Alon. To read more posts by Ilene click HERE.