Linda Goldman: 0:01

I gave him. I wrote him back what the relationship was and I said but ancestry must have made a mistake, because I know all my first cousins. I literally grew up with them. We were walking distance to each other. My father's siblings were as close as any family could be. There's no secrets in our family. But good luck to you.

Crista Cowan: 0:31

Stories that Live In Us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present and future. I'm Krista Cowan, known online as the Barefoot Genealogist. I'm Krista Cowan, known online as the Barefoot Genealogist. I've spent my whole life discovering the power of family history and I know that sharing the stories that live in you can change everything. Today, I have a treat for you.

Crista Cowan: 0:56

We have on the podcast our first centenarian. Her name is Millie Mandel and she is adorable. She's a little hard of hearing, little hard of seeing, and so if you are watching this on YouTube, you might see her squinting up really close to the zoom camera, and it's just the cutest thing ever. Now, here's how I got to know Millie. I have a genealogy friend that I met at a conference. Her name is Linda Goldman, and Linda found Millie on her ancestry DNA match list, and the story that unfolds as they try to figure out how they are related to one another involves one of Millie's grandsons and several of Linda's cousins, and it's really kind of a fascinating story when you put it all together, so I'm excited for you to listen to that.

Crista Cowan: 1:56

The other voice that you'll hear here is Millie's son, marty. Marty joins Millie, not just to help her navigate the technology, but because his perspective on the story is also a really important part of the narrative. So I hope you'll enjoy my conversation with Linda Goldman and Marty and Millie Mandel. Well, thank you both for being here. Linda, I would love to have you share with us a little bit about how you got started in family history ago.

Linda Goldman: 2:29

I knew very little about where either side of my maternal, my paternal grandparents came from, and so I started asking questions, and by that time there was really not very many people left of the older generation. But I was fortunate. There was a man from the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw who came to San Francisco and offered a free genealogy consultation to anyone who had Polish Jewish roots. So I immediately signed up for it. My brother and I went. We met him armed with the names of the my father's side of the family came from Poland, name of the town and my grandparents' names, that's it. And he looked at the name Goldman and he said oh well, you know, that's sort of like looking for Smith or Jones in the US, but let's see what we can do. Types in a few things and literally five minutes later said oh, there they are.

Linda Goldman: 3:58

And suddenly we had my grandparents' birth record, my great-grandparents' birth records and names of yet another generation back, started me on a quest. So I started building a family tree on ancestry and then I thought well, I guess I'll just do my DNA also and see what happens. And so I would have been very surprised if anything came back that was other than Eastern European Jewish and sure enough it came back that way. It was 99% at that point. Now it's 100. So I gave a DNA kit to my brother and my sister and we matched. We're siblings and a first cousin also did his DNA on Ancestry. He matched and then I came to find out that a first cousin's son had also done his DNA on Ancestry. That's how I got started and it's just. My interest has just grown since then.

Crista Cowan: 5:09

So you took the DNA test just kind of out of a little bit of curiosity. Is that what I'm hearing? Yes, and you recognized the names at the top of the list. But one of the challenges of course with Jewish family history, particularly as it relates to DNA, is because of so many hundreds of years of intermarriage within that very specific community. Oftentimes you end up with tens or hundreds of thousands of DNA matches who all look like they share a lot of DNA with you, but really it's because they're related to you multiple times across several family lines way back in history, and so oftentimes those close matches appear closer than they should be. So as you looked at that DNA match list, how long ago was it that you took the test before you got connected to a match? That was kind of a curious thing for you.

Linda Goldman: 6:12

Well, so I think I did the DNA test, probably about six or seven years ago, and then every now and then I'll get oh, you're matched with somebody, and nothing ever really connects or pops up. As I said, I have a couple of second cousins on my mother's side that I know are second cousins who lives in Europe, and we recognize the birth name of my maternal grandmother, and we have since become friends as well and I visited them outside of Amsterdam, so that's been a really fun adventure as well.

Crista Cowan: 6:59

That's so fun. So then, millie, would you tell us a little bit about? You took a DNA test, and what was the impetus for that? Why did you do that?

Millie Mandel: 7:11

Well, it all started with an invitation to a luncheon that my cousin was giving her cousin also. She was moving to Florida. A cousin also she was moving to Florida. So the cousins met for lunch at her home. Her name was Frances and there were probably about seven of us first cousins. It was very nice and we talked and Fran mentioned that her daughter had adopted two sons, two boys, and they were giving her a rough time. They were teenagers. And then she said they weren't like you and Grandma Lisa. Millie, you never gave Grandma any problems when you were adopted.

Crista Cowan: 8:16

And suddenly, after 57 years, I heard the word adopted, so you were 57 years old when you first heard that news. Yes, and how did that like? How did that, how? What did you think in that moment? Or well?

Millie Mandel: 8:30

my aunt, bessie, was sitting to the right. She knew that I didn't know anything. It had never been mentioned to me in the 57 years of my life. But she said to me Millie, come to lunch tomorrow and I will tell you everything I know. And I know very little, but that's how I found out I was adopted.

Crista Cowan: 8:57

Tell us a little bit about where you grew up and a little bit about your family family Growing up.

Millie Mandel: 9:10

We lived the first 10 years Well, actually the first year it was in a apartment. A group of Jewish people who knew each other in Romania, where they came from, had moved to Cleveland and had lived in this apartment building and my mother and father brought home a little two-month-old baby that they had adopted that was me and so the families there, all the Jewish families, made parties and my mother said it lasted. My mother didn't tell me. Aunt Bessie told me it lasted about two days. Everybody cooked and they just enjoyed each other and enjoyed having the baby there. Each other and enjoyed having the baby there. And the next that was in a apartment building, I would say between Woodland and Scoville, and we lived there for a while and then we moved for a while and then we moved. I don't know how my father got this, but he bought a two-family home in Garfield Heights, ohio. The streets weren't even paved and my mother had told me and we lived there 10 years, and tell me what year you were born 1924. Okay, I'm 100.

Crista Cowan: 10:50

You are 100 years old. That's amazing.

Millie Mandel: 10:55

January 3rd I became 100.

Crista Cowan: 10:58

That's so impressive. You said your father was able to purchase a home. How did the depression affect your family? You said your father was able to purchase a home.

Millie Mandel: 11:05

How did the Depression affect your family? Shortly afterward my father lost his business and the home and we had to move to an apartment in the Jewish section of Cleveland in an apartment building. So by then I was, oh, I would say, 10, 11 years old. I was the only Jewish child, but I enjoyed singing. So I was in the chorus group and the teacher who was the choral director noticed that I enjoyed it and had a pleasant voice. So she gave me the hero part in place that we made and I did a lot of singing in Garfield Heights.

Crista Cowan: 11:55

Well, I love that. That's amazing. So your family had gone from this Jewish community or this apartment building in Cleveland where you're surrounded by people who had the same background as you. Then you'd move to Garfield Heights, where you were the only Jew in your school.

Millie Mandel: 12:15

And then back to a Jewish community where I remember going to Patrick Henry Jr High, to Patrick Henry Jr High and then on to John Hay, and where I met my husband-to-be and we got married. How old were you? 19. My husband was three years older. One day he said to me are you interested in finding out anything about your history? I said not really. I had such wonderful parents. I would never. He said well, I'm a little interested. He says, do you? I said no, I'd be very interested. So he started inquiring and Marty's son, aaron, became interested in it and asked me how much I would like to do it. I said, well, whatever you do, I'm interested. The next week he came. He said I need some saliva. I said fine, and the following 10 days or so he came to me with a beautiful wedding picture of my birth mother.

Crista Cowan: 13:41

So, Millie, I'm going to pause you right there because I want to go back to Linda and I want to hear her side of this story. Pause you right there because I want to go back to Linda and I want to hear her side of this story. Linda, as Millie's over here with a grandson encouraging her to take all the DNA tests and start to explore her family history, you saw her show up as a DNA match to you. Tell me about that experience for you.

Linda Goldman: 14:06

So I didn't actually see it, but I did receive an email from Aaron through Ancestry, who said and I'll condense it a little bit researching the birth history of my wonderful she was 94, 95-year-old grandmother who found out very late in life that she was adopted and you pop up as a first cousin. And I wrote him and he said by the way, do you know these other people? And the other people were my brother. Do you know these other people? And the other people were my brother, my sister, my first cousin and my first cousin's son. I said, yes, I do happen to know them, and so I gave him. I wrote him back what the relationship was and I said but ancestry must have made a mistake because I know all my first cousins.

Linda Goldman: 15:09

I literally grew up with them. We were walking distance to each other. My father's siblings were as close as any family could be. There's no secrets in our family, but good luck to you. So I didn't hear back from him for about a week and I thought, okay, he's exploring other avenues. And I want to tell you that it was five years ago tomorrow that the email came in that said thank you for the information based on what you have told us We've been consulting with a professional genealogist and she has put it together. I read this email and I literally sat down on the floor. I couldn't breathe. It was so incredibly powerful and strange to me. Powerful and strange to me, as it turns out. My father was nine years old when they left Poland. He left with his brother, who was, I believe, 11, a younger brother and two older sisters sisters. They set foot in the US on September 22nd 1923. And what Aaron was able to put together and surmise, based on the DNA relationships, that Millie's birth mother was my father's oldest sister.

Crista Cowan: 16:50

And I did that math right, correctly, right, like they came in September. She was born in.

Linda Goldman: 16:57

January. So my aunt Tilly was six months pregnant on the boat, which must have been an incredibly difficult journey for her. So apparently, what happened was they arrived in Pittsburgh where my grandfather was already living. He had emigrated to the US two years prior to that and he had a sister who was living in Cleveland. So I'm going oh bingo, that makes sense. And so we pieced it together.

Linda Goldman: 17:38

Now, on this very day that or the night before when Aaron's email came in, I was leaving on a major trip. The next day when Aaron's email came in, I was leaving on a major trip the next day. So I'm trying to pack and call my siblings and call my cousins and get this all put together. And we had a sense of shock but like, oh my God, we need to meet this family, we need to talk. So the next morning I called Aaron. We had this most amazing conversation on the phone. Just, it's like what do we even say to each other, these two families that have each done their DNA, living without knowing anything about each other? All of a sudden we have all these ties with each other and I called the cousin who is the son of the first cousin whose DNA matched more closely with my aunt than any of us as first cousins. So I called him and he was so excited. The joy in his voice was just amazing. He said give me their number, I don't want to talk to you anymore, I want to call them. So he called Aaron and immediately connected with his Aunt Millie and he immediately sent some photos. We all kind of gathered photos and we all started sharing stories about Aunt Tilly.

Linda Goldman: 19:25

My first email with Aaron I said you know, I am really overjoyed about this. I think my cousins and my siblings will be as well. I can't speak for anybody else, but I will do my best to make some connections. And everyone was just so receptive on my side of the family and it's like, oh, we have a whole new family that we can't wait to meet. So we all just looked through our archives of photos and sent as many as we could.

Linda Goldman: 20:00

And my initial email with Aaron and I said no matter what happens, I want you to know that my Aunt Tilly was a wonderful, compassionate, kind giving person and it must have pained her indescribably to have given up a child that she could not talk about, indescribably to have given up a child that she could not talk about. Nobody in my family had ever had any suspicions of this. It was not something that was talked about. As I mentioned, my father was nine, coming over on the boat. Did he know that his sister was pregnant? Aunt Tilly had a. Her sister Mary was two years younger. She certainly knew that Tilly was pregnant. Nobody ever talked about it, so it just was a family story that was hidden for all these years and thanks to DNA, it was uncovered.

Crista Cowan: 21:12

That's amazing. Thank you for sharing your side of that story. Millie, as you looked at that photo the first time, what were your thoughts and feelings looking into the face of your birth mother?

Millie Mandel: 21:26

I'll be very honest with you. I had such strong feelings for my parents that I looked at this woman and I felt sorry for her that she had to go through the experience of giving up a child, not realizing that I'm thinking about myself, but that this woman who is my birth mother went through the agony of giving up a child and the thought became bigger that she was my mother, birth mother, and I have other pictures and things. She was interested in embroidery and through her family, and she has a sister-in-law in Los Angeles who I spoke to for maybe over an hour, who knew Tilly, but never, ever, ever, was Tilly's name or her family told to me, or if my mother probably knew some things, she never told me, except there was a phrase in Yiddish I don't know if you understand Yiddish.

Crista Cowan: 23:04

A little understand Yiddish.

Millie Mandel: 23:15

She told me. This says Nishti mama was hot. This kind says the mama was near. This kind, to tell you what it means in English it's not the mother who gives birth to the child, it's the mother who raises the child.

Crista Cowan: 23:29

So your mom would say that phrase and what she was really saying was I raised you, I didn't birth you, but you didn't know that.

Millie Mandel: 23:40

She never told me and it never dawned on me. She told me that if I was upset about something and maybe being naughty, she would put her arms around me and hold me and kiss me and love me. And then she'd say Malkala, my Jewish name, says the mama was hot. This kent says the mama was here, this kent hot. This Kent says the mama was here, this Kent. And I listened to her and I learned to say the phrase, but I never, ever stopped. I felt the idea that this woman is not my birth mother.

Crista Cowan: 24:23

Yeah, Wow. So as information about Tilly and photos started coming out and stories in addition to that information that you now have about Tilly, you also started to gain relatives, more family. Tell me about that.

Millie Mandel: 24:39

Wonder. They opened up their arms to me every single one of them and made me feel a part of the family.

Crista Cowan: 24:49

Marty, we haven't talked to you a lot, but I would just be really curious to hear you know obviously your mother was in her 50s when she found out she was adopted, so you were already, I suspect, an adult by that point and then to watch her, over the last several years, go through this experience, tell me what that's been like for you.

Marty Mandel: 25:08

Well, I think, if we pick up the story at the time that my mom finds out in her 50s, she's adopted, your 50s, she's adopted. So my father and mother invite me, my wife, my brother, his wife, my sister and her husband over. We have something to tell you. So all the kids get on the phone. What's going on? Why are they having us all come over? And we come over and mom sits there and tells us the story and what she's just found out she's adopted.

Marty Mandel: 25:44

And my response is this is very upsetting, because Grandma Lisa was obviously past. That was the only one with longevity. She lived to be 90 years old. Everybody on my father's side 50s, 60s, heart attacks, strokes, whatever. Where am I going to get longevity from if I don't have Grandma Lisa's genes anymore?

Marty Mandel: 26:11

So my father picked up the ball and obviously DNA was not available and only he was able to take it so far. And then my father passed away and the ball just got dropped and my son what is this now, 2018, starts gaining an interest, wants to know more about the family, tries to establish a family tree, and so we went with, and so we went with Ancestrycom, and that's when we got, a week or so later, all these shits from Linda and her family, and they opened their arms to us. It's just overwhelming how open they were, because you hear enough stories where, gee, this may not be what it is. Dna made a mistake. Dna did not make a mistake. This is my mom's family who knew it was. Just what a benefit and what gratitude we have because it was a secret. It was a shangha, as they said, to talk about adoption at that time, when mom was adopted in 1924.

Crista Cowan: 27:32

Yeah, wow, thank you so much for sharing, linda. Do you have a favorite memory of your Aunt Tilly Linda?

Linda Goldman: 27:40

do you have a favorite memory of your Aunt Tilly? Not one, I have many. So most of the family all the Goldman siblings lived in Pittsburgh, except for Aunt Tilly and her family, who lived in Connecticut. But every summer we would make a pilgrimage from Pittsburgh. We'd stop in Connecticut, visit them. My mother's sister lived in New York and then we'd go visit my mother's parents in Massachusetts. But as a child and I have two postcards, one from when I was eight and one from when I was 10. And my parents left me let me stay in Connecticut with Aunt Tilly and the family and I look back and we so they lived very close to a beach. Aunt Tilly went to the beach every day. She would play canasta with her women friends. I would paddle around in the water and she treated me like a daughter. And now in my life I look back and I wonder if she thought of me as the daughter she never had. She had three sons, as I mentioned, and I just she and I connect.

Millie Mandel: 29:08

I had a relationship with her that was very special person. I wish I had known her.

Crista Cowan: 29:13

Yeah, well, it sounds like you got some of the best parts of her and now you have a family that she has given you siblings and cousins, and I think that's just so beautiful. As you continue those relationships, linda, I'm going to just ask you one last question as you think about this experience and meeting Millie and being able to connect all those dots, what is it that you hope for the future?

Linda Goldman: 29:42

So a few years ago I was telling the story to a group of friends and one of the questions that came up was that. The question to me was well, how do you think Aunt Tilly would react to knowing that her secret was not a secret anymore? And I said two things. I said first of all, I think that she would be thrilled to know that her daughter had a great life, that she is the epitome of a life well lived, and I think Aunt Tilly would be thrilled to know that lived. And I think Aunt Tilly would be thrilled to know that. And I think she would be equally thrilled to know that our family's connected and that we have such a warm relationship.

Linda Goldman: 30:28

What I hope to gain is, for me personally, telling stories, and, krista, you're the champion of all of this. Stories are really important. I have a family tree that goes back now six or seven generations and I have names and for some of them I have dates of birth and dates when they died. But they don't know their stories, and hearing this story just fills me with love and it's something that is important to me to pass on to future generations. I don't have children of my own. I have nieces and nephews and I hope to instill to them 100 years from now. When somebody's asking questions, well, who were they? They'll have more of an idea of who we are and what we have passed down. I think keeping memories alive is just a very important part of what I do.

Crista Cowan: 31:35

That was so beautifully said. Thank you, Marty Millie. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it. Linda, thank you for bringing this story to my attention, and thank you all for taking the time to be with us today.