19 September 1904 – 6 September 1922
Molly was the older of David and Sarah Shifrisa Walovitz’s two daughters. Sarah lost two other children prior to 1910. Molly died just two weeks’ shy of her 18th birthday.
The family arrived in 1906 or 1907 or possibly both. On the 1910 census, Sarah and Molly are listed as having arrived in 1906 while David and Isidore (his son from his first marriage) are listed as having arrived in 1907. As these seem deliberate, differing answers, it appears that Sarah and then-toddler Molly were sent ahead to the US, probably to stay with family, until David and Isidore could follow.
By 1920, Isidore was gone from the family home and census record, and I couldn’t trace him any farther. In 1920, the family had taken in several lodgers, and Molly was working as an office clerk at the age of fifteen. In 1930, eight years after Molly’s death, Minnie (age 21) was working as a sales clerk. David – once a shopkeeper – was no longer working, and the family still had a boarder. It’s probable Minnie was supporting her parents.
No other information turns up beyond that. Wherever her family ended up – if they moved away, if Minnie married, if Isidore stayed in touch, if her parents are buried nearby but as-yet are not documented on @findagrave – it’s all a mystery.
Molly’s headstone is a bit stark in the Modernist-inflected style of a lot of the treestump headstones at Waldheim. It’s in sharp contrast to the more traditional treestump headstone beside it.
The details soften it, though – a dove about to take flight sits atop the stump and her cameo portrait still smiles.
RIP Molly
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