Rachel Mary (Rauchel Merel) Teitz traveled from Lithuania to South Bend, Indiana in order to marry Nathan Hoffman in 1902. Nathan (1874 - 1962) and Rachel Mary (1880 - 1959) raised five children: Ann (1905 - 1993), Morris (1907 - 1980), Reuben (1910 - 1985), Dorothy (1912 - 1999), and Sarah (1914 - 1973).
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| Photo 02-32K: Nathan and Rachel Hoffman, Laurette's maternal grandparents, on their wedding day in South Bend, 17 August 1902. | Photo 28b-40K: The young woman on the left, Loretta Lurie (16 August 1904 - 8 July 1928), was Ann Hoffman's best friend and Laurette's namesake according to the note on the back of the photograph; taken sometime in the 1920's in Constantine, Michigan. |
Ann Hoffman married Abraham Kushner (b. 1908) early in 1931. She divorced him in 1935 after four years of a vagabond existence, always on the road and, as it turned out, always just a step ahead of the law, as Abe was a felon on the run. He was arrested for theft in Los Angeles in 1935 and eventually wound up in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas.
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| Photo 32a-20K: Laurette Kushner, age three months, 15 April 1932 in South Bend, Indiana. | Photo 32b-20K: Laurette Kushner, age three months, 15 April 1932 in South Bend, Indiana. |
It is likely that Laurette became Tita sometime in her travels back and forth across the country from 1932 to 1935. Perhaps in New Orleans or Biloxi or Los Angeles...
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| Photo 32c-20K: Laurette Kushner, age four months, 15 May 1932 in her grandmother's backyard in South Bend, Indiana. | Photo Tita32d-28K: Ann and Laurette Kushner on the street in front of a grocery store (probably grandma Hoffman's) in South Bend 15 April 1932. |
Rachel Mary was the rock of stability that Ann and Tita turned to time after time from 1932 on. Laurette must have inherited her emotional, philosophical, and intellectual strength from her grandmother-- unfortunately she also received from her the diabetes which would shadow her adult life for more than forty years. From Ann Tita received her propensity for music and the arts.
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| Photo 32e-28K: Rachel Mary and four month old Laurette in the Hoffman backyard at 424 North Eddy Street, South Bend 15 May 1932. Laurette was Rachel's first grandchild and there would not be another for about five years. | Photo 33-36K: Tita at "Linoma Beach" somewhere in Nebraska, 11 June 1933. It is not yet clear just how Laurette came to be called Tita but the nickname came early in her life and it stuck to her in Indiana; she was still known as Tita there as late as April 2005. |
My mother's family is really all I can tell you about because
my mother and father divorced when I was so young that I have a very tangential
relationship, hardly any, with my natural father's family. I know they
exist, but I know very little about them. I didn't even meet them until
I was forty. In other words, it was as if they didn't exist for me until
then... Essentially my mother's family IS my family.
[Oral History - page 1]
My grandmother and grandfather were essentially like surrogate
parents because my mother was divorced when I was three, and in those days
it was unheard of. She was divorced because my father was a white collar
criminal, and she had no idea of such behavior! My grandparents were devoted
Jews. My grandfather was an educated Jew who read from the Torah in Hebrew...
[OH-2]
Uploaded 15 July 2005, revised 20 December 2005, 15 July 2006.
[ Tita 1934 | Tita 1935 | Tita 1936-39 | Tita 1940-41 | Tita 1942-45 | Tita 1946-49 ]
[ Tita 1950-54 ]