Rose Tuck was the daughter of Yale & Ida Tuck and Max Rosenberg's first wife. She was the mother of William, Edith and Julius. Sadly, Rose was 32 years old when she passed away. Below is an excerpt from a family narrative Beatrice Kaplan wrote about the Tucks.
TUCK
Yale Tuck (Tuch in Yiddish) was born in the Kovno district of Lithuania. He married Ida, moved to St. Petersburg (now Leningrad), and became a dry goods dealer. Yale died in Russia of appendicitis, and Ida came to this country, where she lived with her son Peretz. She died in 1917 and is buried in one of the twenty-five cemeteries in the Montvale section of East Woburn. The exact gravesite is unknown.
When Ida came to this country, her son Manis remained in Russia with seven of his nine children. In the 1920’s Manis’ children, let by Nathan and Eva, came to this country. They were called Der Greener, the “green” ones.
When Manis’ brother Israel (“Uncle Israel”) lost his wife, Aunt Bessie, Manis’ daughter Sara took him in. Sara was very good to Uncle Israel, and he used to drive her to her poker club and on other errands.
Rose is listed above as married to Julius Gould, but I always thought that Rose was married to Irving Goldberg, maintenance man at the Hi-Hat, and I still think so.
Peretz Tuck married twice. His son Raymond married a non-Jewish girl and was ostracized by the family. He was out of work and very poor. My Joe got him a job.
Rose Tuck, whose Jewish name was Dinnah Raisel, and Max Rosenberg had three children. William Aaron, was named for Max’ father, Aaron Wolf Holman. Edith Berta was named for Max’s mother Bryna Yehudis and Julius was named for Rose’s father, Yale Tuck. Julius later changed his name to Julian.
When Rose came down with tuberculosis, she had to have fresh air. Max made a bedroom on the porch and slept outside with her through the bitterly cold winter. I do not know whether this was before she went to the sanitarium or afterward. Max took care of the children and went to work while he tended her. When Rose died, he wrote a poem. Each line began with her initials. It is on her gravestone.
After Rose passed away, Willie went to live with Uncle Israel and Aunt Bessie Tuck. Tuck records report that he was very destructive. Edith went to live with her grandmother, Ida Tuck. Ida Tuck had a glass eye. One night Edith crept into her bedroom, Edith was terrified and ran out of the room. Julie went to live in a foster home with a non-Jewish family, the Swains. It was there that he was introduced to Christmas and Christianity.
I regret to relate that, after Rose passed away, the Tucks descended like a swarm of locusts and cleaned out the house. They even took a little pillow that Edith slept on. I do not understand how this could have happened. Perhaps, Max asked them if there was anything they wanted. Also, Peretz Tuck owed Max money and refused to repay it. Peretz said that he did not pay old debts.
Max remarried. His second wife was Sarah Freda Wolf. Sarah and Max Rosenberg had three children: Beatrice, a son who died at birth, and Hillard, who later changed his name to Hilliard. Sarah straightened out the whole mess with the Tuck family, perhaps on the advice of her mother. Max spoke highly of Sarah Wolf’s mother and said that she was a very wise woman. Maybe she gave her daughter some good advice. In this way, the Rosenbergs, the Tucks, and the Wolfs became one family.
____________________________________________________________________________
Munis’s Dream
Written by Barry Kassler
(Some passages have been created under “artistic license” and may not be strictly factual – BK)
Munis Tuch did not come from a farm family. His father Yael was a peddler, selling dry goods in the north of Lithuania, and living in Posvol (Pasvelys). Munis, the oldest of his siblings, lived there also, and married there, and started a family of his own. And all was well until June of 1889, when Yael’s appendix burst and he died at the age of 52.
The next year, Munis’s brother Max – then known as Peretz – left for America. He was followed by two more brothers in 1891 and 92, and by their widowed mother Chaya in 1893. As each one left for the New World, Munis believed it was the last time he would ever see them.
And as each one left, Munis felt a growing need to create for his own family the kind of life he had dreamed of – a completely different life than the one he had known. When he was younger, he had been to farms and become enchanted by the rhythms of farm life. Now, as an adult, he took it upon himself to find a site where he could have a farm of his own. Traveling alone, he searched the countryside until he spotted a piece of land in the Shat area (Šeta today) that seemed ideal. It had plenty of good acreage, and a large, sturdy old stone house. He negotiated the purchase of the property from its owner, recorded the deed in the government building in Shat, and excitedly headed back to his family in Posvol.
The Tuchs – Munis, his wife Henna, and their two young children Yankel and Rocha – gathered their possessions, and set out for the tiny village known to them as “Bukantz”.
Bukantz – today’s Bukonys – is undoubtedly very little changed since Munis’s time. Even today, it has less than four hundred inhabitants, and most of the village consists of rolling acres of fertile land. It remains so much unspoiled to this day that the owner of one Bukonys farm has turned it into a sort of agrarian resort, which can be seen online – and it indeed is breathtakingly beautiful.
Munis went to work right away, clearing trees and boulders, and with Henna’s help, setting the house up as an inn. With space for what would eventually be a family of twelve, there was room to put up travelers on their way between the city and their farms.
When you own a business, you can get very much emotionally attached to it. I know this firsthand. Now, factor in the serene beauty of the outdoors, the years of toil that it took to create what you have from the ground up, and add in the fact that your business and your home are one and the same, and it becomes easier to see why, in the face of increasing pressure to emigrate, Munis was so reluctant to leave his dream behind – to summarily abandon it – for what was merely the promise of something better.
He had worked exceedingly hard, and most of his children had moved away to the United States. He was past the age of sixty, and with each son’s departure, found himself doing more of the work by himself.
When he decided to sell off a prized cow, and it had to be loaded onto a wagon, he tried doing it alone – something he would never have attempted if he had had the manpower in the form of his sons. Munis put a rope around her head, and when he tried to lead it up into the wagon, the poor animal panicked and bellowed, then lunged, and sent Munis flying backward into the wall of his barn. Hearing the commotion, Henna rushed out with her girls to find Munis crumpled in a dark corner.
They carried him into the house, and sent for a doctor. Munis was in agony, but there was nothing to do but keep him as comfortable as possible.
He was stable for a while, but as the months passed, he found it increasingly difficult to keep food down, and lost weight and strength. Ultimately, the injuries were too much for his system to fight, and one quiet summer night, he lapsed into unconsciousness and passed away.
His family was left with no choice but to leave their beloved farm. They sold it to a neighbor for a fraction of what it was worth, and headed to stay with friends in the city of Jonava. From there, Henna, along with her elderly mother Meara Leah, her teenaged and adult children Bessie, Anna, Rose, Joseph, and Sarah, and Sarah’s new husband Eli, made arrangements to join the rest of their extended family in Massachusetts, and they headed out from Lithuania for the last time in the fall of 1920.
TUCK
Yale Tuck (Tuch in Yiddish) was born in the Kovno district of Lithuania. He married Ida, moved to St. Petersburg (now Leningrad), and became a dry goods dealer. Yale died in Russia of appendicitis, and Ida came to this country, where she lived with her son Peretz. She died in 1917 and is buried in one of the twenty-five cemeteries in the Montvale section of East Woburn. The exact gravesite is unknown.
When Ida came to this country, her son Manis remained in Russia with seven of his nine children. In the 1920’s Manis’ children, let by Nathan and Eva, came to this country. They were called Der Greener, the “green” ones.
When Manis’ brother Israel (“Uncle Israel”) lost his wife, Aunt Bessie, Manis’ daughter Sara took him in. Sara was very good to Uncle Israel, and he used to drive her to her poker club and on other errands.
Rose is listed above as married to Julius Gould, but I always thought that Rose was married to Irving Goldberg, maintenance man at the Hi-Hat, and I still think so.
Peretz Tuck married twice. His son Raymond married a non-Jewish girl and was ostracized by the family. He was out of work and very poor. My Joe got him a job.
Rose Tuck, whose Jewish name was Dinnah Raisel, and Max Rosenberg had three children. William Aaron, was named for Max’ father, Aaron Wolf Holman. Edith Berta was named for Max’s mother Bryna Yehudis and Julius was named for Rose’s father, Yale Tuck. Julius later changed his name to Julian.
When Rose came down with tuberculosis, she had to have fresh air. Max made a bedroom on the porch and slept outside with her through the bitterly cold winter. I do not know whether this was before she went to the sanitarium or afterward. Max took care of the children and went to work while he tended her. When Rose died, he wrote a poem. Each line began with her initials. It is on her gravestone.
After Rose passed away, Willie went to live with Uncle Israel and Aunt Bessie Tuck. Tuck records report that he was very destructive. Edith went to live with her grandmother, Ida Tuck. Ida Tuck had a glass eye. One night Edith crept into her bedroom, Edith was terrified and ran out of the room. Julie went to live in a foster home with a non-Jewish family, the Swains. It was there that he was introduced to Christmas and Christianity.
I regret to relate that, after Rose passed away, the Tucks descended like a swarm of locusts and cleaned out the house. They even took a little pillow that Edith slept on. I do not understand how this could have happened. Perhaps, Max asked them if there was anything they wanted. Also, Peretz Tuck owed Max money and refused to repay it. Peretz said that he did not pay old debts.
Max remarried. His second wife was Sarah Freda Wolf. Sarah and Max Rosenberg had three children: Beatrice, a son who died at birth, and Hillard, who later changed his name to Hilliard. Sarah straightened out the whole mess with the Tuck family, perhaps on the advice of her mother. Max spoke highly of Sarah Wolf’s mother and said that she was a very wise woman. Maybe she gave her daughter some good advice. In this way, the Rosenbergs, the Tucks, and the Wolfs became one family.
____________________________________________________________________________
Munis’s Dream
Written by Barry Kassler
(Some passages have been created under “artistic license” and may not be strictly factual – BK)
Munis Tuch did not come from a farm family. His father Yael was a peddler, selling dry goods in the north of Lithuania, and living in Posvol (Pasvelys). Munis, the oldest of his siblings, lived there also, and married there, and started a family of his own. And all was well until June of 1889, when Yael’s appendix burst and he died at the age of 52.
The next year, Munis’s brother Max – then known as Peretz – left for America. He was followed by two more brothers in 1891 and 92, and by their widowed mother Chaya in 1893. As each one left for the New World, Munis believed it was the last time he would ever see them.
And as each one left, Munis felt a growing need to create for his own family the kind of life he had dreamed of – a completely different life than the one he had known. When he was younger, he had been to farms and become enchanted by the rhythms of farm life. Now, as an adult, he took it upon himself to find a site where he could have a farm of his own. Traveling alone, he searched the countryside until he spotted a piece of land in the Shat area (Šeta today) that seemed ideal. It had plenty of good acreage, and a large, sturdy old stone house. He negotiated the purchase of the property from its owner, recorded the deed in the government building in Shat, and excitedly headed back to his family in Posvol.
The Tuchs – Munis, his wife Henna, and their two young children Yankel and Rocha – gathered their possessions, and set out for the tiny village known to them as “Bukantz”.
Bukantz – today’s Bukonys – is undoubtedly very little changed since Munis’s time. Even today, it has less than four hundred inhabitants, and most of the village consists of rolling acres of fertile land. It remains so much unspoiled to this day that the owner of one Bukonys farm has turned it into a sort of agrarian resort, which can be seen online – and it indeed is breathtakingly beautiful.
Munis went to work right away, clearing trees and boulders, and with Henna’s help, setting the house up as an inn. With space for what would eventually be a family of twelve, there was room to put up travelers on their way between the city and their farms.
When you own a business, you can get very much emotionally attached to it. I know this firsthand. Now, factor in the serene beauty of the outdoors, the years of toil that it took to create what you have from the ground up, and add in the fact that your business and your home are one and the same, and it becomes easier to see why, in the face of increasing pressure to emigrate, Munis was so reluctant to leave his dream behind – to summarily abandon it – for what was merely the promise of something better.
He had worked exceedingly hard, and most of his children had moved away to the United States. He was past the age of sixty, and with each son’s departure, found himself doing more of the work by himself.
When he decided to sell off a prized cow, and it had to be loaded onto a wagon, he tried doing it alone – something he would never have attempted if he had had the manpower in the form of his sons. Munis put a rope around her head, and when he tried to lead it up into the wagon, the poor animal panicked and bellowed, then lunged, and sent Munis flying backward into the wall of his barn. Hearing the commotion, Henna rushed out with her girls to find Munis crumpled in a dark corner.
They carried him into the house, and sent for a doctor. Munis was in agony, but there was nothing to do but keep him as comfortable as possible.
He was stable for a while, but as the months passed, he found it increasingly difficult to keep food down, and lost weight and strength. Ultimately, the injuries were too much for his system to fight, and one quiet summer night, he lapsed into unconsciousness and passed away.
His family was left with no choice but to leave their beloved farm. They sold it to a neighbor for a fraction of what it was worth, and headed to stay with friends in the city of Jonava. From there, Henna, along with her elderly mother Meara Leah, her teenaged and adult children Bessie, Anna, Rose, Joseph, and Sarah, and Sarah’s new husband Eli, made arrangements to join the rest of their extended family in Massachusetts, and they headed out from Lithuania for the last time in the fall of 1920.