Kehilat Middlesbrough Newsletter No 26 September 2010 page 8 (of 12)
I am writing on behalf of my great Aunt Renee Baum who, together with her husband Norman, were members of Middlesbrough Hebrew Cong from about 1955 to 1969. My uncle has recently passed away in London. Various records are now being sought including any burial board payments paid to the shul. Since the shul closed in 1998 what has become of the records which would include this information? Can anything be accessed? [Ed note: we suggested she contact David Simon].
Uncle Naty’s brother Harry Baum has also passed away. Of the 10 Baum children, one brother and one sister still live in Middlesbrough and one sister is in Montreal.
I was very impressed with your website and my father too, who was a frequent visitor to Middlesbrough from Leeds when he was a youngster seeing all his aunts and uncles. The gravestone pictures are invaluable as I now have the family tree to maintain. Mel Lawson
I owe the Middlesbrough community a great deal for taking me in and giving me a home for all those years, and I always think of that period -- especially of the people I met there -- with great affection.
I moved to Beit Shalom - Diyur Mugan offered by Re'ut -- several months ago and I am happy here. I wish you much success with the restoration of the Sefer Torah. Ruth Barak
From the Jewish Telegraph [April 2009]
Sibling search
ALAN ROTH of Ilford is looking for his brother Martin, who was born on May 21, 1930.
Martin was last known to be living in Middlesbrough, although before1972 he lived in London.
Contact 0208 503 8879 or write to 14 Parkview Court, 54 Brancaster Road, Ilford, Essex IG2 7EQ.
Letters I am looking for relatives and/or descendants of Jacob Levy, who arrived in Middlesbrough from Poland in the 1880’s. I have read on your web site about him and his wife Fanny, who came from London.
Jacob and Fanny had 10 children - five boys and five girls. One child was named Reginald Levy. He married Lilly. They had a son and a daughter. I don’t know their names or if they are still alive or if they had children of their own. Reginald was born in 1893 and died in December 1942 at his home “Avoca” in Redcar. He was 49 years old.
Can you suggest how I might go about finding Reginald’s descendents? Linda Singer
Many thanks for the September [2008] Newsletter which I read with interest, although the Newsletters are mostly about people and places of which I have no knowledge, and only a very few strike a chord. One mentioned Lionel Levy, who was, I think, the very first person I met when my train arrived in Middlesbrough all those years ago. He used to take us for rides to Redcar, and his family adopted one of the girls from the hostel (Hannah).
Thanks to you and David Saville I was able to renew some contacts with my old (ancient, actually) classmates from Kirby School - none of them Jewish. They eventually diminished to three, but these three keep in touch regularly.
One of them still lives in Middlesbrough, Catherine Smith of Reeth Street, another in Great Broughton, and a third who did quite a bit of travelling and eventually settled down with her family in Buffalo, New York. She has no e-mail and while at first we wrote to each other at length, we have since become too lazy and now take turns phoning at least once a month. We have long natters about then and now, especially "then", and Catherine even went to look at what used to be the hostel at 5, The Avenue, and took photographs of it - it is some sort of B&B hotel now, I believe. She also sent me pictures [Ed note; see below] of what was once Kirby School. I suppose change, though sad, is inevitable, but I treasure the pictures of how things were -- and remain -- in my mind. I am sure you would be amused by some of our conversations about our schooldays -- two old women pushing eighty -- but we get a lot of fun out of our talks.
So thanks again, and with Rosh Hashanah almost upon us, all good wishes to you and David for a happy, healthy year to come and, above all, peace and tranquility for our grandchildren and their offspring. Ruth Barak (Heller)