Unboxing History: The Galveston Movement & Rabbi Henry Cohen

In this episode of Unboxing History, hosts Christine Hopkins and Jodi Wright-Gidley, director of the Galveston County Museum, explore the historical significance of the Galveston Movement, an immigration plan that redirected Jewish immigrants from overcrowded Ellis Island to Galveston, Texas, between 1907 and 1914. The episode features personal anecdotes from sisters Shelly Kessler and Francine Beckman, whose grandparents emigrated from Austria-Hungary as part of the Galveston Movement. The sisters share touching family stories, old photographs, and even a wedding dress from 1911. The episode also highlights the critical role played by Rabbi Henry Cohen in welcoming and assisting these immigrants. Additionally, viewers learn about the various exhibits and artifacts on display at the Galveston County Museum, as well as the museum's efforts to continue enriching its collection through community contributions.

#GalvestonMovement #Immigration #ImmigrationHistory #Texas

Special thanks to the Galveston Chamber of Commerce for their ongoing support and Shawn Schoellkopf for creating and performing the theme music.

Thank you for listening to Unboxing History, presented by the Galveston County Museum.
For more information on the Museum, visit our website.

History of the Galveston County Museum
The Galveston County Museum was formed in 1976. It was located on Market Street for many years. After Hurricane Ike damaged the HVAC and electrical systems in 2008, the unharmed artifacts were moved. Now, the museum is located in the Galveston County courthouse building at 722 Moody/21st Street in Galveston.

​Galveston County Museum is a joint project of the Galveston County Commissioners Court and Galveston County History, Inc. The museum cares for a collection of 20,000 artifacts and archives. We also maintain the Historical Commission's library. If you are interested in research or donating an artifact related to Galveston County history, please call 409.766.2340.

Follow us on Facebook
Follow up on Instagram

Chapters

• 1:18 The Galveston Movement: A Historical Overview
• 3:05 Rabbi Cohen's Role in Immigration
• 3:26 Personal Stories: Shelly Kessler and Francine Beckman
• 6:58 Life in Galveston: Challenges and Triumphs
• 10:59 The Legacy of Rabbi Cohen
• 23:00 Artifacts and Exhibits at the Galveston County Museum
• 25:27 Conclusion and Museum Information

Transcript

Episode 18

[00:00:00] 

[00:00:06] Christine Hopkins: Welcome to Unboxing History, the podcast where we take a deep dive into the artifacts that are part of the Galveston County Museum collection. I'm Christine Hopkins. 

[00:00:15] Jodi Wright-Gidley: And I'm Jody Wright Gidley, director of the museum. 

[00:00:18] Christine Hopkins: So behind every artifact in the Galveston County Museum, there is a face. There's a family, there's a story, and a lot of times when people think of immigration, they think of Ellis Island. Well, Galveston has a huge connection to immigration and we're gonna explore a little bit more about that with some personal stories today on Unboxing History. So we're gonna uncover the Galveston Movement.

[00:00:43] Christine Hopkins: Which changed lives, really changed Texas and the South. 

[00:00:47] Jodi Wright-Gidley: Galveston played a huge role in immigration. Um, Ellis Island and the New York area was getting very crowded. The federal government purposely wanted to find a new port where they could bring immigrants in and have them [00:01:00] settle the Western United States.

[00:01:01] Jodi Wright-Gidley: And so the Galveston Movement was also called the Galveston Plan, and that was when there was a real effort to bring in Jewish people from Eastern Europe who were being persecuted. And they picked Galveston because a couple of things. One, there was a gentleman here named Rabbi Cohen. Who was here ready to help, really involved with the program.

[00:01:21] Jodi Wright-Gidley: And he was also in a town of Galveston that had the Lloyd Shipping Line which serviced Breman Germany. So it made it really easy for Eastern European Jewish people to get to Breman Germany, get on the ship, and come directly to Galveston, where Mr. Cohen would be here to help them out. 

[00:01:40] Christine Hopkins: So we have something behind us.

[00:01:42] Christine Hopkins: And one of the things I read about Rabbi Cohen is that he personally met every single Jewish immigrant that was coming through Galveston. 

[00:01:51] Jodi Wright-Gidley: That's right. 

[00:01:52] Christine Hopkins: So let's see what we, 

[00:01:53] Christine Hopkins: so we're not unboxing something today, but we're going to unveil a portrait of Rabbi [00:02:00] Cohen. And, um, so Mr. Cohen definitely did greet the immigrants when they arrived. Um, the very first group of immigrants came, also had the mayor of Galveston, uh, also greet them but Cohen greeted every ship that came. And so he would bring them into Galveston, feed them, uh, talk to them, and he had ideas of where he could put them for employment.

[00:02:22] Christine Hopkins: And they weren't. They didn't all stay here in Galveston. Many of them would settle in other places, and he would try to match their skills or their interest to the place where they could go and get a job. So he would feed them, buy them their railroad ticket, make sure they had food and clothes ready for that journey, and send them on their way.

[00:02:39] Christine Hopkins: So a lot of immigrants stayed here in Galveston, maybe one or two days at the most, and then went on to their new home. 

[00:02:46] So Jodi, how long did the Galveston Movement last and what brought it to an end? 

[00:02:51] Jodi Wright-Gidley: So it lasted from about 1907 to 1914. There was always the plan to have it be a a designated time period. They [00:03:00] chose to bring over 100 ships of immigrants, not really knowing how many would be on each ship, but they would just say, let's do a hundred ships. And then World War I broke out, and that really ended it in 1914. 

[00:03:12] Christine Hopkins: As we've talked about, one of the wonderful things about visiting a museum 

[00:03:16] Jodi Wright-Gidley: mm-hmm. 

[00:03:16] Christine Hopkins: Especially the Galveston County Museum, as you can put these families and these faces as part of these stories.. So we have two special guests today. 

[00:03:25] Jodi Wright-Gidley: Mm-hmm. 

[00:03:25] Christine Hopkins: Tell me about that. 

[00:03:26] Jodi Wright-Gidley: Yeah, so we have two ladies that are gonna tell their story about how their family came over on the Galveston Movement, knew Rabbi Cohen, and there's a lot of really interesting stuff they're gonna tell us.

[00:03:38] Jodi Wright-Gidley: We're going to meet Shelly Kessler and Francine Beckman. 

[00:03:42] Christine Hopkins: Who are sisters.

[00:03:44] Jodi Wright-Gidley: Welcome Francine and Shelly, and we're so glad you're here to tell your family story. So where did your family immigrate from and do you know why they came to Galveston? On the Galveston Movement? 

[00:03:56] Francine Beckman: You wanna tell you, go ahead.

[00:03:57] Shelley Kessler: Okay. So my grandparents [00:04:00] came from a, uh, an area of, actually it was an area at the time of Austria Hungary, which is now part of Ukraine, and the area was called Stryi. And it's so interesting because I don't know my know exactly why grandma took it, the the leap to come. But my grandmother was 17 years old, not married. She came over in 1907 in the Galveston plan, and she was very fortunate to come with her cousins, the Grabers. Grabers are still in town.

[00:04:38] Shelley Kessler: There's the Goldhirsch, and the Steins, and, uh, we're all descendants. And she, she came with her with the mama and like three kids, so she was 17. So I'm thinking maybe they asked her to come to, you know, help with, with the kids because the, the father was already over here. [00:05:00] So she came and Uh, was here for about a year and, uh, this is the, the story goes, and we had it verified.

[00:05:10] Shelley Kessler: Um, my, my grandmother worked for a Mrs. Levy, one of the prominent Levys in the family, just in the, in the, uh, community doing, um, housework and such. And, you know, one day they found my grandmother crying, why are you crying? You know, my brother is still in Europe and I wanted to get him outta here, blah, blah, blah.

[00:05:30] Shelley Kessler: And so, you know, they gathered up the money. I don't know if they went to, to Rabbi Cohen or not. You know they got the money. 

[00:05:37] Francine Beckman: He helped, I think.. 

[00:05:38] Shelley Kessler: Yeah. We think Dr. Yeah. Rabbi Cohen helped. And so a year later in 1911, her brother comes over and when my grandmother met him at the dock, the kiss was not a brotherly kiss.

[00:05:56] Shelley Kessler: It was boyfriend girlfriend. It was actually [00:06:00] my, my grand, my grandfather, they were boyfriend girlfriend in Europe. And, and so they came, he got over here in September of 1911, and they got married in, uh, here in Galveston in, uh, November of 1911. 

[00:06:15] Jodi Wright-Gidley: Okay. 

[00:06:16] Shelley Kessler: And, you know, I'm, I'm, I kind of think that maybe, you know, I love to be like conspiratorial. Maybe the whole thing was to get so that grandpa didn't have to serve in the, in the, 

[00:06:30] Francine Beckman: uh, well, that's one of the reasons that so many of the young men were leaving Europe at the time because they were being conscripted. And, um, they didn't, you know, that was part of, they were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time before World War I, and they needed to get out.

[00:06:49] Francine Beckman: So many of them came for that reason. Yeah. But of course he had his sweetheart. Yeah. So that was a big motivator. 

[00:06:58] Francine Beckman: Yeah. 

[00:06:58] Jodi Wright-Gidley: Did you, do you know about the [00:07:00] journey over here and what anybody thought about Galveston once they arrived? 

[00:07:05] Francine Beckman: They never really talked about the journey. Um, just that we assumed that they were all in steerage.

[00:07:12] Francine Beckman: I'm sure there was no money to mm-hmm. To have any kind of luxury on the trip over. 

[00:07:18] Shelley Kessler: Um, um, um, one of the Goldhirsch, uh, kids, probably, maybe it was Robert or maybe Richard gr, I don't remember, talked to. Out a, a Adele Goldhirsch was one of the children that came over and you know, the Goldhirsches. He was the father was the son was a dentist and they owned Star Furniture and blah, blah.

[00:07:37] Shelley Kessler: He always said that Adele said she would never go on a ship again because it was so wretched. 

[00:07:43] Jodi Wright-Gidley: Okay. 

[00:07:45] Shelley Kessler: But, but it's, the immigrants never talked about Europe. 

[00:07:50] Francine Beckman: No. 

[00:07:50] Shelley Kessler: My grandmother never, ever spoke about Europe. 

[00:07:53] Francine Beckman: Well, the only thing I remember, my grandfather. He would talk about, he always said he was from Austria.

[00:07:59] Shelley Kessler: [00:08:00] Mm-hmm. 

[00:08:00] Francine Beckman: So I always assumed growing up he was from Austria. So it, I didn't learn until many, many years later that he was from the Ukraine area when I went to look it up on a map. But it, the time, it was all part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. So in his mind he was from Austria. 

[00:08:20] Jodi Wright-Gidley: Mm-hmm. 

[00:08:21] Francine Beckman: So that was always interesting.

[00:08:22] Shelley Kessler: Right. Because, you know, it's so interesting because when they talk about the Galveston Plan. That Rachel's written about in her book. You know, they keep talking about the Russian Jews. Yeah. And we never really thought of our grandparents as Russian Jews. No. I mean, you know, we just thought they were from Austria, but you know, as you say, after the war became Ukraine and Yeah.

[00:08:40] Shelley Kessler: So it was all the, uh, that whole, uh, that whole area. So, 

[00:08:47] Shelley Kessler: and yeah. 

[00:08:47] Jodi Wright-Gidley: Do you know if they left out of Breman, Germany? 

[00:08:49] Shelley Kessler: Yes, they did. To come? Yeah. 

[00:08:50] Shelley Kessler: Yes. 

[00:08:51] Jodi Wright-Gidley: 'cause I think everybody on the Galveston Movement in the Galveston did. 

[00:08:54] Shelley Kessler: They came, did, they came on the, uh. I the both at different times on the [00:09:00] Hanover. 

[00:09:00] Jodi Wright-Gidley: Okay. 

[00:09:00] Shelley Kessler: And, um, the, uh, I don't know if the museum has a copy of the document that was, or the brochure that. Okay I have it. I'll give it to you. Okay. Uh, the, uh, Rice archives has the original one, a copy of the original one in Yiddish. And someone translated it. 

[00:09:24] Jodi Wright-Gidley: Okay. 

[00:09:25] Shelley Kessler: And it talks about, you know, uh, trying to get people to come to Texas, because if you think about it, everybody was going to the Lower East side and that's where all of the, their families were.

[00:09:36] Shelley Kessler: And why would they wanna come to a place called Texas? So it was this brochure about, you know, how you can get you to the United States if you wanna go through Texas. And it talked about the ships. There's the Hanover and the Frankfurt, and they leave every so often, blah, blah, blah. And, uh, yeah. So it was from Bremen.

[00:09:55] Francine Beckman: Um, you were asking about about when, when they got here. 

[00:09:58] Jodi Wright-Gidley: Mm-hmm. 

[00:09:59] Francine Beckman: When they got [00:10:00] here. It was, it was a hard life. It was a really hard life for them. Uh, they, um, you know, they worked hard. Once my grandparents got married, my grandfather was a painter, and my grandmother, of course, had been working as a housekeeper. Uh, but they tried several different, uh, ventures. They had like a furniture store, and then they, we've just realized too, they had like a, um, just like a general store and things just did not work out for them at all. So by 19, early 1914, they were ready to go back. 

[00:10:38] Jodi Wright-Gidley: Oh. 

[00:10:38] Francine Beckman: And they actually purchased tickets to go back.

[00:10:41] Jodi Wright-Gidley: Mm-hmm. 

[00:10:42] Francine Beckman: And fortunately for us. World War I broke out. 

[00:10:46] Shelley Kessler: Yeah. Isn't that's something to say that we are fortunate, but you know, for the, for our family, thank God for our family, 

[00:10:51] Jodi Wright-Gidley: it would've been very different. 

[00:10:52] Francine Beckman: And they, they couldn't return. 

[00:10:54] Shelley Kessler: Yeah. Yeah. They, they had stopped all passenger, you know, travel. So. 

[00:10:59] Jodi Wright-Gidley: So [00:11:00] most what I've read is when immigrants would come over, Rabbi Cohen would arrange for them to have a job somewhere. And most didn't stay here in Galveston.

[00:11:09] Shelley Kessler: Correct. 

[00:11:09] Jodi Wright-Gidley: They would be relocated somewhere else. So what, how do you know why your family stayed? 

[00:11:14] Shelley Kessler: I think my. Family stayed because of the family that my grandmother came from, came with the Grabers were, they were actually here. They came over first and then the men, brother and two brothers, and then they went back and brought the rest of their families over.

[00:11:29] Shelley Kessler: And, um, I don't really think my grandmother really had any desire to go any go further. And then of course, when grandpa came, they just stayed. 

[00:11:38] Jodi Wright-Gidley: And they had connections here, so 

[00:11:40] Shelley Kessler: Yeah. Yeah. But Jimmy, um, my husband, um, always when he talked about, um, the, the, the, uh, Galveston Plan and I, and it was also as in Rachel's book and other, books, um, the history that the, the plan was, was really [00:12:00] supposed to, uh, get Jews to come to Galveston. Change clothes, spend the night and then get on a train and go up to the hinterlands and to really populate the Midwest with a lot of Jewish immigrants. And so most of them either stayed in, they in Galveston or, or Houston or somewhere in Texas. So the organizers of the plan felt it was a failure because they just didn't get the thousands and thousands that they wanted, but for people like us, we're grateful every day for it. But my Jimmy would say, he says, can you imagine someone gets off the boat in Europe, doesn't speak the language, gets on a train, and they take him up to, you know, past Houston to the, the, the, uh, it's 

[00:12:53] Francine Beckman: like Amarillo, Texas.

[00:12:54] Shelley Kessler: Texas, right? No, 

[00:12:55] Francine Beckman: Kansas City, the plains. 

[00:12:57] Shelley Kessler: And they're like, and they're like, I'm not going any [00:13:00] further. I'm staying here. And I think that's why there are so many, um, Jewish merchants in little towns throughout Oh, throughout the state. 

[00:13:09] Francine Beckman: Yes. Yeah. 

[00:13:10] Shelley Kessler: You know, they stopped, they became peddlers and they opened up, uh, dry goods and so on.

[00:13:15] Jodi Wright-Gidley: Mm-hmm. I read that that was pretty common. 

[00:13:17] Shelley Kessler: Very much. Yeah. And Jimmy said, they said that, they said, I'm not going any further. 

[00:13:21] Jodi Wright-Gidley: Yeah. Um. So do you have photos, letters? You brought some things with you today. Do you wanna show us?

[00:13:28] Jodi Wright-Gidley: So tell me about the photo. So this is, um, a picture that my, uh, uh, husband is called my legitimacy picture. Um, I don't know if you, uh, he, he was very funny. He always had a chuckle and it's a picture that's, this is my parents getting married, my maternal grandparents, but also what I wanted, what I wanna show you for this are my paternal grandparents.

[00:13:59] Jodi Wright-Gidley: This picture [00:14:00] right here are my paternal grandparents, Clara Reinhart and Fred Nussenblatt, who, um, as we talked about, Clara Reinhart came over in 1909 and she got her brother, uh, Fred Nussenblatt over, um, boyfriend really over in 1911. In September he arrived and they married in November of 1911. And just as an aside, um, I, I, I only have a copy now.

[00:14:28] Jodi Wright-Gidley: 'cause I gave the original to the Rice Archives. But a number of years ago, the, uh, clerk of courts for the, uh, Galveston County, uh, put something in the paper that they were, had digitized all the marriage certificates, like for the whole 1900s. And people could come and pick up if, if they still had, you know, on file marriage certificates.

[00:14:51] Jodi Wright-Gidley: My parents didn't get married in Galveston. They got married in Canada where my mom's from. Said I gonna go see if my grandparents', uh, wedding. Um, [00:15:00] licenses there, and sure enough, I got it. And, um, um, as I say, I, you know, I just have a little copy now, but I, and I sent it to the Rice Archives, but it has the date and they were, they weren't married by Rabbi Cohen, they were married by the Orthodox Rabbi.

[00:15:15] Jodi Wright-Gidley: So can y'all speak about how Galveston had both an orthodox and a reform synagogue? 

[00:15:22] Francine Beckman: Sure. So when the immigrants probably the German, mostly German immigrants came to Galveston in the 1800s, late 1800s. Um, they became, they had, they were wealthier, um, and they were more. Uh, were the reform Jewish Jews at that time, and when they came here, they established, uh, Temple B'Nai Israel, which was the second synagogue in the state of Texas.

[00:15:55] Francine Beckman: Um, and they, I think they had another [00:16:00] rabbi at first, but then they hired Rabbi Cohen and he was at, at, uh, Temple B'nai Israel for many years. 

[00:16:08] Shelley Kessler: 63 years. 

[00:16:08] Francine Beckman: Until he died in 1952. Meantime, we had all of these very Orthodox Jews in Eastern Europe that were in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, 

[00:16:22] Shelley Kessler: Not as educated 

[00:16:23] Francine Beckman: Russian Jews. Not as educated, not wealthy at all. And these were the immigrants that were coming into the US, going to New York and not having jobs, not being able to work. And that's why the Galveston Plan was established to try to bring some of these people in to Galveston and through Texas and throughout the United States.

[00:16:44] Francine Beckman: So when they came, they were very Orthodox, uh, lived very religious lives. And so they established 

[00:16:51] Shelley Kessler: And by by Orthodox you mean like they they kept kosher kept, they didn't ride on the Sabbath. They didn't, well, I guess there was electricity then, but No, [00:17:00] but I, I know my grandmother, 

[00:17:01] Francine Beckman: probably not originally.

[00:17:02] Shelley Kessler: Not originally. My grandmother, I think as I remember, she had kept, kept gas flame going 

[00:17:07] Francine Beckman: Yes. 

[00:17:07] Shelley Kessler: On her stove. 

[00:17:08] Francine Beckman: Right, 

[00:17:08] Shelley Kessler: because you weren't supposed to turn it off and on. Like she didn't blow up the house. 

[00:17:13] Jodi Wright-Gidley: No.. 

[00:17:15] Francine Beckman: Yeah, so they came over and established their own synagogue. So you had, um, like our grandparents belonged to the synagogue, but they adored Rabbi Cohen, and he was so, so wonderful to them and with them.

[00:17:31] Shelley Kessler: But, but here's the interesting thing about. Henry Cohen that I find so phenomenal that, um, the, the, the Orthodox community, even though they didn't belong to his congregation, adored him and, um, my daddy and most of the kids of the generation, generation of, of the children, of the immigrants.

[00:17:53] Shelley Kessler: When they, you know, become of age like 10, 11 . You go to Hebrew school where you learn, you know, Hebrew, 

[00:17:58] Francine Beckman: they started [00:18:00] even younger. 

[00:18:00] Shelley Kessler: They probably started even younger, 

[00:18:01] Francine Beckman: they probably started really young, 

[00:18:02] Shelley Kessler: and it's called heder, which is the Yiddish word for Hebrew school or school. And they would, they, during the week, they would go to the shul for their Hebrew lessons and, and, and so on, and the traditional stuff.

[00:18:18] Shelley Kessler: And on Sundays they went. To, uh, the temple to, uh, be in Dr. Cohen's confirmation class and because, uh, Dr. Cohen could teach them how to be good Jews in America, and I find that so fascinating. My, our daddy was confirmed by Dr. Cohen as well as many of the, the children of the very Orthodox immigrants. And that is something that's very, very unusual. The Orthodox synagogue and the temple, uh, the reform congregation, as I said, were, um, two totally opposite branches of [00:19:00] Judaism, 

[00:19:00] Shelley Kessler: You would never see that in another, uh. Uh, community? 

[00:19:04] Francine Beckman: No, not at all.

[00:19:04] Jodi Wright-Gidley: Tell us about what you brought. 

[00:19:07] Shelley Kessler: We are privileged to still have my grandmother, Clara Nussenblatt's wedding dress from November of 1911. And you can see, and obviously it's ragged on the edges, but I mean, think about the fact that she was a very poor immigrant and it's almost like a muslin cloth. Right. But yet very. Uh, nicely done. Very. 

[00:19:36] Jodi Wright-Gidley: Do you think she made it? 

[00:19:37] Shelley Kessler: I don't think so. I don't think Grandma was a seamstress. 

[00:19:41] Francine Beckman: Yeah. I don't remember Yeah. At all. But, um, yeah. 

[00:19:45] Shelley Kessler: But, uh, it, it's, it's been in the family forever, obviously, 1911, and we're, we're very, very proud of the fact that we still own it. And to confirm it, I have this picture [00:20:00] of, um, my.

[00:20:02] Shelley Kessler: Felice and Sam Nussenblatt. And on that side is my mother's family, uh, parents who are from, uh, Canada. And here are the two immigrants. Fred Nussenblatt and Clara Nussenblatt. Clara Reinhardt Nussenblatt on their wedding day. And there she is. We wearing the dress. So it's very special to all of us.

[00:20:24] Francine Beckman: Do we know where that synagogue was? 

[00:20:26] Shelley Kessler: I think originally they were like on 26th and L. 

[00:20:30] Jodi Wright-Gidley: That's great that you still have that. It's in great shape. Mm-hmm. And it is so tiny. 

[00:20:36] Shelley Kessler: I know, I know. So little. I know. And I look and say, where did she get a waist like that? Yeah. 

[00:20:39] Jodi Wright-Gidley: She doesn't look tiny there. Look. 

[00:20:41] Shelley Kessler: She doesn't, does she? 

[00:20:42] Francine Beckman: But looking at the dress so small. 

[00:20:44] Jodi Wright-Gidley: And you have another photo. 

[00:20:46] Francine Beckman: I do, I do. Um, this is a picture of our Uncle Joe Newsome Blatt. He was two years older than our dad and a cousin, Joe Reinhart. [00:21:00] Um, they are on a little donkey, a little goat cart that this is the goat that my grandparents had in their backyard.

[00:21:07] Francine Beckman: And, uh, they got their goat milk and drank their goat milk all the time. And I just love this photo 'cause it's these two little mm-hmm boys. 

[00:21:15] Shelley Kessler: My grandparents were, my grandparents really were illiterate.

[00:21:20] Shelley Kessler: Uh, they never learned to read and write English. When my grandfather, um, uh, he was a painter, contractor, my daddy said he would, daddy would go with him to, you know, write down everything and do the specs and all that kind of stuff. And, and my mother, my grandmother was a very bright woman, but she never, never learned to read and write English either.

[00:21:39] Shelley Kessler: But they had, they sent all three of their kids, three kids to college. To college. And in fact, just one other thing about Rabbi Cohen, daddy, uh, I, I, I recorded my daddy in 1980, and so I was listening to it recently and he said that one of the scholarships that he got to go to school was from Dr. Cohen. 

[00:21:57] Francine Beckman: And also about him, our [00:22:00] grandmother used to tell us all the time that if there was any problem for anything, you'd call Rabbi Cohen and he would solve it for them. 

[00:22:07] Shelley Kessler: That's right. 

[00:22:08] Francine Beckman: Which they did multiple times. Yes. And she did work as a housekeeper for him. And then later in the later years, she also told me that if he had, he loved her Matza ball soup, so if he had some dignitaries or he had some important people coming.

[00:22:25] Francine Beckman: I, he would call her to make some matza ball soup and bring it. 

[00:22:29] Jodi Wright-Gidley: I've enjoyed reading and I'm gonna continue learning more about this, but you know, just to read about it, it's one thing, but to hear real stories is so much better. Yeah.

[00:22:38] Jodi Wright-Gidley: So thank you both for coming today and sharing your stories. We really appreciate it. 

[00:22:42] Shelley Kessler: Thank you. 

[00:22:43] Francine Beckman: Thanks for having us. 

[00:22:45] Shelley Kessler: We love getting the story out. One of the 

[00:22:46] Christine Hopkins: Wonderful things about hearing these personal stories, that I always learn something new and to learn about how these. People came here and the lives and and, and how something in history could change the whole direction of a family as [00:23:00] well. 

[00:23:00] Jodi Wright-Gidley: Right. 

[00:23:00] Christine Hopkins: So we have an exhibit here. Can you tell us a little bit more about the Galveston County Museum exhibit on immigration?

[00:23:06] Jodi Wright-Gidley: Yeah, so we have several immigration stories. They are about people from Austria, Germany, Czechoslovakia, and all of these artifacts were brought over by those families from Europe and they all live very different lives. And so it's all just a lot of personal stories. And one of them is really interesting because we have a Russian Jewish immigrant who came on the Galveston Movement and he came with a huge heavy coat. That was what he was used to wearing. Of course, he would've brought that with him. Mm-hmm. When he got here, he realized, I don't need that. So he hemmed it. It's now a waist length coat where it would've been a full length coat, and so he came to Galveston and he was one of the immigrants that just stayed here very briefly.

[00:23:50] Jodi Wright-Gidley: Mm-hmm. He was then sent to Omaha where he worked in a bakery. He eventually owned that bakery and he also eventually went back to Europe, married [00:24:00] his girlfriend and got her pregnant, and he had to come back to work in Omaha. World War I breaks out. She didn't make it back with him, and so it was all the way till the end of the war before he could bring over his new wife and baby, and they did reunite.

[00:24:16] Christine Hopkins: When you look around these, the, the museum and you see these artifacts, you have to remember there's a face, there's a family, there's a story behind it. And as I'm looking behind you, I see there's a QR code that says scan to listen. We need to talk about that. 

[00:24:30] Jodi Wright-Gidley: Yeah. So we've installed QR codes throughout the museum and it's for you to use your phone, scan the code and listen to the exhibit, uh, being sort of told the story's told to you so you don't have to read 'em. And we've done that because we've had several senior visitors who have mentioned to me, I can't see real well anymore, but they're interested in learning the stories and so all they gotta do is scan the code and listen to it. 

[00:24:54] Christine Hopkins: Oh, that's fantastic.

[00:24:55] Christine Hopkins: So with the Galveston County Museum, are you still adding [00:25:00] things to your collection and what kind of items would you be looking for that would be of interest for this immigration exhibit? 

[00:25:06] Jodi Wright-Gidley: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we continue to collect anything related to Galveston County. So even if your family came through Galveston but didn't settle here, just like our Russian Jewish immigrant story. Their family brought those artifacts back to the museum. They live somewhere else completely, but it's related. And so we love to tell those kinds of stories too. So yeah, we do continue to collect.

[00:25:27] Christine Hopkins: Thank you for tuning in to Unboxing History presented by the Galveston County Museum. Make sure to share this podcast with your friends and family. And remember, you can find Unboxing History everywhere you listen to podcasts, as well as on our YouTube channel. 

[00:25:41] Jodi Wright-Gidley: And if you wanna know more about what's going on at the museum, follow us on social media. Check out our website, www.galvestoncountyhistory.org, where you can also sign up for our newsletter to get our news. 

[00:25:52] Christine Hopkins: And make sure you stop by the museum. It's open Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 10 to four, and by appointment on Tuesdays and [00:26:00] Thursdays, or do the Padlock Mystery Game, and what's the other game that we have available?

[00:26:06] Jodi Wright-Gidley: We have a scavenger hunt. You can scan on your phone and play a game while you're here. 

[00:26:11] Christine Hopkins: So let's make history fun and remember learning's always growing. 

[00:26:16]