Description:Root Studio was a well known photographic company in Chicago .. the link below https://www.ebay.com/itm/143194638020

Description:Mort´s book at page 7, Mort identifies this picture as his "Great Grandfather". If so, this would be the oldest generation in the Bloom Archive. This is Vera´s father. The bottom of the front says "F. Malkina. Nizhyn" The back stamp says "Photography by F. Milina in Nizhyn." And at the bottom: "Atilier (which is a french word for "Artists Studio") for Zooming Portraits. On the very bottom it says "Negatives are kept". The director of the Nizhyn Gogol State University told me that he recognized the Malkina name, as a prominent photo studio in Nizhyn. It was run by both the husband and wife, and had studios in Nizhyn and Kiev and perhaps a third location. [show more]

Description:Kalmin Rezwin is the earliest start that we can trace our family. As of this writing (2021) he would represent the 7th generation of our roots. To everyone in the Bloom family side of this archive, he is a Great Great Grandfather or a Great Great Great Grandfather or a Great Great Great Great Grandfather. The handwriting on the back of the picture (which is my handwriting, which must mean that I got the information from Hi before he died and marked the picture) says "Zeda (Grandafather in Yiddish) Kalmin Rezwin (Vera´s Father)." To try to fix some dates: Lawrence was born in 1887, if his mother Vera was 25 at his birth, that means she was born circa 1862, and if her father was 25 at her birth, Kalman was born in 1837. This picture appears to depict him at 25, therefore this picture is circa 1862. He appears to have a very kindly smile and is wearing a nice suit, with a bit of a scruffy beard, but a wonderfully groomed and full head of hair. The numbers on the back of the pictures are not my handwriting, but i don´t think they could be giving a date of February 11, 1914, as the dates don´t match up. Kalmin never came to the United States, so this picture could be in Nizhyn, Ukraine. [show more]

Description:Simply due to the market on the back of the photo, this appears to be from the 1943 group that Hi processed in San Antonio. Perhaps this was taken from in the city?

Description:Back marked with number "838 Fox Tone San Antonio"

Description:This appears to be off base, in the city of San Antonio Back marked with number "842N" and stamped by "Fox Tone San Antonio, Texas"

Description:Kelly Field is in San Antonio, Texas. Kelly Field was one of thirty-two Air Service training camps established after the United States entry into World War I, being established on 27 March 1917.[2] It was used as a flying field; primary flying school; school for adjutants, supply officers, engineers; mechanics school, and as an aviation general supply depot.[ Hi was stationed there early in his military life and received training as an airplane mechanic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Field#cite_note-3 Back marked with number "0838" and stamped by "Fox Tone San Antonio, Texas" [show more]

Description:Back marked with number "0838" and stamped by "Fox Tone San Antonio, Texas"

Description:This picture depicts Lawrence in his National Farm School, February 18, 1906. Lawrence would have been 19 years old. The picture is "In memoriam to McGinty" Lawrence wrote on the back "it is pretty foolish", apparently referring to himself in his fancy uniform. He dated the picture: 18/2/06. NOTICE HE SIGNED IT "L. Blumen" Mort says that he didn´t change his name from Lev Blumen to Lawrence Bloom until after his Mother Vera arrived in the U.S. several years later. There are many documents signed: "L.A. Bloom", but few examples of his signature "L. Blumen" Lawrence came to the United States in 1903 at the age of 16 (Mort heard he came in 1905 at the age of 18). His father felt he should leave Nizhyn (Ukraine) due to the series of "pogroms" that were constantly being inflicted on the Jews of that area. (Mort says it was to avoid being inducted into the military, which might also be correct.) He traveled to Liverpool, England (Mort said it was Bremen, Germany) to buy a ticket to travel to the U.S., but he got his pockets picked and lost all his money. So he signed on as a stevedore shoveling coal on a ship designated to New York. But he found out that you only got paid when you returned to your original port, so he came back to Liverpool, got paid, signed on a second time, and this got off when he landed in New York. His contact in the United States was Bernard (Berl) Pellicoff, an old friend of his father Moishe, who had known Moishe when they worked together years before providing wheat and brewing it into beer. Bernard had left Russia before 1889, but had kept in touch with Moishe. Bernard went to New York City to meet Lawrence (then known as Lev), but he wasn´t that sure about his English, so he brought along his daughter, who had been born in the United States to insure that the translation for the process went well. That daughter was named Ethel, and years later, Lawrence courted Ethel and they married. After Lawrence landed in the U.S. he did a variety of jobs and ultimately became aware that a "National Farm School" (See the "NFS" insignia on his collar in this picture) existed which would, at no charge to him, give him an education in farming. It was a school set up to provide training diversity to Jews. Here´s what Mort wrote in page 11 of his book: "My father kicked around new York, doing whatever work he could get. I think he was a streetcar conductor at one point. then he found out about the National Farm School in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Doylestown is a small town, across the river from Trenton, New Jersey. the school was started with Baron de Hirsch’s money. He believed that Jews shouldn’t all be doctors, lawyers, and merchants; some should be farmers, because agriculture is a very important aspect of any civilization. they were just at the beginning of the era of large farm machinery. "I’m sure the appeal for my father was that the school was free. You didn’t have to pay to go there, but you had to work on the school’s farm. You lived there and ate your meals there. While he was at the school, he learned how to play football and speak English and chase girls in Doylestown, and he started to become an American. When he finished at the national Farm School, he went to Philadelphia and he looked up my grandfather’s friend, Bernard Pellicoff. His father, Moisha had given him Pellicoff ‘s name to go and see inAmerica. When they were young men Moishe and Bernard lived in different towns, but both got jobs for a summer, and maybe several summers in a row, on a ranch in the Caucasus. they were overseers, which meant supervising the peasants working the fields. they were riding up and down on horses, telling the workers what to do. the two young men stayed in touch, writing to each other occasionally, even after Pellicoff came to America. So, when my father left Russia to come here, his father told him to go see Pellicoff in Philadelphia. that’s where he met my mother. Her name was Ethel Anna Pellicoff and she was Bernard’s daughter. My father returned to new York, but he carried on a correspondence with Ethel. I remember seeing their letters and some were pretty highfalutin. they wrote things in Latin, for example." You will notice that the oral history description given by Mort is different, in some details, than the oral history I heard from Hi. It´s not unusual that oral histories have some dissimilarities. NATIONAL FARM SCHOOL https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11381-national-farm-school An interesting history of the NFS is found at the above link. The story in the Jewishencyclopedia, was written in 1904, just two years before this picture was taken, and stated that at the time of the article the school had 45 students. [show more]

Description:L.A. Bloom became a rather prominent attorney in Los Angeles. His practice revolved around his knowledge of Russian i.e., if you were Russian and in need of an attorney in L.A. you went to L.A. As a result his practice varied across many civil areas of the law. The photo stamp on the photos is Edward-Hostetler, who was a prominent portrait studio in L.A. who took a number of professional photos for professionals in the L.A. area. [show more]

Description:L.A. Bloom became a rather prominent attorney in Los Angeles. His practice revolved around his knowledge of Russian i.e., if you were Russian and in need of an attorney in L.A. you went to L.A. As a result his practice varied across many civil areas of the law. The photo stamp on the photos is Edward-Hostetler, who was a prominent portrait studio in L.A. who took a number of professional photos for professionals in the L.A. area. [show more]

Subject:L.A. Bloom became a rather prominent attorney in Los Angeles. His practice revolved around his knowledge of Russian i.e., if you were Russian and in need of an attorney in L.A. you went to L.A. As a result his practice varied across many civil areas of the law.

The photo stamp on the photos is Edward-Hostetler, who was a prominent portrait studio in L.A. who took a number of professional photos for professionals in the L.A. area.

Description:Pregnant with baby Hi, Ethel, living with Mort and George in Philadelphia, received a telegram from Lawrence saying "Pack up Everything, We´re Moving to Los Angeles", and so, she did. Mort and George, both born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvia, along with Ethel took a train to Los Angeles, and soon thereafter on February 14, 1921, Hi was born in L.A. This picture, taken 11 months later, shows Lawrence, almost in Marlon Brando Godfather style, looking at his youngest child, and Mort, along with a proud Ethel standing beneath Lawrence´s legal shingle. Its the way law was practice back then. You´ll notice that the sign is in both English and Russian, as Lawrence´s legal practice focused on anything that the Russian speaking community needed in Los Angeles. The Russian portions says "Russian Attorney and Notary" It might have been the last time Lawrence ever smiled in Hi´s direction. For reasons, never explained, Hi´s relationship with Lawrence was never good. In Hi´s words: "Mort was the oldest. George, the favorite, and then there was me." Hi´s relationship with Ethel was very different. Ethel was a wonderful and caring mother (and mother in law). The only time I ever saw Hi cry, was coming out of the bathroom at ur old aprtment, having just learned of Ethel´s death. [show more]

Description:On January 27, 1919, LA Bloom was admitted to practice law in the 2nd District (Covering Los Angeles) District Court of Appeal. California has three level of courts: trial courts (made up, in 1919, of Municipal and Superior Courts, Courts of Appeal, there were probably 10 or so Districts at the time and they handled appellate cases only, and the California Supreme Court, which handled appellate matters. He was likely admitted to other Districts or other courts as well, but the fact that he was admitted to a Court of Appeal likely meant that he handled appellate matters, but it might also simply be that at that time, membership in the Court of Appeal (in his geographic location) simply gave him membership throughout the state of California. It is noteworthy, that this is before the full family moved to California, which occurred sometime while Ethel was pregnant with Hi sometime from May, 1920 to his birth on February 14, 1921. It may also be noteworthy, that although California became a state in 1849 and had a court system, California laws were not codified until 1872, which means that his membership in the California bar occurred 17 years after the first law in California was codified. [show more]

Description:On July 4, 1910, the state of Tennessee according LA Bloom the right to practice law. It is unknown if he had to take a bar exam, was sponsored by someone in the state, or was eligible by virtue of having graduating from University of Chattanooga the previous month. It is noteworthy that he was 23 at the time and had arrived in the U.S. in 1903, just 7 years before, at which time he didn´t even speak English. On the back is a crayon drawing, perhaps done by one of the grandchildren? [show more]

Description:Graduating Senior Law Class of 1910, University of Chattanooga (Lawrence Aaron Bloom can be seen second from bottom right.) Other graduates were also from Russia. Just 7 years after he landed in the U.S., unable to speak any English, he became an attorney. [show more]

Description:My grandfather´s last school picture, shortly before he left for the United States.

Description:The process of archiving old documents has a powerful component of Sherlock Holmes. The photos sometimes are either not labeled at all or labeled in a very cryptic or sometimes confusing manner. Sometimes they are in order, and therefore their relative position to other photos, better identified, allow for identification, and sometimes its as much as a guess as it is certainty. "Lasky Ranch La" is what is labeled behind this picture. On the back is also "000 3" with the 3 handwritten. The three items right after it are the same size photos, with the same "000 3" on it, and therefore, I have assumed that the four photos were processed at the same time, and therefore are related to each other. But, if I accept that premise, to what are they related. Lasky Ranch was a Movie Ranch, where the studios would go out to the San Fernando Valley and build sets and do outdoor action scenes and recreate things, like a World War I setting. This would account for the fact, that the pictures depict what appears to be a French castle and a World War I airplane. SO IT WOULD APPEAR THAT THESE FOUR PICTURES were all taken by someone, Hi? Sasha?, during a day trip to the Lasky Ranch in the Los Angeles area. That´s my story. The Lasky Ranch is an interesting story. It was the site of many silent movies made by Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd https://silentlocations.com/tag/lasky-ranch/ and was moved, rearranged, and moved again, where movies such as Gone With The Wind, Mission Impossible, and, most recently Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which, if not actually filmed on the Lasky Ranch, depicted the use of Movie Ranches, when Brad Pitt returns to an area he knew well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movie_ranch#Lasky_Ranch_%E2%80%93_San_Fernando_Valley_Providencia_Ranch It is unknown who the two boys in front of the plane are. [show more]

Description:The process of archiving old documents has a powerful component of Sherlock Holmes. The photos sometimes are either not labeled at all or labeled in a very cryptic or sometimes confusing manner. Sometimes they are in order, and therefore their relative position to other photos, better identified, allow for identification, and sometimes its as much as a guess as it is certainty. "Lasky Ranch La" is what is labeled behind this picture. On the back is also "000 3" with the 3 handwritten. The three items right after it are the same size photos, with the same "000 3" on it, and therefore, I have assumed that the four photos were processed at the same time, and therefore are related to each other. But, if I accept that premise, to what are they related. Lasky Ranch was a Movie Ranch, where the studios would go out to the San Fernando Valley and build sets and do outdoor action scenes and recreate things, like a World War I setting. This would account for the fact, that the pictures depict what appears to be a French castle and a World War I airplane. SO IT WOULD APPEAR THAT THESE FOUR PICTURES were all taken by someone, Hi? Sasha?, during a day trip to the Lasky Ranch in the Los Angeles area. That´s my story. The Lasky Ranch is an interesting story. It was the site of many silent movies made by Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd https://silentlocations.com/tag/lasky-ranch/ and was moved, rearranged, and moved again, where movies such as Gone With The Wind, Mission Impossible, and, most recently Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which, if not actually filmed on the Lasky Ranch, depicted the use of Movie Ranches, when Brad Pitt returns to an area he knew well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movie_ranch#Lasky_Ranch_%E2%80%93_San_Fernando_Valley_Providencia_Ranch It is unknown who the two boys in front of the plane are. [show more]

Description:The process of archiving old documents has a powerful component of Sherlock Holmes. The photos sometimes are either not labeled at all or labeled in a very cryptic or sometimes confusing manner. Sometimes they are in order, and therefore their relative position to other photos, better identified, allow for identification, and sometimes its as much as a guess as it is certainty. "Lasky Ranch La" is what is labeled behind this picture. On the back is also "000 3" with the 3 handwritten. The three items right after it are the same size photos, with the same "000 3" on it, and therefore, I have assumed that the four photos were processed at the same time, and therefore are related to each other. But, if I accept that premise, to what are they related. Lasky Ranch was a Movie Ranch, where the studios would go out to the San Fernando Valley and build sets and do outdoor action scenes and recreate things, like a World War I setting. This would account for the fact, that the pictures depict what appears to be a French castle and a World War I airplane. SO IT WOULD APPEAR THAT THESE FOUR PICTURES were all taken by someone, Hi? Sasha?, during a day trip to the Lasky Ranch in the Los Angeles area. That´s my story. The Lasky Ranch is an interesting story. It was the site of many silent movies made by Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd https://silentlocations.com/tag/lasky-ranch/ and was moved, rearranged, and moved again, where movies such as Gone With The Wind, Mission Impossible, and, most recently Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which, if not actually filmed on the Lasky Ranch, depicted the use of Movie Ranches, when Brad Pitt returns to an area he knew well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movie_ranch#Lasky_Ranch_%E2%80%93_San_Fernando_Valley_Providencia_Ranch It is unknown who the two boys in front of the plane are. [show more]

Description:The process of archiving old documents has a powerful component of Sherlock Holmes. The photos sometimes are either not labeled at all or labeled in a very cryptic or sometimes confusing manner. Sometimes they are in order, and therefore their relative position to other photos, better identified, allow for identification, and sometimes its as much as a guess as it is certainty. "Lasky Ranch La" is what is labeled behind this picture. On the back is also "000 3" with the 3 handwritten. The three items right after it are the same size photos, with the same "000 3" on it, and therefore, I have assumed that the four photos were processed at the same time, and therefore are related to each other. But, if I accept that premise, to what are they related. Lasky Ranch was a Movie Ranch, where the studios would go out to the San Fernando Valley and build sets and do outdoor action scenes and recreate things, like a World War I setting. This would account for the fact, that the pictures depict what appears to be a French castle and a World War I airplane. SO IT WOULD APPEAR THAT THESE FOUR PICTURES were all taken by someone, Hi? Sasha?, during a day trip to the Lasky Ranch in the Los Angeles area. That´s my story. The Lasky Ranch is an interesting story. It was the site of many silent movies made by Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd https://silentlocations.com/tag/lasky-ranch/ and was moved, rearranged, and moved again, where movies such as Gone With The Wind, Mission Impossible, and, most recently Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which, if not actually filmed on the Lasky Ranch, depicted the use of Movie Ranches, when Brad Pitt returns to an area he knew well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movie_ranch#Lasky_Ranch_%E2%80%93_San_Fernando_Valley_Providencia_Ranch It is unknown who the two boys in front of the plane are. [show more]

Description:Judging from the costumes and the background, this picture appears to be taken in Russia. (Mort, at page 10 of his book says this picture was taken in Russia. He also describes the picture as "Lawrence with his brother and sisters", which is clearly a mistake. Lawrence only had one brother, Sasha, who was many years his junior. The man depicted in this picture is clearly older than Lawrence. I recognize Rita to the right. Hi described the other sister as Sonia. Lawrence appears to be about 15 or 16 years of age here, which would have meant that this picture was taken in 1902 or 1903. [show more]

Description:Perhaps neighbors of Hi? September, 1933. Roxanne, Beri?, and someone unnamed Number 331 appears on the back.

Description:presumably they attended this performance, in Los Angeles, near the date of their Honeymoon. Note that Yvonne De Carlo likes Chesterfield cigarettes as does a "Prominent Tobacco Grower" The performance was at the Philharmonic Theatre in Los Angeles. [show more]

Description:This image shows the front page of the L.A. Times ("All the News, All the Time") on the date of their Wedding. Harry Truman still had two years to go as President. The interior page depicts the "Vital Statistics" for Los Angeles on that date, including Wedding licenses issued for "BLOOM - BELSKY H 28 B 23" [show more]

Description:Luba in chicago

Description:Perhaps one of Hi´s girlfriends during the War Years. The photo process stamp on the back is consistent with those identified as from 1943 in Kelly Field. Back marked with number "842N"

Description:Perhaps one of Hi´s girlfriends during the war years. The photo development stamp on the back is consistent with others identified as from San Antonio, Texas, which likely means that Marion was a girlfriend of Hi´s when he was stationed at Kelley Field. Back marked with number "842N" [show more]

Description:Likely one of Hi´s girlfriends during the war years. Back marked with number "842N"

Description:November 21, 1931. The writing on the back is to "my estranged Uncle Lawrence and to my Aunt Ethel and Cousins", signed by "Martin", which, since most 1 year olds can´t write, likely was written by their mother.

Description:L.A. Bloom was the oldest of 7 children, two boys (Sasha was the youngest) and 5 girls between them: Rita, Anna, Sonia, Masha, and Luba. In this picture Masha is depicted in 1909 at the age of perhaps 8 or 9. She died 9 years later in 1918 of the world pandemic of that year. Undoubtedly, it was in her memory that Rita named Masha Grodsky Odinak. Research shows that the photography studio which took the picture was prominent, which must have meant that the family was financially successful, otherwise, how else would they have afforded to spend money on a photograph. [show more]

Description:Hi´s girlfriend? Kelly Field era. 1943

Description:February 12, 1950 at 7.22 a.m., The Rubins send Congrats via Western Union Telegram from Detroit, Michigan

Description:Moishe died in his mid 50´s in a Kiev hospital of heart failure , never having visited the U.S. Vera followed Lawrence with all her children and moved to Chicago. I think that Vera’s father ran a train depot. That’s where she met Moise. He was the Forman of an agricultural endeavor. When he was bringing Vera to her new married home he drove with her in a carriage through the fields. All the serfs were out to welcome the newlyweds. Moise told Vera to take off the wig( shaidl) and throw it away. Which she did [show more]

Description:The unidentified photo appears to be Lawrence´s parents: Moishe and Vera. These two photos were cut out and framed together

Description:This appears to be a picture of Lawrence´s father, Moishe. Mort´s book says that, while in his 50's, he became ill and was brought to a hospital in Kiev where he died of a heart attack.

Description:Lawrence´s father as a young man, circa 1877. Likely in Nizhyn, Ukraine.

Description:Likely family of a girlfriend of Hi´s during the war years. Back marked with number "842N"

Description:This appears to be a picture of Moshe (Lawrence´s father) in Russia in his 20's .. which would make the date circa 1887. Since the back says the photography studio was from Kiev, he must have visited there for some reason. The back reads: "Photography by Edward Kozlovski in Kiev" [show more]

Description:Hi identifies this picture as "Mrs. Bloom and daughter Ethel London" in this undated photo. I have no idea who they are, although they are listed, in someone else´s handwritting as "cousins of Lawrence Bloom". So, this should be Moishe´s sister´s daughter. [show more]

Description:Some of the Bloom family ended up in Sioux City, Iowa. This picture from the Woodworth studio, apparently a commercial studio (see link below). https://siouxcityjournal.com/news/local/history/historic-photos-21-photos-looking-back-at-sioux-city-in-the-1950s/collection_6d85f91e-35a0-5693-a5a6-662c213931d4.html#11 [show more]

Description:hi´s girlfriend?

Description:Likely a girlfriend of Hi´s during the war years. Back marked with number "842N"

Description:Morris´brother, Nathan was married to Eda. (Not sure who Larry is, their son?). They lived in Los Angeles and sent this telegram. Western Union was still being used in the mid 1900's, but not so much as to make regular communications, but rather to communicate in places far away OR, as here, to communicate a special occasion. [show more]

Description:March, 1933

Description:Not sure who this image is. The back of the male boy picture reads: "For the Good Memory. Rahiil Blumen from Glazer, 1 March 1903". The front of the image stamps the photo studio as being: "A. Serebrennik. Nizhyn". The image of the female does not have any information on the back, but comes from the same studio. [show more]