L.A. Bloom in his National Farm School Uniform 1906

L.A. Bloom in his National Farm School Uniform 1906

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.

(A history of the pogroms by the Russian Government in the area of Nizhyn, Ukraine is documented at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogroms_in_the_Russian_Empire: 1903–1906 A much bloodier wave of pogroms broke out from 1903 to 1906, leaving an estimated 2,000 Jews dead and many more wounded, as the Jews took to arms to defend their families and property from the attackers. The 1905 pogrom against Jews in Odessa was the most serious pogrom of the period, with reports of up to 2,500 Jews killed. The house's occupants return when it is safe, to find the house thoroughly looted. The New York Times described the First Kishinev pogrom of Easter, 1903: The anti-Jewish riots in Kishinev, Bessarabia [modern Moldova], are worse than the censor will permit to publish. There was a well laid-out plan for the general massacre of Jews on the day following the Orthodox Easter. The mob was led by priests, and the general cry, "Kill the Jews", was taken up all over the city. The Jews were taken wholly unaware and were slaughtered like sheep. The dead number 120 [Note: the actual number of dead was 47–48[17]] and the injured about 500. The scenes of horror attending this massacre are beyond description. Babies were literally torn to pieces by the frenzied and bloodthirsty mob. The local police made no attempt to check the reign of terror. At sunset the streets were piled with corpses and wounded. Those who could make their escape fled in terror, and the city is now practically deserted of Jews.[18] This series of pogroms affected 64 towns (including Odessa, Yekaterinoslav, Kiev, Kishinev, Simferopol, Romny, Kremenchug, Nikolayev, Chernigov, Kamenets-Podolski, Yelizavetgrad), and 626 small towns (Russian: городок) and villages, mostly in Ukraine and Bessarabia.")

"NATIONAL FARM SCHOOL: By: Cyrus Adler, Joseph Krauskopf American institution having for its object the training of Jewish lads in practical and scientific agriculture; situated at Farm School, Doylestown, Bucks County, Pa. The founding of the school was proposed in 1894 by the Rev. Dr. Joseph Krauskopf, after his return from a visit to the towns within the Pale of Settlement in Russia. By means of lectures Dr. Krauskopf succeeded in raising funds for the purchase (1895) of the present site of the school. In the following year the main building was erected, which, with the grounds, was consecrated to its purpose in 1897; toward the close of that year the school was opened with a class of eight pupils. Since that time the number of buildings has increased to ten, and the general equipment and stock have kept pace with the development of the school. The institution has graduated twenty-two pupils, nearly all of whom are creditably following their chosen vocation, four of them being in the employ of the United States Department of Agriculture. Chapel of the National Farm School, Doylestown, Pa.(From a photograph.) At the present time (1904) the National Farm School has forty-five pupils, the number of admissions being limited by the dormitory capacity. The course of instruction covers four years and is designed to give a thorough training in practical and scientific agriculture"

February 18, 1906

1906

1906