The Queen Mary Redux


Some family members are scheduled to travel on the beautiful Queen Mary II this summer.

"Queen Mary 2 outbound from Southampton 2 Sept 2013".  Image by Brian Burnell.  

 Knowing those travel plans made this passenger ship record jump out at me when working on   genealogy last night.  Sigmond and Alexander Saxe made the crossing on the original Queen Mary from Southampton to New York in August, 1936 just three months after the Queen Mary's maiden voyage on May 27, 1936.

     

  This is how the original Queen Mary looks today, docked in Long Beach, CA and living a second life as a floating hotel and glamorous event venue.

"RMS Queen Mary Long Beach January 2011 view". Image by David Jones from Isle of Wight, United Kingdom.

The seventy-five year old passenger, Sigmond Saxe (aka Sigmond Sachs Kaliske) was my half grand uncle, one of the sons of my great grandfather Fabian Sachs Kaliske and his first wife, Minna Rochotsh.   (Coincidentally, my older daughter was born 120 years exactly to the day after Sigmond.)   Sigmond married Constance Isaacs and had two children - Alexander and Marguerite.

Sigmond's mother, Minna, died in childbirth at age 29, leaving her husband and small sons - Sigmond, Henry, Eugene.  (There may have been another son, Hugo, but that has not been confirmed.)

The 1870 US Federal Census image below shows the widower Fabian (F.S. Kaliske), a 'leather merchant',  living in Manhattan with two of his young sons, Sigmond and Henry in the home of his brother, Alexander Kaliske (A.S. Kaliske) who listed his occupation as 'shoes and boots'.   It must have been busy household, with Fabian's children added to the four young children of Alexander and his wife, Sarah.  The first two people listed in the household are domestic servants.