The Bilsky Family Album: Part I

This post is brought to you by David C. Martin, a volunteer at the Ottawa Jewish Archives.

If I asked you, “what is your most prized possession,” how might you respond? I’m not asking about your most expensive or extravagant piece of property, but your most meaningful. For many – especially for those of us who grew up prior to the digital age – the family photo album is likely among those items that first come to mind. Always irreplaceable – at least before the advent of scanners and digital cameras – photo albums stood in place of our own sometimes fleeting and eventually failing memories. The album is, in essence, a family’s own personal archives. A repository of youth and growth, of our most significant life cycle events, and our most cherished memories.

For a select few among us however, a family album can also hold even greater significance. Not simply a record of one family’s past, these albums also offer a glimpse into the history of a broader community. When you’re a Bilsky, for example, your family album contains a wealth of insight into the earliest beginnings of Ottawa’s Jewish history.

Over the last several weeks, I’ve worked closely with Anna Bilsky, the great-granddaughter of one of Ottawa’s earliest Jewish residents, Moses Bilsky. Anna has been generous with her time, and I greatly appreciate her allowing me to examine the Bilsky family album. Compiled by her great Aunt Eva across the first half of the nineteenth-century, prior to Eva’s death in 1952, the Bilsky album presents us with a unique opportunity to see the early history of Ottawa’s Jewish community in black and white.

Some of the oldest images contained in the album date from the late 1800’s and depict many members of Jewish Ottawa’s founding families: the Bilskys, Vinebergs, Bronfmans, Rosenthals, Freimans, Jacobs and more. In this two-part article, I’m going to share with you some of photographs I found most interesting. Selecting which images were worthy of inclusion, and which were not, was a difficult task but, given limitations of space and time, I’ve done my best to include those that, I hope, you’ll find most compelling. Together with Anna’s best recollections, and a variety of historical documents, this article will introduce you to several of Jewish Ottawa’s earliest pioneers by way of the photographs contained in the Bilsky family album.

While it has been exceedingly difficult to pinpoint the year of either Moses birth, or his immigration from Europe, I believe I have narrowed them both down. According to certain histories, Moses was born as early as 1828-1829 and reached North America in the early to mid-1840s; I believe these dates are incorrect.[i] According to numerous records including the censuses of 1881, 1891, 1901, and 1911, Moses was born sometime between 1839 and 1844.[ii] With each census, it appears that the respondent – that is the person who answered the census questionnaire on the family’s behalf – made Moses just a little bit older. Still, this five-year range provides us with a reasonable ballpark. When Moses married Pauline, in 1874, she was just 17 years old.[iii] With this date range, we can assume that he was likely in his early 30s.

Moses most likely arrived in North America with his father Ely and his sister Tsetta (also known, by various records as Carrie, Zetta and Yetta), in the mid 1850s.[iv] According to the family narrative, Moses arrived as a teenager and almost immediately entered the market as a trader and peddler. Tsetta, whose death certificate and gravestone provide birth years of 1846 and 1845 respectively, was likely a few years younger.[v] While differing on the precise date of her death, both her record of death and gravestone note that she was born in Poland/Russia, suggesting that, in any case, the family’s immigration could not have preceded the late 1840s. Whether Moses arrived in Ottawa in 1857, as family lore suggests, or not until 1878, when his name first appears in the Ottawa city directories, we can be sure that he was among the very first Jewish inhabitants of our fair city.

Moses’ wife Pauline Reich, Anna’s great-grandmother, was born in Berlin, Germany (or possibly Brooklyn, New York) in 1857; a year in which we can be confident.[vi] Not much has been written about Pauline, but she was certainly a powerhouse in her own right. Between 1876 and 1900, Pauline had thirteen children, of which 11 survived into adulthood (Harry and Annie died in infancy).[vii] According to Anna Bilsky, she inherited two things from her great grandmother; curly hair and easy pregnancies/deliveries.[viii] After marrying Moses in 1874, Pauline dutifully followed her husband as the family travelled around Ontario and Quebec. By 1878, Moses was operating as a pawnbroker in Ottawa. Two years later, the family was in Mattawa, and in 1885, records show the Bilskys living in Montreal.[ix] By 1891, the family had returned to Ottawa where Moses operated a successful jewelry store.

The Bilskys were known to regularly take in ‘any stray that came along’, and a lot of the work that came with those many visitors likely fell to Pauline.[x] One ‘guest’ who came, and it seems never left, was the Bilskys’ niece, Rebecca (Beck) Vineberg-Davidson, who appears to have moved into the Bilsky home as a teenager – sometime after her mother, Tsetta (Carrie) Bilsky Vineberg passed away c. 1875-1877.[xi] Without doubt, it was also the trials and tribulations that come with having eleven surviving children, which occupied much of Pauline’s time. One of her daughters, Ms. Mathilda (Tillie) Bilsky, born 1885 or 1883, for example, suffered from a childhood case of polio, an illness that left her wheelchair bound for the remainder of her life.[xii]

Pauline, it seems, also spent time with such early luminaries as Bertha Rosenthal, who arrived in Ottawa with her husband Aaron c. 1878.[xiii] Like the Bilskys, the Rosenthals were among the earliest members of Ottawa’s Jewish community and played a significant role in the establishment of the city’s Jewish institutions; helping to found Adath Jeshurun, the city’s first synagogue in the 1890s, and then, its ladies Auxiliary Society which operated under Bertha’s leadership.[xiv] It was Aaron Rosenthal who laid the cornerstone of the congregation’s new building on King Edward in 1904.[xv] In 1898, Bertha and Pauline were also both involved in the establishment of the Ottawa Ladies’ Hebrew Benevolent Society – for more on that charitable organization please refer to my earlier article.

If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that Pauline’s greatest joy, and Moses’ too, came by way of the nachas ‘pride’ each had in their children, and indeed, in at least some of their daughters’ marriages. Three of the Bilsky’s sons-in-law attained notoriety both within and beyond Ottawa’s Jewish community. A.J. Freiman, married to Lillian Bilsky-Freiman (b.1883 or 1885), established a large department store and volunteered his time for any number of charitable endeavours. Abraham Jacobs of Montreal, married Rebecca Bilsky-Jacobs (b.1880), and was a prominent member of the highly influential Jacobs family of Quebec, while Allan Bronfman, married to Lucy Bilsky-Bronfman (b.1891 or 1897), was a highly successful industrialist, lawyer and community activist

The Bronfman arm of the greater Bilsky family achieved remarkable success. Lucy Bilsky, born in either 1891 or 1897, depending on which historical document one consults – I’m more inclined to accept the former – married Allan Bronfman in 1922.[xvi] Allan, who was himself born in Brandon, Manitoba in 1895, was a lawyer by trade, having obtained his law degree from the University of Manitoba. Serving briefly as the chairman of a Jewish orphanage in Winnipeg, Allan moved his family to Montreal in 1924, where he joined the family distillery, Seagram’s Ltd.[xvii] The driving force behind the creation of Montreal’s Jewish General Hospital, where he served as president for some 25 years, Allan also helped found the Canadian Friends of Hebrew University in Israel.[xviii] In fact, Anna recalls a 1969 visit to her Uncle Allan in Montreal, where the two arranged a summer internship for her at the Hadassah Medical Centre virology lab.[xix] Perhaps my favourite photograph from the album depicts the bar mitzvah of Allan and Lucy’s second son Peter, which occurred October 4, 1942. The event took place during WWII, and the image includes several uniformed officers sitting amongst some of the era’s leading members of Montreal’s Jewish community, all gathered in a large sukkah (temporary ritual dwelling) as the occasion fell during the Jewish festival of Sukkot.

The best known of the Bilsky children was certainly Lillian Bilsky-Freiman who is described by Anna as having been “a remarkably caring person”.[xx] Born June 6, 1883 (or perhaps 1885), Lillian married A.J. Freiman August 18, 1903, in Montreal.[xxi] Already a founding member of the Ottawa Jewish Women’s Benevolent Society, she continued her work in community charity; both Jewish and non-Jewish. In 1915, she joined forces with members of the ladies’ auxiliaries of local synagogues to form the Women’s League of Ottawa, and during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 – which struck some 10,000 inhabitants of Ottawa and caused 520 deaths – she was placed in full charge of emergency management at the behest of the city council and mayor Harold Fisher. Lillian’s most enduring legacy though came via her work with veterans after World War I. In 1917, she helped found the Great War Veterans’ Association of Canada, precursor to the Canadian Legion. Following the war, in 1921, Lillian directed the nation’s very first poppy campaign, a role she occupied until her death in 1940. In tribute to her work, the Canadian Legion made her its very first ‘honourary life member’ in 1933. Indeed, Lillian Bilsky Freiman’s was repeatedly recognized and honoured.[xxii] In 1922, MacLean’s Magazine ran a feature about her entitled, “Friend of the Needy and Lonesome”, and in 1934 Lillian’s name appeared on King George V’s New Year’s List of Honours, as she was conferred the rank and decoration of Officer of the Order of the British Empire (Civil Division).[xxiii] The citation for her award read, “for the community work; service to returned soldiers; leadership in Jewish charitable organizations.” According to Mackenzie King’s journal, she was likely the first Jewish person so honoured.[xxiv]

So many of the photographs in the Bilsky family album depict individuals of great import to Ottawa’s early Jewish community. One such photo captures a moment in time shared by A.J. Freiman, Marks Davidson (husband to Rebecca Vineberg – Tsetta Bilsky’s daughter who lived with the Bilsky’s after her mother’s death), a man named Myers, and the Reverend Jacob S. Mirsky. Moses Bilsky was one of several men who were instrumental in bringing the Rev. Mirsky to Ottawa in 1892. The city’s first Jewish spiritual leader and Hazzan (Cantor), Mirsky was described as a bridge between the small established Jewish community and the newer migrants arriving in larger numbers by the turn of the twentieth century.[xxv] According to one text, the Reverend Mirsky was, “the social service and charitable arm of the Jewish community.”[xxvi] After settling in Ottawa, Mirsky brought over his wife and four children from Russia, having Sam, his last child, in Canada. Rev. Mirsky’s wife died shortly after Sam’s birth and Jacob remarried a Dvora Nathanson of New York, who brought her youngest son, Joe Nathanson, with her to Ottawa. As her husband’s salary simply could not support anyone else, Dvora was forced to leave her other three children with relatives in New York.[xxvii] Upon his death, on April 29, 1942, Jacob Mirsky was survived by two sons, David Mirsky of Ottawa and Major Sam Mirsky, then serving overseas, and two daughters, Mrs. Robert Glass of New York, and Mrs. Mendel Pearlman of Ottawa.[xxviii]

For Anna Bilsky, the album’s more recent photos are likely the most meaningful. Anna remains a great admirer of her grandfather, Nathan Bilsky, whom she describes as being the “black sheep of the family” who, “had a rough time,” especially after the loss of his wife.[xxix] Every Sunday, Anna and her family would visit Nathan’s home “for cake and ginger ale,” a tradition she enjoyed as her grandfather was “always wonderful with us”.[xxx]  Nathan Bilsky was born January 20, 1887, in Montreal, Quebec, and died December 5, 1958, in Ottawa. On November 24, 1914, he married a Miss Mildred Markson, then 25 years old, of Alexandria, Ontario. Their wedding, officiated by Rabbi Fyne and the Rev. Jacob Mirsky, was a grand affair which saw the Bilsky home on Daly Avenue adorned with white flowers, palms, and ferns.[xxxi] Unfortunately, on September 12, 1923, Mildred passed away, leaving Nathan a widower, though not before the couple had two children, Lawrence (Anna’s father) and Sylvin, her uncle. In his later years, Nathan moved in with his sister Eva and cousin, Rebecca Vineberg – then herself a widow.

For the sake of space and time, I’m going to stop here, though I hope you’ll trust me when I tell you that the photographs and histories presented in this relatively brief article are just a drop in the bucket of those contained in the Bilsky family album. In the coming weeks I hope to again have the chance to present a handful of my most favourite images from Anna’s album. If you recognize anyone, in any of these photographs, please comment below with whatever stories you may have to share. I appreciate your visiting us at the Ottawa Jewish Archives and look forward to my next posting.

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[i] Bilsky, Anna, ed. A common thread: A history of the Jews of Ottawa. Renfrew, Ont: General Store Pub. House, 2009.

[ii] Census of Canada, 1881; Census of Canada, 1891; Census of Canada, 1901; Census of Canada, 1911

[iii] Certificate of Marriage, Moses Bilsky and Pauline Reich, December 9, 1874. 

[iv] Census of Canada, 1901

[v] Image of Yetta Bilsky-Vineberg’s gravestone Shaar Hashomayim Cemetery, Montreal, QC, https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/cemetery/jowbr.php?rec=J_QC_0079859; Certificate of Death, Yetta Belsky, Ontario, Canada, Deaths and Deaths Overseas, 1869-1950. https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/1380993:8946?tid=&pid=&queryId=ee4fce5c-201f-4220-bc70-da816f79dafa&_phsrc=Qdv162&_phstart=successSource

[vi] Pauline’s gravestone notes her place of birth as Berlin, Germany as do the Canadian censuses of 1881-1911, while her certificate of death lists Brooklyn, New York.

Record of Pauline Bilsky’s gravestone, Jewish Memorial Gardens, Bank Street Cemetery, Ottawa, ON, https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/cemetery/jowbr.php?rec=J_ON_0012641; Pauline Reich-Bilsky, Certificate of Death, Ontario, Canada, Deaths and Deaths Overseas, 1869-1950.

[vii] Anna Bilsky, Oral History taken by David C. Martin, May 19, 2024.

[viii] Ibid.

[ix] Bilsky family fonds, Ottawa Jewish Archives, https://www.cjhn.ca/link/cjhn101245

[x] Anna Bilsky, Oral History taken by David C. Martin, May 19, 2024.

[xi]  Rebecca Vineberg, then six years old, appears in the 1881 census as living with her parents and siblings. It appears that in the census of 1891 both Rebecca and her sister Nelly Vineberg resided at the Bilsky home. By 1901, Rebecca Vineberg again appears to be living with the Bilskys, without Nelly, and is listed as a ‘domestic’.

[xii] Anna Bilsky, Oral History taken by David C. Martin, May 19, 2024.

[xiii] David Kimmel, “LEHMAN, BERTHA (Rosenthal),” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 15, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed June 2, 2024, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/lehman_bertha_15E.html.

[xiv] Ibid.

[xv] Laid the Corner Stone of New Synagogue, Ottawa Evening Journal, July 26, 1904.

[xvi] Lucy’s gravestone in Montreal notes March 7, 1897-June 10, 1983, while the 1911 census lists her year of birth as 1891.  Image of Lucy Bronfman’s gravestone Shaar Hashomayim Cemetery, Montreal, QC, https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/cemetery/jowbr.php?rec=J_QC_0076282

[xvii] Jewish General Hospital. “Allan Bronfman.” Past Presidents, October 18, 2021. https://www.jgh.ca/about-us/history/past-presidents/allan-bronfman/.

[xviii] Bronfman, Allan, Archival Descriptions, Canadian Jewish Archives, Canadian Jewish Heritage Network, https://www.cjhn.ca/link/cjhn134

[xix] Anna Bilsky, Oral History taken by David C. Martin, May 19, 2024.

[xx] Ibid.

[xxi] Marriage Certificate, Lillian Bilsky and Archie Jacob Freiman, August 18, 1903, Ontario, Canada, Marriages, 1826-1940. https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/3588644:7921?tid=&pid=&queryId=43022eff-ed9b-425a-8856-041910e29f71&_phsrc=Qdv180&_phstart=successSource

[xxii] Shirley Berman, “BILSKY, LILLIAN (Freiman),” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 16, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed June 2, 2024, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/bilsky_lillian_16E.html.

[xxiii] “Lillian Freiman: Friend to the Needy and Lonesome, MacLean’s Magazine, 1922, https://archive.org/details/macleansmagazine?sort=date&&and%5B%5D=year%3A%221922%22

[xxiv] Hadaya, Hagit. “Lillian Freiman.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, January 6, 2021. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/lillian-freiman#:~:text=Lillian%20Freiman%20was%20the%20first,her%20charitable%20and%20patriotic%20works. 

[xxv] Bilsky, Anna, ed. A common thread: A history of the Jews of Ottawa. Renfrew, Ont: General Store Pub. House, 2009.

[xxvi] Jewish Federation of Ottawa. “FAQ about Ottawa’s Jewish History.” FAQ. Accessed May 26, 2024. https://www.jewishottawa.com/ottawa-jewish-archives/faq.  

[xxvii] Bilsky, Anna, ed. A common thread: A history of the Jews of Ottawa. Renfrew, Ont: General Store Pub. House, 2009.

[xxviii] Jew and Gentile Pay Last Tribute to Rev. J. Mirsky, Ottawa Citizen, May 2, 1942.

[xxix] Anna Bilsky, Oral History taken by David C. Martin, June 4, 2024.

[xxx] Ibid.

[xxxi] Bilsky-Markson Wedding, Ottawa Citizen, November 27, 1914, Page 13.