Family of Avrum REGENSTREIF and Rebecca ARANOVITCH

Avrum and Rebecca had many children, 16 or 17 in all. Some died in

infancy in Romania and at least one died in Montreal not long after

their arrival.

Benny and Louis came to Canada about a year before the family did. The

rest of the family arrived on November 7th, 1907 aboard the SS

Corsican, part of the Allen Line. Canadian Pacific subsequently

acquired the Corsican.

Avrum was an active member of the Austrian Shul on Milton Street. He

may have been a functionary. The shul was amalgamated with the

congregation now known as the Shomrim Laboker.

Uncle Bert told us that his father had been ?financial secretary? of a

Talmud Torah school. This probably meant that he made rounds to

collect the small tuition fees that were paid at the time. In fact his

obituary in the Keneder Adler referred to him as a collector for the

Anshe Sʼfard Talmud Torah.

The late Willie Riven was a landsman and neighbour on either Drolet

Street or Rivard Avenue. He loved to tell the story that when Avrum

was examined for life insurance, he had one of the children provide

the urine sample. This would lead us to believe that Avrum was not a

well man. He died accidentally at age 53 leaving a $400 life insurance

policy. Cousin Ida Andes remembers Bubby telling her that Avrum died

after having been in contact with the electric meter in the house.

Apparently he fell, hurt his head and never recovered.

Rebecca was known to some of us as Baba Martin, having lived with Martin and Arthur until their marriage in the early 30s. They lived in the Queen Mary Apartments on Berube Street just west of Park Avenue. We visited on Sunday mornings, and the young ones were always treated with hard candies and sometimes a piece of cake. Baba Martin was a strong woman, widowed in 1913 with the five youngest children still at home. Ida was 16, Max was 14, Bert was 11, Martin was 9, and Arthur was 3. To survive, the boys peddled fly papers every summer and did whatever else they could to eke out a tough living.

Notwithstanding the hard times, Baba Martin enjoyed her treat of black olives and herring, not shared with the boys. She had a great sense of humor and a ready laugh. She was a great cook who could stretch meals with mamaliga and got great taste out of cheap cuts of meat.

After Berube Street, Baba Martin lived at 3947 Laval Avenue opposite a great church that burned to the ground. The small flat was the upper of a single-family home that was converted into a duplex. The front room (off the balcony) was home at various times to Bert Mendelsohn when he came to McGill and to Ida Regenstreif (Andes’ uncle Harryʼs daughter), who lived there for about a year.

Baba Martin spent three months every summer as the guest of Auntie Ida and Uncle Isaac in St Agathe. That home became a Sunday gathering place for members of the family.

When she gave up her home, she lived in rented rooms and then variously with Uncle Bert, Uncle Martin, or Uncle Arthur. At age 84 or so, she went to live in the Old Folks Home on Esplanade Avenue, where she died about 17 years later.

While she appeared to be a healthy woman, Baba Martin frequently suffered from stomach pains. She could be seen often with a hot water bottle on her obviously swollen belly. She was to have had exploratory surgery for ulcers but did not. I suspect her problem was Hereditary Angioedema, the curse of many members of the family. HAE frequently imitates a surgical belly.

Irving Pfeffer writes, Grandmother Rebecca Regenstreif, mother of my mother Ethel, lived in the Montreal Old Age Home during the time I knew her, between 1940 and 1950. I danced with her at a wedding when she was 100 years old. She was tiny but danced nicely. She was a busy old-timer getting extra food for some of the men and darning socks as well. Always cheerful, she was the Central family news source with tidbits of information from her many visitors.

Baba Martin was a prodigious knitter, and she would knit for anyone who supplied yarn. Her specialties were scarves, mittens, hats and gloves, and socks. She never wasted anything, and many were her striped creations in colors that mixed, matched, or didnʼt match, but nothing was thrown away.