Baercha and Bertha (Fineshriber) Pieniek / Tobias
Baercha (Benjamin) (Benu) Pieniek / Tobias (b. Poland 1872, d. St. Louis 1944)
Bertha Fineshriber Tobias (b. Germany 1878, d. 1968)
1889? 1892? Immigrated to U.S.
1897 Marriage in St. Louis or Kentucky
1899 U.S. Naturalization
1900 St. Louis
1908 Moved to Santa Rosa
1920 Divorced
Baercha was actually the fifth child of David Eleazer and Rana Temera, but apparently the first to go abroad.
"Baercha, or Benu, the second child of our grandparents, David Eliezer and Rana Pieniek, left Dobrzyn when he was a young man. When he arrived in this country, he dropped the name Pieniek and was known as Ben Tobias. Tobias was an English name for Toyvia. He claimed that the immigration authorities at Ellis Island where he was processed to enter this country, could not pronounce the name Pieniek. He married Bertha (Fineshriber). They settled in St. Louis, Missouri... Uncle Ben was in the leather goods business. He cured wood leather and was a traveling salesman in leather goods. He left St. Louis and lived with his sister Necha Flora and her husband Abraham Skop in Cleveland, Ohio. I was a young boy and I could remember that he drove an old model Ford car which he always had to crank. . I used to go on his rounds to the local merchant shoe repair shops. He subsequently divorced his wife, Bertha. After a while we lost track of him. We do know that his two sons were living in California but we have made no contact with him for many years."
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"The Pieniek Roots" by David Joshua Pieniek and David Leon Skop, written in 1982.
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According to "The Pieniek Roots", Baercha was the first to change his last name to Tobias.
1900: According to St Louis census of 1900, he was born in February 1873, immigrated in 1892 and was married in 1897.
1910: According to California census of 1910, he moved to Santa Rosa, California in 1908. (According to this census he had immigrated in 1889.) The census records that he was a shoe salesman.
1920: According to Missouri census of 1920, he was naturalized as an American citizen in 1899. (Birth year and immigration year also slightly vary.) He was a wholesale merchant in leather goods.
1930: By 1930 Ben and Bertha were divorced. Bertha remarried and the 1930 census records the three sons living with Jack B. Kaser, the proprietor of a barber shop and Bertha. The three children are listed as Tobias (and the older boys' occupation is in the shoe business.).
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Interestingly, the Hebrew name on Baercha's grave is "Dov" and not the English name Benjamin. Dov Baer was a common name, which suggests that his given name at birth was Dov Baer and he went by Baer, and then Ben.
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- Uri Ladell
Lester (Eleazer) David and Claire (Stiers) Tobias
Lester David Tobias (b. St. Louis 1900, d. St. Louis 1978)
Claire Stiers Tobias (b. 1903, d. St. Louis 1979)
Lester's Hebrew name was Eliezer David, most probably named after his grandfather, David Eleazer Pieniek. According to his draft card, he was born on May 26, 1900 and was employed as a clerk by his father.
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- Uri Ladell
Milton and Helen (Daniels) Tobias
Milton Tobias (b. Santa Rosa 1907, d. St. Louis 1979)
Helen Daniels Tobias (b. 1906, d. ?)
1930 Enlisted into the Army
1933 Reenlisted into the Army
1935 Reenlisted into the Army
1943 Marriage
Milton Tobias was born on December 17, 1907 in Santa Rosa, California. In 1933 he enlisted into the army, reenlisted in 1933 and again in 1935. He records his occupation as a "clerk" as well as a musician.​
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- Uri Ladell
