Pava Rutner Berkovics was my great-great-great aunt. She was a sister of my great-great grandfather Shmuel Moshe Rutner and a daughter of Mendel and Itta (nee Farkas) Rutner. While most of Mendel and Itta's children lived very long lives, Pava's was rather short.
She was married to Aron Berkovics, and they lived in Also-Neresznicze (today's Neresnytsya, Subcarpathian Ukraine). At the age of 19, she gave birth to her son Abraham-Volf.
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| Abraham Volf Berkovics Birth; 1896 |
Pava was 19 years old and Aron was 22 when Abraham-Volf was born in July 1896. Unfortunately he died in childhood at the age of 5--and his birth record notes that his mother had already passed away by that time in July 1901.
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| Abraham Berkovics Death, 1901 |
Aron and Pava did have at least one other child, Brana, born November 30, 1898.
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| Brana Berkovics Birth, 1898 |
Pava died four days after Brana's birth from complications of childbirth at the age of 25. Her death record has her mother's maiden name as Volykovics; Farkas means "Wolf" in Hungarian, and Volykovics is son of Wolf.
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| Pava Rutner Berkovics Death, 1898 |
However, what happened soon after is what is particularly interesting--and touching. Aron, a widower with two children (as Abraham-Volf was still alive at that point), married soon after to a woman named Shaindel (sometimes "Zseni" in documents) Moskovics. Aron and Shaindel's first child was a daughter, Hani, born in 1902. In 1904, another daughter was born. And what did Aron and Shaindel name her?
Pava Berkovics was born on September 4, 1904. (Unfortunately she died just over eight months later.)
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| Pava Berkovics Birth, 1904 |
Pava was quite an uncommon name. So this child was very likely named for her father's late first wife. Have any readers seen this phenomenon in their family? And does anyone know the origin of the name "Pava"? Is it Hungarian? Yiddish? Other?
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In general, naming for the dead wife will be left for her children to do. You didn't say if Brana was alive when the second Pava was named, but if she was, I'd bet that the two wives are related. They may be even if Brana is dead.
ReplyDeleteBrana was alive--I have her marriage record from 1920 to Samuel Adler.
DeleteI've not seen that. But what a sad life Aron had, losing his wife and two children. Times were so hard back then.
ReplyDelete