1. The Story of Abraham and Lily Kramer.
Abraham Kramer immigrated to Canada from Russia when he was 29-years-old, arriving with his one-year-old daughter Goldie in Two years later, in 1906, Abraham’s wife Lily and son Max arrived. That same year another son, Levi, was born, and two years after that Lily gave birth to Percy, followed by Isaac two years after Percy. In 1911, Lily and Abraham, and their four sons and one daughter, lived at number 7 1/2 Chestnut Street, somewhere near Bay Street and Dundas Street in Toronto. Abraham was a capmaker by trade, and worked in a factory. He had good hours – just 45 work hours per week – and earned a small wage, $600 per year. The family was Jewish, and had emigrated from Russia in the early 1900s. Lily and Abraham could both read and write. Abraham spoke Yiddish and had learned English. Lily also spoke Yiddish, as well as Russian, but had not learned much English. Their children spoke Yiddish and English at home. Judging from the date they emigrated, around 1904, we can infer that the Abraham family may have come to Canada as a result of the increased persecution of Jews in Russia after the end of the Russo-Japanese War, and just before the start of the failed 1905 Russian Revolution. It is very likely that the Kramers emigrated from the Pale of Settlement, in Eastern Europe, where many Jews lived at this time. Abraham and Lily Kramer were ordinary people. As far as we know, they left no diary behind, nor any other records, and we do not know what eventually happened to either of them, or their children. Their youngest child in 1911, Isaac, would be 100 years old if he was alive today. Yet we are able to piece together the story of the Kramer family because, as historians, we know how to use primary and secondary sources.
Chestnut Street, Toronto, 1912.
“Russia”, The Jewish Encyclopedia: Vol. 10. (1905).
Hebrew Publishing Company, 1901.