The Reiter Family
The Reiter family came to America from Galicia, a region of today’s Ukraine but Austria in the late 1800s (and sometimes Poland). Mel’nytsya-Podil’s’ka, Borshchivs’ky District, Ternopil Oblast, Ukraine is the village (shtetl) where the Reiter family’s history can be traced at least into the 1700s. It is located seventy miles east of Lvov, a trading center between Austria and Russia. Ternopil is the name of a region, but it is also the name of a city where some of our ancestors lived.
My research begins with Rachmiel Lieb Reiter (1791-1861) who was married to Sara Reiter. Their son, Selig (1813-1883), married Itta Elka (circa 1813-1898). Their son, Fischel/Philip Reiter (1841 Galicia-1921 Toledo, Ohio), was married twice. He was the grandfather of Frances (Fanny) Reiter Levy from his first marriage. He came to America in 1890 and after living in New York City and Cleveland, he settled in Toledo, Ohio where his family would remain for more than a century.
Philip’s first wife, from whom we are descended, was Henie Ruckel Reiter (Annie/Chany) (1840-1880 Galicia). They married in 1864 and had five children[1]; two came to America—Rebecca (Bella/Rivka, 1870 Galicia-late 1940s U.S.)[2] and Louis (1864 Galicia-1930 Toledo, Ohio and father of Frances/Fanny Reiter Levy). Annie/Chany died in childbirth.
Philip married his second wife, Chana Fleischmann Reiter (1851 Ternopil-1939 Cincinnati, Ohio) within a year or two after Annie/Chany’s death. Chana was ten years younger than Philip, and together they had (at least) seven children. With Louis and Rebecca from Philip’s first marriage, they created a large American family in Toledo, Ohio. The Blitzer family, whose close relationship to the Reiters went back to Galicia, expanded the Toledo mishpacha (family).
[1] The five children, in addition to Louis and Rebecca, were Abraham Hersh Reiter (1867-1869), Hinde Reiter (f) (1872-1873), and Rachmiel (m) 1875-1883?). Galicia had a high mortality rate for women and children during the 19th century.
[2] Rebecca Reiter married Herman Schneider in Ternopil and had three children. Her third was born in New York City. Anna Schneider (1889 Galicia-?), Isadore Schneider (1892 Galicia-?), and Morris Schneider (1901 NYC-?). These children were Fanny Reiter Levy’s first cousins. Rebecca and Herman arrived in America on the fifth of July 1899.
Chana, Fischel, and Lena Reiter Toledo, Ohio, circa 1920
Fischel was also called Philip, and three of his grandsons were named after him, including my father, Philip (Bud) Levy. (They each spelled Philip with one L.) According to Jeanne Blitzer Anderman, this indicates how much he was beloved in the Reiter family. Fischel was a skilled tailor, and Chana, Fischel’s second wife, was a “graduated midwife.” (The term, graduated, is an important designation as it signifies her education and licensing and differentiates her from “experienced midwives,” who may have been skilled but lacked formal medical training.)
Leie, Leika, Lena Reiter
Born in Mielnica, 1887. Grew up in Toledo. Daughter of Fischel and Chana Reiter. She married Abraham/Adolph Bleizer/Blitzer (1889-1978), and they had five (?) children, who married spouses with names including Nathanson, Olson, Fingerhut, and Bruckner. Two of Lena’s grandchildren married Italians, Sirota and La Porto. Jeanne Blitzer Andelman (1932-2009), a tireless researcher, is the source of Reiter family genealogy and pictures. Lena was her mother.
Fishel (Philip) Reiter
Born c1840, in Mielnica. Died -1921 in Toledo, Ohio. Even in this picture of him with a white beard, broad brimmed hat, and formal attire, I see a man of good humor ready to smile. In his younger days, his beard was red, interesting to me because the beard I grew in my early twenties was full of red highlights as was the hair on top of my head. It was customary for the subjects of photographs in this era to assume a formal, unsmiling, pose.
Reiters and Blitzers— circa 1926 in Mielnica, Poland/Galicia.
Jeanne Blitzer Andleman wrote:
“In 1994 Julius Reiter (1914-1996), survivor of WW II sent this picture to me. The family, as it was in 1926, celebrating life. The older couple sitting in the middle of the middle row is Fischel’s brother Rachmiel Reiter (long white beard) and his wife Frima.”
(Larry’s note: I wish we had a better copy of the picture.)
The Reiter Family:
Seated: Chana–about 62; Fischel about 73
Standing: Grandchildren Hyman about 21 and Lena about 15—first cousins to Yvette Levy Levin and Bud Levy.
Fischel owned a tailor shop. Chana was a successful “graduated” midwife. Picture (assumed) taken in Toledo, Ohio.
Four Reiter Brothers
According to Jeanne Blitzer Andelman, the above shows four Reiter brothers, three of whom died in the Holocaust. Left to right: Nechemea, Solomon, Julius, and Mendel. Julius would escape to the United States and become a successful clothing designer, living in Ohio. I don’t have any records documenting anything about the other three boys and question whether they are Julius’s brothers. Julius was the son of Chana and Philip Reiter.
THE TAILOR SHOP. Mielnica, Poland (then Galicia) c. 1905
Back Row – Chaim Reiter, (Fischel’s younger son) Dvorah Schneider14 (Flitter), Fishel Reiter,
Lady with curls?, Maid with cake, Herschel Blitzer, mannequin (ladies suit).
Row 2 – Girl sitting?, Lady (pretty) sitting next to Fishel, young girl, tailor?
Row 1 – Lena Reiter, on her eighth or ninth birthday! (Lena would move with her family to Toledo, Ohio. Her daughter was Jeanne Blitzer Andelman, our great family researcher and archivist.)
From Jeanne Blitzer Andelman:
“My maternal grandfather Fischel/Philip Reiter about age 65 (c. 1840-1921) stands in the center of this picture, scissors in hand, primed to cut a pattern for a women’s suit and or coat he would have designed that he and his workers made for the town’s residents and those in the surrounding areas. The picture was taken to celebrate my mother’s birthday (little girl sitting in the chair with a Happy Birthday sign). In the back row a maid holds the birthday cake.
Records going back to the mid-1700s show that the Reiters were early residents in Mielnica and women’s tailoring was their trade. My father, Adolph Blitzer (c. 1889-1978) was a skilled tailor of women’s suits and coats and apprenticed with Fischel. My grandfather, along with Grandmother Chana Fleischmann Reiter and my mother, Lena Reiter, immigrated to Toledo, Ohio in September 1913. Fischel retired at the time, lived for eight more years. In the 1930s Fischel’s older son Julius Reiter, was named best designer of women’s suits and coats in Ohio. During WW II the Armed Forces asked Julius to design a “zipout lining” for their coats, which he did.
I never knew Fischel, but my mother and relatives talked lovingly of him, and a relative, Julius Reiter, survivor of the war, told me he had heard of Fischel and his tailor shop. In fact Julius thought this picture was taken in America and sent to the family in Mielnica to show how successful Fischel was (note the two Singer sewing machines), because during the 1930s, the economy in Mielnica, Poland was so bad, especially for Jews, that Julius’ parents, also tailors, sewed everything by hand.”
Pictures retrieved from: https://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/Suchostaw/sl_mielnica_faces_reiter.htm and Jeanne Blitzer Andelman’s “The Tailor Shop,” a family history.