3.1.07 - Families are almost always interesting. Our own families are interesting, and often astonishing. Everyone’s is unique. Or so we are prone to think. The source of our Selves, mysteries envelop families, legend arises .
Every anecdote and tidbit of memory enhances, even the most dramatic life stories – because ultimately it is about ourselves, who we are, who we think we are, and whence we came. The larger the family, the greater the saga because the diversity of the human condition is glorified in large families. Similarities, all kinds of similarities abound also, thanks to genetics.
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All this business about “family” came to mind last night when I went down to the Museum of Jewish Heritage on the Battery for a book party (and family reunion) for the Lehman family, one of the great families of New York of the last century.
The book is called “Lots of Lehmans.” It is the collaboration of three Lehman cousins, William Bernhard, June Bingham Birge and John Loeb Jr., in collaboration with Kenneth Libo who put together the copious family memories and recollections from various cousins and created this fascinating document of a family, this branch of which was begun by one Mayer Lehman and his wife Babette Neugass who married in 1858 and settled in a big house in Montgomery, Alabama.
Both Mayer and Babette came from towns in Germany, emigrating to the American South (Alabama and New Orleans). Mayer had come from a prosperous family in Germany but in those days, only the eldest son was invited into the family business (which in this case was cattle). So the younger boys came to the land of opportunity to seek their own fortunes. And they succeeded.
Within a few short years, they turned a traveling peddler business into a merchant store and then cotton brokerage known as Lehman Brothers. There were three boys. Two survived to leave the South as wealthy men, after the collapse of its economy at the end of the Civil War.
Babette and Mayer Lehman had four children (three of whom survived childhood) when they lived in Alabama, and four more when they moved to New York. Around the turn of the century, the Lehman brothers joined forces with the firm of Goldman, Sachs and moved from cotton into the investment banking business. |
The story of the Lehman brothers’ is interesting business history but far more compelling is the story of Mayer and Babette’s development as parents and their resulting offspring, and their offspring, who went out into the world and brought distinction to the family name prominently in the worlds of civic duty, culture, and philanthropy.
The family has grown to more than 600 members and includes a US Secretary of the Treasury, a member of the House of Lords, a member of the House of Commons, the Manhattan district attorney, two ambassadors, two presidents of Temple Emanu-El, a playwright, a world-renowned art collector (the Lehman Wing of the Metropolitan Museum) and a large number of investment bankers, educators, judges, lawyers, a restaurateur, a boostore owner, two heads of major American corporations, a New York State park commissioner and a group of foundation executives.
Last night more than 100 Lehman descendents of Mayer and Babette congregated for the “book party.” Four generations later are Morgenthaus, Loebs, Bronfmans, Bernhards, Altschuls, Lewisohns, Goodharts, Limburgs and many others, all direct descendants of this one couple.
Lessons to bear in mind: “The key to the flourishing of this remarkable family,” according to the history, “lay in its taking full advantage of educational and economic opportunities in the New World that had not existed for Jews in Europe.” There were also the rules for their children: Love Honor and Obey, especially “obey” Papa and Mama. Aha. Lest we forget (if we haven’t already). |
