Identifying Persons in the 1928 Geneva Jewish Farmers Photograph

	Naming Who Was in the Geneva Farmers Photo

On Labor Day, Monday September 3, 1928, this panoramic photo of the families at the Geneva Jewish Farmers picnic was taken. It included about 250 men, women and children.

On Thursday April 7, 2016 three volunteers, children of farm families, tried to identify as many as they could in this 1928 photo. This page gives a taste of how they did that.

Banquet Given in Honor of Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver by the Jewish Farmers of Geneva Ohio Labor Day September 3, 1928
Photo by H. Koss. Image courtesy of the Western Reserve Historical Society

Photo Arnold Berger

Identifying the persons in this historic photo

It was a sunny afternoon on April 7, 2016 when three persons who had grown up in the Northeast Ohio farming community met at Lil Milder's home. Seated at the dining room table they are (left to right) Judith Orkin Rosenthal, Lil Silverman Milder and her brother Sanford (Sam) Silverman z"l.

Mrs. Rosenthal was not yet born in 1928. Her parents, the Orkin family, were the first Geneva Jewish farmers. Lil Milder and Sanford Silverman are in the picnic photo. They are two of the twelve Silverman children.

Judith Rosenthal had arranged the work session at my request. Lil Milder is holding her mounted, unframed full-size (30 inch) print of the photo.

I had come with copies of the left and right of the photo, plus ten letter-size sheets, each with an enlargement of part of the panoramic photo. They were used to mark a letter on a figure, with a legend with the letters used and the names below.

Arnold Berger

See our page with the results of their work.

Sanford Silverman z"l went to school in a two-room Geneva schoolhouse, but graduated from Glenville High School in Cleveland. He was a World War II army veteran, Western Reserve University graduate, Certified Public Accountant, husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather. Sam's diligent research to locate the descendants of the farmer families made the 1990 reunion of farmer families a success. He died on March 4, 2017, looking forward to celebrating his 100th birthday on July 7. His 412 page memoir "Looking back from 1995 to July 7, 1917" is in the Jewish Genealogy Society section of the Fairmount Temple Library.