Finding more Dubrow relatives

Have I told you the story of how I discovered a cousin lived a mile away from me, but we never knew the other existed?

That is how the Dubrow family seems to work. There are so many Dubrow family members wandering this country - perhaps the world - and little by little they are finding their way to each other, often by way of this blog.

Alice Gruber Phinzy is the cousin I discovered this way. She is, it turns out, the granddaughter of Ruth Gruber, who is my grandmother's younger sister. Ruthie and Sylvia are the youngest two children of Benjamin and Rose Dubrow, and the only two born in this country. In a stranger coincidence still, Alice knows my hairdresser - not only that, she nannies for her son! The world is a small place.

I recently got an email from Richard Hume, who informed me that he is the grandson of Jacob Solowey, who is the younger brother of "Rasel Soloway Dubrow" - who I know as Rose Dubrow. The woman who married my great grandfather, who started Dubrow's Cafeteria. As he points out, this makes him my second cousin, once removed, but as his family did not see the Dubrow family much, I never even realized Rose HAD siblings. It never occurred to me.

Finally, I also received an email from a man who reports that Irwin Dubrow (manager of Dubrow's, son of George Dubrow, and grandson of Benjamin) was his father's best friend, and they were close family friends until Irwin's death. I am currently negotiating about whether I can share any of their family's stories here, but suffice to say there is a lot more to be learned about my family's history...

As I have said to many people, and probably here on the blog before, the exciting part about this process is watching the connections unfold. I am reading The People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, which is all about the unfolding of history, layer after layer. That's what this is all about.