The Dorman Family Story
/By Joy Dorman
Wolf Dorman and Lillian Dorman, his wife, our great, great grandparents, came from Lithuania to Kiev, Russia. They had eight children, Bessie and Samuel, both of whom never came to America, Benjamin, our great grandfather who settled in Baltimore, Morris, who went to Meriden, Connecticut, Abraham, New Haven, Ct., Jennie, to England, Eva, New Haven, and Sarah, Meriden, Ct. Sarah tells that in Meriden their next door neighbors were the Ponselle's. Their daughter, Rosa, of operatic fame, was their "shabbos goy" who turned their lights off and on for the Sabbath!
Our great grandparents were Benjamin and Golda Dorman. They too had eight children, Esther, Eva, Rose, Sophie, Morris, Martin, Israel and Sam. Esther became the matriarch of the Pritzker family, Eva, of the Peck family, Rose of the Shapiro family, Sophie, the Koppleman. Morris, the father of Rose and Gerson and a son who died in very early childhood, William, whom we are still searching the archives for, married Sonia or Sadie (?) Grossfeld (?) in 1904, the year he emigrated to America. Sadly, we know little about our grandmother as she died at the age of 29 in a TB sanitarium (Mount Pleasant) on Reisterstown Road on October 16, 1911 when Rose and Gerson were ages 2 and 6 respectively. Israel Dorman, the second to the youngest of the children was a gifted violinist at a very early age and was trained at the Peabody on full scholarship after arriving in America. He was a violinist in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra as was his equally talented brother, Sam. Sam played the cello in the Baltimore Symphony, and although offered the first chair, was too humble and shy to accept it and so played in the "background" of second or third chair. Sadly, Sam died in 1940 at the age of 45. He had never married and left no children. Gerson married Rose Friedman and started and ran the Dorman Electric Company. His business is still thriving today and has always enjoyed a fine reputation.
Grandfather Morris was in the Russian Army. Jewish soldiers seldom returned alive from the Army. This was a known fact. Morris did go home on a "leave." By some means, Benjamin had him declared dead so that he could be smuggled out of Russia with Ben and Martin in 1904. (I, Joy, have a picture of Morris in his Russian uniform.) Ben and his son, Morris were both cabinetmakers and in Baltimore Morris worked as a carpenter at Sparrows Point while trying with great difficulty to raise his two motherless children. It was a sad and difficult life. He was also an inventor and is purported to have invented the newspaper coin vending machine and the snowball machine, but he never had them patented and refused the funding and help offered by business magnate Jacob Epstein. Thus, though we have his inventions' drawings, nothing came of his creative talent.
Great grandfather Benjamin died in 1919 from the flu contracted in the Great Flu Epidemic of 1918. His funeral procession was written up in the Baltimore Sun because it was the longest procession ever seen in the community. He was very respected in the Jewish community as the founder of two synagogues. His wife, Golda, survived him for many years, and died at age 94, although I calculate that she was 87 at the time of her death. Benjamin and Golda had 25 grandchildren.
According to the 1910 census in Baltimore, Maryland, grandfather Morris and grandmother, Sonia or Sadie, both read and wrote and spoke English. Soon after the census, Sonia was confined to the TB sanitarium and remained there from July 1910 to her death in October 1911. Morris never remarried and Gerson and Rose eventually went to live in various relatives' homes.
Israel Dorman remained a bachelor for many years until he met Carrie Notes of Washington, D. C. Their engagement was written about in the Baltimore Sun. Israel was a friend of H. L. Mencken and they met as the "Saturday Night Club" with other well known friends for many years. Much of the correspondence between Mencken and Israel is in the Enoch Pratt Library Mencken Collection. Together they would play music, Israel, the violin and Mencken, the piano. They drank beer and talked. Grandmother Golda lived with Israel for a time and would try to eavesdrop on their meetings that sometimes took place at Israel and Carrie's Eutaw Place home. Our mother, Rose Dorman (Abrams) also has told us of times she would try to listen in to their conversations!
Israel and Carrie had one son, Benjamin, who died in December of 1997 at age 61. Ben married Bunny Schiller and they had five children.
Morris and Sonia's son, Gerson, married Rose Friedman (as stated before) and their two children are Sheryl and Stanley. Rose Dorman, Morris' daughter, married Morris (Honey) Abrams, a D. C. lawyer and they had three daughters, Joy, Gay and Hope.
The Dorman Family saga will continue. Until then, we know the family to be a group of talented, creative individuals. In fact, to add to the musical list of achievements, Rose Dorman was trained in voice at the Peabody by the renowned Elsa Baklor and until she married Morris Abrams, sang in church and temple choirs and at weddings professionally. As more information is obtained, more of this record will be written. Tracing the family back to Russia, we know that their name there was Dorman, and was not changed on their admission to America through Ellis Island.
Joy Shillman June 26, 1998 Baltimore, Maryland