In Our Words: Josy's Parents and Birth Josephine (Josy) Gloria [Nancy] Feldmark Rabinowitz was born in 1924 in Chicago. She was the daughter of Polish immigrants Jacques Orlofsky Feldmark and Malvina Margolius. She was named for her paternal grandfather, Joseph. Jacques’ father, Joseph, was a widower from Lodz with three young sons. Malvina’s mother, Dina, was a widow from Ozorkow with four surviving children (three others had died within one week from a typhus epidemic in the 1890s). Joseph and Dina married in the early 1900’s, when Jacques and Malvina were young teenagers. In 1909, Jacques began his college education with a year in Germany and one in France. Jacques and Malvina corresponded while he was away, including his sending her a signed photograph, “Thinking of my dearest and most beautiful Mali. Your loving J.F.” In 1911, he returned to Poland where he and Malvina were married; this led to jokes about marrying siblings. They moved to France, where Jacques completed his education in engineering. The informal inclusion of Nancy as one of Josy’s middle names was a reference to the city where her parents had lived in France. With World War 1 spreading through Europe, Jacques and Malvina reluctantly decided to leave France. Emigration to the United States seemed to be their best option, as some of Malvina had family already living in the US. Due to their limited financial resources and Jacques being of military age, they travelled separately and used their funds to first send Malvina to the United States by boat in 1916. Although she had intended to stay with her Aunt Etka in New Jersey, authorities from Ellis Island sent her to Chicago to live with her brother Ben and his wife. Jacques found work as an electrician near the docks so he could plan for his opportunity to sail to America. After a few months, he was able to obtain a job in the engine room of a steamship headed to the USA. Once docked in New York, he took advantage of shore leave to slip away and take a train to meet Malvina in Chicago. Dina and Joseph were living in Germany when the war had ended and were unable to return to their families in Poland. Malvina’s brother Jacob (known as Stashek) married and emigrated to Mexico. Joseph, Jacque’s father, fell ill and died, leaving Dina alone in a foreign country. Malvina and Jacques worked to help support her and were finally able to bring Dina to Chicago in 1923. Dina lived with Josy’s family for the rest of her life. Josy was born in 1924, shortly after Dina arrived in Chicago.