Menachem Mendel Scherper

About a month ago, my Aunt Ethel found an envelope containing papers she had never seen before. In this envelope was Sophie's original Social Security card, yellowed, but otherwise in perfect condition, still attached to the original documentation it came with, letters and receipts from the landsmanshaft they belonged to, the Jewish National Worker's Alliance (an organization that still exists today under the name Ameinu), and some various odds and ends, all relating to Max Scherper's death on 16 Feb 1932. One in particular caught my attention as it appeared to be written in Hebrew or Yiddish. It was a piece of stationery from a Dr. M. Shepard, who I've since discovered was born Meyer Scherper to Avram Getzel Scherper, so a first cousin to Max. Meyer first changed his given name to Myron shortly after arriving here in the US to americanize it, and then when he moved to New Jersey as an adult to start a medical practice changed his last name to Shepard.

Anyway, this note from Dr. Shepard was interesting. It was handwritten in clear, bold, cursive print that gave me the impression that it was important. Unfortunately, I can't read cursive Hebrew very well, and I don't read Yiddish at all, so I had no idea what the note was about. I scanned and emailed it to my friend Marty Shames, the President of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Broward County, who let it slip at our recent Genealogy 101 Workshop that he both speaks and reads Yiddish. Just in time for me to head out to the airport on my way to go cemetery hunting in New York, Marty called to tell me that the note had been written in Hebrew and that Dr. Shepard had lovingly written out a headstone for his first cousin. Sophie must have asked for his help. It was a standard inscription for a headstone with the exception of 3 lines that state, "He loved his land. He loved his people. He loved his books." What a beautiful way to describe Menachem Mendel Scherper. And now we know what to have inscribed on his headstone.