Marks Nathan Jewish Orphans Home
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Marks Nathan Jewish Orphan Home operated from 1906-1948

Marks Nathan Home opened on May 13, 1906 with 29 children on North Woods Street.

They soon realized that they would need a larger facility to meet the need of the community. They moved to a 300 bed facility at 1550 South Albany in the Lawndale community. This facility (shown below) opened on November 17, 1912 with 186 children.

Marks Nathan Home

 

This collection includes records extracted from documents obtained from public and private collections. The search engine contains an index of the individuals mentioned in these documents as well as the entire document (where possible).  The process of collecting these documents is an on-going process. By putting these documents online we hope to provide insights into life in the home to researchers who had family who were residents even if their relative was not specifically mentioned in the document.

 

Oral History Project

This document/project is formally known as: Home Kids, Memories of the Marks Nathan Jewish Orphan Home is a ninety-three page document containing interviews with about twenty alumni of the home with their memories of the home. The entire document is available by clicking on the image of the document below. The individuals who contributed to the document are included in our searchable index which contains the page numbers in the document where they are mentioned. There were a few individuals who contributed under pseudonyms to maintain their privacy. These names have an * at then the end of their assigned name.  The document contains some inconsistencies in the process of recording when individuals were in the home and other items from the interviews. We did our best to enter into our file our “best” guess of the correct information.

To learn more about the project please read the beginning of the document (link from image below).

Home Kids Memories of the Marks Nathan Jewish Orphans Home

NOTE: 93 page PDF 11MB will open in new browser window or tab.

 

Memories of Marks Nathan

Census Data

census form

This collection contains transcripts from the 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940 United States Federal Census. It contains an estimate of the year the individual was born, where they were born, and indicates which census year the record was found. There are over 900 records in this collection. Since children were not admitted until age five and generally left the home before age 18 very few of them appear in more than one census year.  In addition, many children were only in the home for a short period and may not appear in any of the censuses which were only taken every ten years. We are in the process of obtaining other documents (see Marks Nathan Jewish Home Scrapbook collection) to identify additional individuals who lived in the home.
You should note that the census records that name of the individual at the time of the census which would be woman’s maiden names and individual’s original names in cases where names were later changed. Also, sometimes individuals may have been called by nicknames or other forms of their name. For instance, Julia might be called Julie so multiple searches may be appropriate.
We do offer a link to FamilySearch.org if you would like to obtain the original census document.

Future Items

We are in the process of collecting newsletters and other documents that will be added to the collection. If you have any materials please inform us at jjcd@jgsi.org .

 

For more information, go to our FAQ page or email us at jjcd@jgsi.org


If you have a relative who lived in the home and are interested in finding more records, please email us at jjcd@jgsi.org