History of my Great Grandparents Morris & Fannie Knoblock

This memoir was written by Howard Matson,

  My great-grandparents, Morris and Fannie Knoblock, arrived in Passaic at the turn of the twentieth century. They were the patriarch and matriarch of four generations of family members who contributed to the development of the city of Passaic and particularly, the Passaic Jewish community’s institutions.  
          They and their descendants were instrumental in the founding and development of Temple Emanuel of Passaic, the Congregation of Hungarian Hebrew Men, and the Daughters of Miriam Home for the Aged and Beth Israel Hospital.
          Morris was born in Tarnow, a province of Galicia in 1848. He married Fannie Klein, also born in 1848, a native of Hopgard, a province of Hungary.  Both were provinces of the Habsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire.  In June of 1891, their eldest child, Lena, fifteen years old, embarked from Hamburg for the United States to find an apartment for her family in New York City’s lower Eastside.  Her parents and six siblings joined her in August of 1891.
          Morris’ business endeavors led him into several ventures.  The most successful was a cigar factory where he saved enough of a nest egg to relocate his family to Passaic in 1901-1902.  The couple purchased a home at 9 Vreeland Avenue and a commercial building at 97 Monroe Street (at the corner of Hope Avenue) where he opened a saloon.  Shortly after, he bought the adjoining building at 93 Monroe Street.  As the years progressed, the couple invested in income-producing real estate in Passaic.
          In 1913, my great-grandparents purchased a home at 305 Madison Street.  Their family included seven children (a son was born in New York City), eighteen grandchildren and their spouses and seventeen great-grandchildren.
          Practicing Orthodox Judaism, Morris was among a group of men who founded the Congregation of Hungarian Hebrew Men. They erected a synagogue along Dayton Avenue.  Morris was the “kohen” (the priestly class of direct patrilineal descent from the biblical Aaron) of the shul whose responsibility included blessing of the congregation during the Yom Kippur service.  Morris walked the mile each way from his home to the synagogue for daily minyan until he was 94 years old. At that point, he took an additional membership at the Adas Israel synagogue on Tulip Street because it was nearer to his home.
          My great-grandmother, Fannie, was active in the Hungarian shul’s sisterhood and the United Hebrew Ladies Aid Society, a precursor to the Passaic Jewish Community Council.
          The couple summered in Saratoga Springs and wintered in Miami Beach.
          A large celebration was held honoring them in January, 1944 on the occasion of their 70th wedding anniversary.  They were believed to be the oldest married couple in the state.
          Morris and Fannie’s golden years allowed them to be an integral part of Passaic’s Jewish Community. Thanksgiving celebrations and Passover Seders were attended by their extended family and friends in their large home and it was not unusual to have 40 guests in their dining room. In retirement, in his 80’s and 90’s, Grandpa Knoblock attended his daily minyan and spent afternoons on his front porch kibitzing with neighbors as they walked to shop downtown.
          Morris died December 27th, 1945 with Fannie following him six weeks later. 
          Four of their children made their home in Passaic and all emulated their parents’ activities and contributions to Passaic’s Jewish community.
Their eldest son, my grandfather, Phillip J. Knoblock, was born in 1887.  His first job was manufacturing phonograph needles at the Thomas Edison Labs.  In 1907, he enlisted in the United States Navy and sailed around the world when President Theodore Roosevelt commissioned the cruise of "The Great White Fleet.”  Returning in 1909, he traveled west and was a ranger in Yellowstone National Park.  At the onset of the Great War, he enlisted and was a flier in the US Army’s first Air Corp.
          At the conclusion of the WWI, Phillip returned to Passaic. He opened an “open-air” theater on Jefferson Street but it closed due to the influenza epidemic of 1918-1920.  His return to Passaic coincided with the onset of Prohibition.  Grandpa was one of Passaic’s “bootleggers” who counted Passaic’s Public Safety Commissioner, Abe Preiskel, as one of his best customers.  In the mid-1920s, Grandpa formed the New York to Miami Bus Company.  The three day trip bus trip carried passengers from Manhattan’s Hotel Astor to the Dolphin Hotel in Miami.  Passengers were not aware that the primary revenue of the bus company was derived from the transport of liquor loaded under each passenger’s seat!  My grandfather was memorialized in Bob Rosenthal’s book, Bootleggers, Mobsters and my Mom.
          In the late 1920’s, Phillip opened ‘The Brass Rail’ along Route 23 in Mountain View (now Wayne).  Originally, a hotdog road stand, it was expanded yearly and by 1940 it included an indoor restaurant, bar, archery range and cider mill.  It also included a popular roller skating rink.  Later, he owned the Dolphin Restaurant on Prospect Street.
          In 1923, my grandparents built a home at 436 River Road and later in the 1930s relocated to 277 Howard Avenue.  They also had a home in Miami Beach.  Phillip’s wife, Kitty Knoblock, was active in many Passaic organizations and had a wide circle of friends.  She formed a bridge club in 1925 with Mrs. Harry Hecht, Mrs. Ben Krones and Mrs. Jacob Riskin and forty years later (as grandmothers) they were still meeting weekly.  During World War II, a group of women that included my grandmother cooked and served breakfast to departing servicemen. She was a charter member of the Sisterhood of Temple Emanuel and co-chaired the charity bazaars raising funds for the Daughters of Miriam.
          Morris and Fannie’s third daughter was Bertha Knoblock Stein.  She was born in 1882 and married Harry Stein in 1903.  Harry was originally in the retail liquor business with a saloon on Second Street.  When the theater industry was in its infancy, he began opening "nickelodeons”.  He eventually opened a theater in the Dundee section and subsequently the Rialto Theater along Lexington Avenue. Uncle Harry developed the Stein Building which occupied the city block from Henry Street along Main Avenue.  In partnership with Jacob Fabian, they developed the “new" Montauk Theater in 1926.
          The Fabian-Stein partnership was purchased by the Stanley Motion picture conglomerate which later was acquired by Warner Brothers.  These sales and mergers brought great wealth to Bertha and Harry Stein.  Uncle Harry invested these funds in developing and leasing properties in downtown Passaic.  In addition to the Stein Building on Main Avenue (where the Montauk Theater, the Ritz Restaurant and Ballroom and the Hotel Lincoln were located), he owned the Sears Roebuck Building on Madison Street and the Rialto Theater Building on Lexington Avenue.
          Aunt Bertha and Uncle Harry were instrumental in the development of the Beth Israel Hospital.  They were among the founders of Temple Emanuel of Passaic where Harry was President from 1925 until 1936.    Temple Emanuel sustained a fire the day after Yom Kippur in 1939 which destroyed the building.  Harry donated $50,000 ($880,000 in 2018 dollars) to rebuild the Jefferson Street synagogue.  Aunt Bertha was among the original board of directors of the Daughters of Miriam Center.
          By the time of Harry Stein's death in 1952, they were the largest individual income tax payers in Passaic. They built a home at 201 Lexington Avenue and later at 74 Crescent Avenue.
          The fourth Knoblock daughter was Selma who was born in 1885.  She married Max Epstein in 1906.  The couple settled with their children on Hobart Street, a small cul de sac off of Dayton Avenue and later bought the home at 48 Temple Place.  Selma attended beautician school and opened one of Passaic’s first beauty parlors on Main Avenue.  Max was an insurance and mortgage broker.
          Selma’s untimely death, in 1929, at the age of 44 was a stunning blow to her parents and family.
          Morris and Fannie’s fifth daughter, Phillip’s twin sister, was Rose Knoblock Flaster.  In 1913, she married Max Flaster.  Uncle Max was descended from a musical family and his father was a noted musician in Vienna.  Max was a versatile player of many instruments, but, his forte was the clarinet.  His expertise led him to become the lead “E-Flat” clarinetist in the John Philip Sousa orchestra.  He traveled with the group and was pictured in newspapers and magazines in the orchestra’s advertising.  In the early 1920s, with the birth of their three children, Max left the orchestra and opened Passaic’s premier music store and studio. In the 1920’s it was located at 8 Broadway and in the 1930s at 591 Main Avenue.  Uncle Max taught a generation of Passaicites their musical instruments; piano, clarinet and saxophone.
Morris and Fannie’s youngest child was, Joseph Knoblock.  Born in Manhattan in 1893, he was quiet and unassuming, with a dry sense of humor.   This may have stemmed from his Mother’s reaction to a pregnancy in her 45th year! He married Marion in 1921 and they lived at 226 Park Avenue.  Uncle Joe owned the Royal Dress Company for many years and in the 1940’s established Kay Dry Cleaners on Broadway.
          Morris and Fannie and their children were all go-getters of their generation.  The two oldest daughters married and lived in Newark.  As mentioned above, Lena, left Hungary, took a several day train trip to Hamburg and then a three week voyage to America, stepping off the boat alone at the age 15. Gussie, the second oldest, was the first woman in New Jersey to receive a driver’s license.  Family lore relates that she hand-cranked her “Franklin” automobile when driving weekly to Passaic to see her parents and siblings.  Morris and Fannie’s niece, Augusta, came to them from Galicia in 1915 as a 15-year old.  Her aunt and uncle gave her a home and educated her.  She was the first woman to practice electrolysis in New Jersey.
          Growing up with this heritage in Passaic bestowed upon me a strong sense of family and role models to inspire me with the positive lessons of giving back to your community.  This sense of family, combined with my love of history and research led me to take two trips to Poland and to remnants of the former Austro- Hungarian Empire (now part of Slovakia).  Like a needle in a haystack, I discovered a Jewish cemetery located between Tarnow and Krakow where Morris Knoblock’s brother is interred.  Research in an obscure Slovakian archive led me to the birth records of my grandfather and his siblings.  One of the trips included a visit to the family shtetl, Hopgard, now Chmelnica.
The importance of family and maintaining connections was reinforced through daily life.  The Knoblock, Schlenger, Stein, Epstein, Flaster, Weisenfeld, Zucker, and Honig families were all cousins and there was a time when you could not walk down a Passaic street without greeting a relative.  Indeed, it was usual to “doven” with a dozen or more aunts or uncles or cousins at Temple Emanuel services.
          I’m lucky to have this rich heritage and hopefully will bequeath it to my daughter.
 Howard Matson, member, Jewish Historical Society of North Jersey
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Howard Matson was raised in Passaic and in Wayne.  He holds a Bachelors degree from the University of Miami and an MA from New York University.  Living in Westport, Connecticut, Howard is a senior vice-president with a multinational in the financial industry.  The son of Francis P. and Rita Knoblock Matson, he recently privately published a history of the Knoblock Family.  A world traveler, Howard is a past International President of the historic Circumnavigators Club.  He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the organization’s educational foundation granting scholarships.