◊ Note: The following obituary was found on a single typewritten sheet, among the papers of Shmuel Meyer Shapiro, late editor of the Hebrew Journal of Toronto.
THE LATE MRS. SARAH BLOOM
The late Mrs. Sarah Bloom was born in Warsaw, Poland, in the year 1861, having spent most of her life in New York City, and Toronto. She passed away in Toronto, on Sept.15,1935, at the age of 74.
During the last twenty to twenty-five years of her life, her chief hobby was to bring in refugees from the Old Country. She worked untiringly and enthusiastically in this field, and organized kitchens and supervised meals for those people who had no relatives or homes to go to. Amongst these migrants, she found many eligible bachelors who wished to settle down, so she set out to get suitable girls for them, thus taking the role of matchmaker in her stride.
Having succeeded in this, she then found it necessary to get rooms and furnishings for them. She begged, borrowed and coerced, and from this, that or the other friend and acquaintance, she managed to collect the essentials to start their homes.
Her next step was to get them established in business, and I have in mind the case of a grocer and a butcher who got their footing through her, and who are now each the proprietors of two or three properties on Kensington Ave. Six or seven days a week found her occupied looking after these immigrents, and tending to their needs.
When the Jewish Hospital became the topie of the day, she spent weeks and weeks canvassing for funds, and is credited with collecting over $3,000 on her own. The Old Folks Home was not forgotten, at the same time, and she also collected large sumsof money for them to get started on. She battled all obstacles to get old people, who were helpless and homeless, in to the Old Folks Home, when their children could no longer keep them. She made a haven for a good many old people.
Her reputation as a social worker was known far and wide, from Toronto, to New York, to Europe. In New York City, she did similar work, and had a hand also in a Maternity Society. Whenever there was a shortage of money for any needed cause, she held meetings of her own, with audiences of two to three thousand people at one time. The response to her appeals was wonderful.
As a very active executive of the various societies she belonged to, there wasn’t a week went by that she was not seen scouting around in her little Ford car to load and unload bundles of clothes and other necessities for the immigrants and the poor. This activity kept up until about one month before her death.
To give you an idea of her sympathetic nature, when selling tickets in the box office of her own little theatre, in Toronto, she would often notice a poor mother with a child that was almost barefoot. She accepted the 15¢ admission charge, but would call the mother to the rear of the box office and give her $2.50 for a pair of shoes. There were hundreds of deeds of this nature that she carried out, that have already escaped my memory.
From the Old Folks Home, she received a beautiful gold star of David, as well as a huge silver cup in recognition of her devotion and services; and from the Mt.Sinai Hospital, she was presented with a gold locket, for her wonderful work.
Her funeral was tremendous. The thousands of friends that she made and was loved by, paid their full respects.
by Sam Bloom.
