Henry Kahn, my maternal grandfather, was born Chaim Kahan in Sziget, the largest city in Maramaros megye, on June 15, 1869. Chaim was the fourth or fifth of at least nine children born to Dov Berisch Kahan and Dvoyra Zegal.  Dov Berisch, was the son of Yehuda Yaakov Kahana, whose grandfather was Rabbi Yehuda ben Yosef Heller-Kahana, recognized as the first rabbi of Sziget.

Heinrich, as he was then known, was 28 or 29, relatively old for a bridegroom, when he married Lottie Berkovics, in 1898. Lottie, who was 9 years younger than Henry, was from Avas Ujvaros, a small town in the eastern part of Szatmar County, about 50 kilometers southwest of Sziget. When my mother, their oldest surviving daughter, asked Grandma what she remembered about meeting her husband she recalled that he came from "over the mountains" and brought her a pair of red leather boots.

By some accounts, Henry was not a great intellect but a pleasant man and, based on his pictures, good-looking as well.   According to a story my cousin Tony Kahn heard from his father Gordon, Henry and Lottie’s oldest son, Lottie married Henry because he came from “a very important family”.  In fact, the marriage was probably arranged by my great-grandparents and, if Lottie’s mother was as shrewd as some say, she probably considered Chaim Kahan a great catch because he was a member of one of the best known families in Maramarossziget.

Their first child, Dvoyra, named after her paternal grandmother, was born about a year later. She was a beautiful child who had the blond curly hair of her Berkovics relatives rather than the dark features that characterized the Kahan family. She was so pretty that the women would spit and mutter an incantation to ward off the evil eye when they saw her.  That was inadequate protection against the diseases that claimed so many before the advent of vaccinations and antibiotics. Dvoyra died during Pesach in April 1901, a victim of influenza, scarlet fever, or a similar disease..

In May 1901, Lottie and Henry, who then lived in Sziget, had a son, Moshe Gershon, named for Lottie's father. In March 1903 a second son, named Dov Berisch after Henry's father, was born. Later that spring, Henry took Lottie and his two young sons back to Ujvaros and started his journey to New York City. He probably travelled by train to Hamburg where he boarded the SS Pennsylvania.  The ship sailed from Hamburg on June 19, 1903, stopping in Bulogne and Plymouth before arriving at Ellis Island on July 2.