ergo, I am simultaneously a Yecht, a Robinson, a Filler, a Schleger, and a Nelson

Dearest Rachel, by Joseph Chandler:

The Filler family, going back to the parents of my great grandfather, and for whom I was named, had, among other children, three sons. At that particular time in history in the last half of the nineteenth century, the Czar of Russia, under which the Filler family lived in a town in Poland/Russia called Kowel, would induct to the army all sons in a family except the oldest. For that reason, two of the three sons were "farmed out" to families without sons and those two took the family names of the families with whom they lived. That is how we have one Filler strain named Robinson and another named Yecht, but the three were true brothers.

I have heard of an alternate "story" about the names which cannot now be verified, but which bears consideration in the scheme of things. That "story" is that the original name was Echt (Yecht) and the name Robinson did not appear until David came to the United States. This does not seem a probable tale since it would then have two of the three sons with the same name, subjecting one to the Czar's draft, a circumstance which did not occur. The name Robinson is alleged to have come about when David came to the United States and wanted his name changed legally. He was before a judge and when asked by the judge what name he wanted, David asked the judge for the judge's name. On finding out it was Robinson he is purported to have said that "If it is good enough for you, it's good enough for me!"

David was quite strong-willed and expected his children to act in a proper and Jewish manner. One story that Irving Robinson related to me was of David’s view of the keeping of the Sabbath. It seems that David’s son, Sam, had taken a job which required him to work on Saturday. David told Sam he could not live in the house and would have to leave if he would work on Saturday. Another aid in understanding the relationships was the custom under Jewish “law” for men whose wives had died to marry unmarried sisters of the deceased wife.

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...Toybe, one of the sisters of the three Filler brothers. We called her Meema Toybe and she was married at age 14 to Michel Schleger. He had been married once before to another sister of the three Filler brothers, Rachel (Rochel), who had burned to death. They lived in the town of L'Katsch. (These names are spelled phonetically and may actually have been spelled differently.) I was told that Rochel and Toybe were half sisters, but I haven't yet determined where the "half" came in.

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You have to know that the families, Filler/Robinson, were large families, especially in the generation starting with the three brothers their immediate offspring, and the "in law" families with whom they became associated. Besides the three original brothers, they had a sister, Malka Simmah, who married a Mordechai Schiff, and their daughter Bessie married Yossef Hirsch Nelson, the son of Malka's sister, Rochel (Michel Schleger's first wife). His mother was one of the Filler/Robinson sisters and she died in a fire. Rochel's child, Rivka, and her entire family of husband and their two children and their families of five and six people, respectively, were killed by the Nazis. One of Rochel's daughters, Chana (Anna), was married to the Rabbi Moshe Rokeach and they have an extensive family in the New York area. A sister of Chana's was named Pesse and she was the matriarch of our cousins, the Cook family. The last sister of the original Filler and Robinson triumvirate was Fayga (Francis is one translation). She married a Nachman Wolf Ca(h)n and became the matriarch of the Cohen family of cousins.