Simon Marx (1859 - 1933)

Born 23 Oct 1859 in Mertzwiller, Bas-Rhin, France

Ancestors

Husband of Miene Schoenberg (Schönberg) Marx — married 18 Jan 1885 in New York County, New York, United States

Descendants

Died 10 May 1933 at age 73 in Los Angeles, California, United States

Biography

Samuel Marx is Notable.

Father of the Marx brothers. The last name "Marrix" appears to have been a tale invented by his son, Groucho.^[1]

Marx was born in Alsace, France, in 1859. Due to his place of birth he was known as "Frenchie." He met Minnie in New York where he was working as a dance teacher. They married in 1884 and had six sons. Their first son, Manfred, born 1885, died in infancy. The other children were born in 1887, Leonard; 1888, Adolph; 1890, Julius; 1892, Milton and 1901, Herbert. Marx made a cameo appearance in his four sons' film Monkey Business (1931). Sam Marx died on May 10, 1933, in the home of one of his sons, from complications due to renal failure. Sam's body was transferred to Mount Carmel Cemetery in New York. The photo of their graves is on the cemetery site, information that was confirmed by a reporter from Los Angeles, and the General Manager of the cemetery of Mount Carmel in New York.

Marriage certificate (No. 53528) January 18, 1885 in Manhattan (New York) of Samuel MARKS signed with Mini Schoenberg: Reverend Dr. Londsberg, which took place a Sondag. The groom is named Samuel Marks but signed: Simon Marx. 24-year old, a merchant tailor, born in French Alsace. The name of his father, Mark Marks, is indicated as well as the name of his mother, Honne (Hanna). His wife Mine Shonberg 20 years. They live 330 E 85. Mine was born in Rhenish Prussia Lewi Shonberg Fanny whose wife has the same name as her husband, Schonberg. Cookies are Adolph Lefran and Kornelius Zimermann. Samuel does not remember that the first name of her mother.

On the 8th June 1900, the Marx family was living at East 93rd Street, Manhattan. Home at the time were Samuel (40), a merchant, and tailor; his wife, Minnie (36); their children: Pauline* (15); Leo (13); Adolph (12); Julius (10); and Milton (8);and Minnie's mother: Fanny Schönberg.^[2]

On the 25th April 1910, the Marx family were boarders in lodgings on Cabernet Avenue, Chicago. Home at the time were the head of the household: Pennsylvania-born Jennie G Home (41); her nephew: Pennsylvania-born Richard J Lillis (26), an electrician with a telephone company; the Marx's: Samuel (48), a commercial traveller selling cloaks; Minnie (45), an actress on circuit; Adolph/Harpo (21); Julius/Groucho (19); Milton/Gummo (17), all actors on circuit; and the youngest: 9-year-old Herbert (not yet known as Zeppo); and Minnie's sister: 47-year-old Hänne, known at the time as Anna Scheckler, an actress on circuit; and Hänne's (second) husband: German-born Julius E Scheckler (44), also a commercial traveller selling cloaks.^[3]

Research Notes

• * The 1900 census states that Minnie had given birth to five children - and that all five were living. There is no mention of Manfred, but listed as a member of the family is daughter Pauline, born about 1885. According to Pauline's Find a Grave memorial, and other records, Pauline (born 10 Jan 1884 (although an extracted birth record says 23 Mar 1884)) was actually the illegitimate daughter of Minnie's sister Hänne (Hannah / Johanna). The relationship between Pauline and Hänne is stated more clearly in the 1930 census, where Hänne, as Johanna Scheckler, widow, was living with Pauline and her husband and children, and was listed as Simon Muller's mother-in-law.
• The 1910 census correctly states that Minnie had given birth to six children, five of them still living.

   To make keeping track of things even more tricky, if not downright infuriating, a later city census of 1905 confuses all the ages of the Marks children resident at 179 East 93rd Street, listing Milton as nine years old and Julius as eleven, calls the elder Schoenberg Nathen and the head of the household Julius instead of Samuel, and records a younger Marks child after Herbert as `Sam — age three'!

   Not the most diligent search, nor the consulting of seers, mediums or soothsayers has managed to come up with any other trace of this new child. Birth and death certificates have been pored over for the requisite years, to no avail. One must conclude that either the census taker was drunk, or the family listed one of the neighbours' children who happened to have wandered in the apartment, as a prank, or that they were fed up with being asked official questions and took New York City's frazzled Enumerator for a ride. Only the shadowy ghost of a seventh Marx Brother chuckles in the fog of might-have-beens ...

   Samuel Marks, the head of this anarchic family, is listed, in the more reliable 1900 census, under Occupation, Trade or Profession, as `Merch. Taylor'. His birthplace is entered as Germany. The family tradition places his birth in the French province of Alsace (Groucho at one point names the town of Strasbourg), annexed by Germany after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1. Hence his affectionate family nickname of `Frenchy'. The family tale gives him the original name of Matrix, and claims his change to Marx occurred to give him a spurious family relationship to another Samuel Marx, a powerful Tammany Hall politician in New York. Since Samuel was still calling himself Simon in 1890, the year of Julius's birth, it's difficult to make a good fit here, even if one takes the leg in a bit. The Jewish Yiddish cognomen of Shimen, for Simon, might have mutated into `Shmuel', or Samuel. Of the name `Marrix' there is no verifiable trace, and the marriage certificate of Samuel and Mini (sic) names the groom Marks, and lists his father as Mark Marks and his mother as Hanne. (The worthy who entered these names on the certificate had a strange take on the spelling of names in English, as he listed Sanuel(sic)'s place of birth as `Elsas Fransh'.)^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Chapter One; Monkey Business; The Lives and Legends of the Marx Brothers: Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Zeppo With Added Gummo; By SIMON LOUVISH; St. Martin's Press
2. ↑ "United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MSKY-DYD : accessed 8 June 2021), Adolph Marks in household of Samuel Marks, Borough of Manhattan, Election District 1 New York City Ward 32, New York County, New York, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 879, sheet 8B, family 167, NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1972.); FHL microfilm 1,241,120.
3. ↑ "United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MKCQ-JY9 : accessed 8 June 2021), Adolph Marx in household of Jennie G Horne, Chicago Ward 6, Cook, Illinois, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 350, sheet 9A, family 185, NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1982), roll 246; FHL microfilm 1,374,259.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Marx
• http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0555675/
• http://judaisme.sdv.fr/perso/marxbr/geneal.htm French. Shows 3 generations beyond Samuel. Use translate.google.com for English version.
• https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MKCQ-JT1