By Bob Liftig

In the ‘50s and ‘60s, WASPS watched “Father Knows Best,” Swedes watched “Dagmar,” and Bronx Jews, “The Goldberg Show” — all of these were very cozy-comfy in their “been here forever,” “still have a funny accent,” and “we’re schmaltzy but sweet” Americana.

But as a Connecticut Jew whose New England roots sink back at least to President Garfield (who was shot, but no one in our family did it, I don’t think), I’ve got: a thief and a gambler, a matricidal teenager, a bank robber (failed and jailed), and a “connected” distant cousin in Rhode Island. The others, I’m not allowed to talk about.

Let’s just say that it wasn’t supposed to be this way. Jews were supposed to start out as peddlers and end up owning department stores; begin as mohels and morph into neuro-surgeons; start out renting an upstairs apartment, and end up owning the entire neighborhood. They were all good people, and you could trust your children with any of them because there was always a lot of love in their houses.

“Miss Luftig Loved!”

That was the romantic headline in the Hartford Courant of May 21, 1899, as it laid out our family’s dirty laundry for the entire State of Connecticut. Yes. One of Hartford’s loving Jewish families was having domestic issues. “Bad Bess” was the 15-year-old daughter of Louis Luftig, a watchmaker on Front Street. The Courant notes she was a “pretty Hebrew girl” who “fell in love with an Italian about 18 years old.” Horrors! And she wanted to marry him! But Mr. and Mrs. Luftig put their feet down simultaneously, and “Bad Bess” responded by going Sicilian on them:

“Last week, Mrs. Luftig wanted some tea, and, seeing the te pot full of what she thought was cold water, she placed it on the stove to boil. The pot was full to the brim and the boiling of it as she placed it on the stove spilt some of the liquid through a nozzle and it immediately lit up as it struck the hot surface. This surprised her and she smelled the contents and discovered that the pot contained gasoline. She found that her daughter had purposefully poured the gasoline into the teapot possibly thinking it would poison her parents or perhaps when her mother put it on the stove, it would blow up.”

Oy! What a child!

Mr. and Mrs. Luftig knew there were places for girls like these: The Connecticut Industrial School for Girls in Middletown, for example. So “Bad Bess” was put on a steamboat in Hartford and sent down the Connecticut River. In case the program at Industrial didn’t straighten Bessie out, the Connecticut Valley Hospital for the Insane was also there.

“Bad Bess” stayed at Industrial until she either graduated or escaped. All we know is that afterwards she ran off to Colorado with “Bill the Mormon.”

She was only a distant cousin, and was long gone by the time my brother and I were raised, but her memory lingered: “You’d better shape up or we’ll send you to Middletown!” my mother or father would threaten us. No doubt thousands of other Connecticut children heard the same thing, but in our house, no one was bluffing.

There were more Luftigs looking for trouble – as noted in several other newspaper headlines from the ensuing years.

From the Hartford Courant, Dec. 13, 1908:

Caught in New London! Julius Luftig Brought Here on Theft Charges

“Julius Luftig was arrested yesterday by the New London police at the request of the Hartford officers and was brought here last evening by Detective-Sergeant John H. Henry. Luftig was one of the men caught in the gambling raid on Morgan Street and was released after turning state’s evidence. He is now charged with entering the room of Edward A. Waterman at No. 177 Asylum St. last Saturday and having stolen two stick pins and an overcoat.”

Julius was in “the rackets” – gambling, mostly. He carted a roulette table around with him that could be easily set up in someone’s basement – and just as easily folded up for a quick escape, which he usually bungled.

Today, Julius should be applauded for being a pioneer in the gambling industry, which Connecticut, of course, would eventually legalize and take a cut of the profits.

From the Hartford Courant, August 18, 1920

Met Hubby No 2 on Steamboat

‘Love at First Sight’ Between Divorcee and Julius Luftig

Mrs. Chester Clark Was Once an Actress Appeared at Grand Theatre Premiere-Quickly Divorced in Hartford

From the Hartford Courant, August 27, 1920

Killed Husband to Wed Convict

More Details in Case of Mrs. Van Olden – DePochu-Luftig-Clark

Wanted to Come to Connecticut

Fred Long Serving Term in Wethersfield Was Her Sweetheart!

Julius was the third husband of “Mrs. Chester Clark,” a former Underwood Typewriter employee, actress and serial bride. Phyllis Van Olden was her maiden name (maybe). She married a Mr. DePochu, who died of influenza, or so she claimed. The widow then got hitched to Clark by mail order, but he died of bullet wounds when Phyllis “fired three revolver shots into his body while the two were in bed.” Shortly after that, the Courant reported, she “had a brief matrimonial experience in Hartford”:

“On April 6, 1915, she was married to Julius H. Luftig, who, until recently, was employed as an inspector at the S.K.F. Plant, and on May 18 the same year it was claimed she left her husband’s home and did not return again. On December 6, 1918, Luftig was granted a divorce by Judge Warner in the Superior court, he being represented by Lawyer Jacob Schwalsky.

“According to testimony entered by Lawyer Schwalsky, Luftig entered a Hartford saloon one night and saw his wife and another woman drinking with five men. Mrs. Luftig was intoxicated at the time, her husband declared. He pleaded and begged her to return home with him, but she brusquely and sharply refused to do so. After that time, the couple did not live together again.”

The rest of the Luftig family disowned him, the Courant said, because “she was of a different religion from her husband.” Otherwise, “the woman and Luftig appeared to be very much devoted to each other,” having found “love at first sight” even before Phyllis married the mail-order Clark.

Around this time my branch of the Luftig tree changed the spelling and pronunciation of our name to Liftig, though other Luftigs didn’t — and there were lots of them not in prison. One laundered money for Jimmy Hoffa in a ridiculous business designed not to succeed: he sold shoes door to door, but only left ones. Another was a bookie who pushed over candy stores on weekends.

Then, there is this little gem from yesteryear, told to me by someone who – like everyone else in the tale – should remain anonymous:

“Your distant cousin (name redacted – female) married a Jewish accountant named (redacted) who began working for the (name redacted) Italian crime family just over the border in Little Rhodie. The (name redacted) crime family took a liking to him — he had the criminal gene, and they smelled it – and, as time went on, his (name redacted) children and their family’s (name redacted) children grew up and played together, and some got married to each other.”

I don’t know if this is the same Italian family “Bad Bess” wanted to marry, but the it might explain why long black limousines from Rhode Island showed up at bar mitzvahs.

That family had a good thing going too, and I would have taken a job with them at the drop of a Fedora, except that the state discovered some Native Americans living in Uncasville who had been there for 8,000 years.

Today, there is no (name redacted) Italian crime family anymore, not even an Italian/ Jewish (name redacted) crime family. Our families, like lots of other families, have had to go into the honest professions and pay our taxes because, today, it’s the government that’s running the rackets.

For those who want to read more about Jewish criminals (more successful ones) I would recommend “Tough Jews: Fathers, Sons, and Gangster Dreams” by Rich Cohen.

Dr. Robert A. Liftig is an adjunct professor of ethics at Fairfield University and a freelance writer.  He lives in Westport.

Readers are invited to submit original work on a topic of their choosing to Kolot. Submissions should be sent to judiej@jewishledger.com.

CAP: The Connecticut Industrial School for Girls in Middletown