Esther “Stella” Kutner

1900s

Born around 1902 in Warsaw, the daughter of Lazer Kutner and Golde Ostaszewer, and came to America as a small child, speaking mainly Yiddish.

1910s

Grew up in Brooklyn, on Seigel Street and then Ellery Street, in a growing family.

1920s–1930s

Married Jack Rose in Brooklyn on 19 August 1924. Their daughter Helen was born in 1930 and son Ted in 1931; the family lived in the Bronx and then Brooklyn.

1940s–1950s

Lived at 1625 President Street, Brooklyn, taking her children on outings to country clubs and celebrating Helen's sixteenth birthday at the 400 Restaurant.

1960s–1980s

Lived on Ocean Parkway from 1958, kept a summer home in South Fallsburg, and at some point owned Etcetera Floral on Coney Island Avenue. Still living in 1982.

From Warsaw to Brooklyn

Esther "Stella" Kutner was born in Warsaw around 1902. Her records give years from 1901 to 1905, and one family source gives her birthday as October 12. She was the daughter of Lazer Kutner and Golde Ostaszewer. The family came to America when she was small, around 1907 or 1910 by different accounts, and she arrived speaking mainly Yiddish. In 1910 they were living at 57 Seigel Street in Brooklyn, where her father ran a moving-van business, and by 1915 on Ellery Street.

She grew up in a big household. Her older sister Rose was born in Poland; her brother Benjamin seems to have died young; and younger sisters Rebecca, Pauline, and Sylvia were born in New York; a much younger sister, Helen, arrived in 1925. Rebecca, called Beckie, died at the Jewish Hospital in Brooklyn in 1920 at ten years old. Stella's best friend in her youth was a girl named Shirley Taylor, whose portrait postcard survives among the family's papers. On her marriage certificate she used the name Estelle.

Wife and Mother

On August 19, 1924, Stella married Jack Rose, an engraver, in Brooklyn, most likely at the Kenesseth Israel Beth Jacob synagogue on Blake Avenue. In 1930 they were living on Sheridan Avenue in the Bronx with their newborn daughter, Helen, and their son Ted arrived the next year. By the 1940s Stella and the children were back in Brooklyn, and from at least 1946 the family lived in apartment 4B at 1625 President Street.

The family photographs show a mother who liked an outing. In 1940 she took the children to the High View Country Club and walked the Brooklyn Botanic Garden with Helen. Around 1944 the family celebrated Ted's bar mitzvah at the Old Roumanian on Allen Street. For Helen's sixteenth birthday in February 1946 she took both children to the fashionable 400 Restaurant at Fifth Avenue and 43rd Street, and over Memorial Day weekend in 1952 she and Helen spent a few days at Laurel's Country Club in Monticello, in the Catskills.

Later Years

Stella went into business for herself, owning a flower shop, Etcetera Floral, on Coney Island Avenue. From 1958 she lived at 110 Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn, and she kept a summer home on Echo Lake Road in South Fallsburg, in the Catskills. In 1958 her son Ted sent her a postcard from his travels in Holland. In 1960 she bought a group of graves at Knollwood Park Cemetery for herself and her family; her son Ted was buried at Knollwood Park in 1978, as was her son-in-law Barney Weber in 1980.

She outlived both of them. In January 1982 she and Helen went together to a family bar mitzvah. The date of her death has not been found, but she was buried at Knollwood Park Cemetery in Queens.