The Wyoming love letters of an early Jewish pioneer

by KASTOR, Leo

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Book description: Evanston, Wyoming Territory, 1889-1890. Loose_leaf. Very Good. “He [a friend] thinks I’m meeshugge to write so much and so often.”AMERICANA/JUDAICA. Kastor, Leo. Correspondence of 23 letters. Evanston, Wyoming Territory: August 22, 1889 – January 18, 1890. On Kastor Brothers business stationary with original canceled envelopes.The German immigrant Kastor brothers, Isidore and Leo, arrived in Evanston in the mid 1880’s and soon founded a successful men’s clothing store. While Isidore stayed on to become a leading citizen (he died in 1950 at age 90) his brother Leo followed his heart south to Pine Bluff, Arkansas and into the arms of his 20 year old fiancée Miss Florence Meyer. These letters recount, for Florence, the day to day events of his last five months in Evanston leading up to his departure for marriage.Leo, then about 27, writes from the standpoint of an ordinary pioneer when he describes his accounting responsibilities at I. Kastor & Bro. Clothiers, the lively social dances, poker and whist games, even a trip to the dentist.The overriding theme during these five months though was centered around the turmoil of weddings; both his own and his brother Isie whose future in-laws were treating him “shamefully. The old man always promised him that he would bring the Rabbi (see footnote) here from Salt Lake to marry them and now he said he would perform the ceremony himself or have old man Leavitt do it. Isie told him flatly that he would not have anything of the kind and has sent for the rabbi himself…[he has] asked me to receive the Rabbi and instruct him n regard to the ceremony. I am down on the whole outfit, because they are liars and I am glad that I warned Isie long ago. Against Fannie (see footnote) [the bride], I have nothing to say, but the rest of family I detest.” He writes on the day of the nuptials December 30, 1889 “On Sunday…I went over to [the] depot to receive the Rabbi and such guests as would arrive…Fanny was attired in a gray silk dress and veil and…Isie wore a Prince Albert. They then brought the huppe and four young men held it over the rabbi and the contracting parties. I was one of the 4…and after an impressing speech, he pronounced them man and wife…Fanny was at first a little bit nervous and that was the strangest part of all. When the rabbi told Isie to repeat some Hebrew words, she laughed and I had to bite my tongue in order to keep a sober face as I was standing right in front of her.”On January 2, 1890 he refers to a woman they both know: She done very wrong to marry a Gentile and none of this [kind of] marriages turn out happy. [her father] ought to have shot the villain and there would be no jury around the county to convict him. Ain’t I glad you are a good little Jewess and fast on Yam Kipor…”It can be inferred from the letters, that Leo often wrote several times a day, there being regular trains upon which to deposit the mail. Florence’s responses frequently criss-crossed with his questions and miscommunication resulted in minor squabbles between them. She was very censorious upon learning that he “stayed up all night playing poker till it was after 5 o’clock…we all felt too hungry to go to bed so we had some oysters and cold chicken...I promise you this will never happen again.” She feared he had been drinking.But Leo’s thoughts were ever on his “darling Florence.” His neighbors teased him daily for being so twitterpated and thought him “meshugge to write so much and so often. They all wonder if [it] will be the same after I am married.” He couldn’t bring himself to attend all but the most necessary dances and fun events. “…Grandpa [himself] will not go. He will stay at home and write to his baby because that is more pleasurable to him than all the dances.” She was invoked even as a tonic against pain—“From 9 o’clock this morning until 2 in the afternoon I sat in the dentist’s chair and have one tooth filled. Dr. Calder done a very nice job of it. He made me laugh on several occasions for whenever he would touch the nerve I would scream and all he would say is just think of Miss Meyer and you will not feel any pain.”His thoughts of Florrie became more and more consuming and he grew increasingly agitated over when their own wedding would take place. Two weeks before catching the first of several trains that would take him south he writes “I am restless and nervous and also cranky…I can’t sleep nor eat anymore and am no good in the store anymore.” The last letter, dated January 18, 1890, just six months before Wyoming won her statehood, saw the lovesick Mr. Kastor finally on his journey.Successive correspondence with good pioneer content is quite rare. Such a perceptive view into the daily life of an early Jewish immigrant in the West is truly a treasure.Footnotes:“the Rabbi”: It is likely that the rabbi referred to was the Salt Lake City Reverend Heiman J. Elkin who arrived in Utah in September 1889 having just graduated from the Hebrew Union College that same year. (Watters, Leon L. The Pioneer Jews of Utah. American Jewish Historical Society, 1952)“Fannie”: Fannie Lewis, the daughter of I.N. Lewis, a Jewish clothing merchant and pioneer settler of Wyoming.

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