Bob dylan ‘s footsteps Hibbing Part-1

the town I grew up in is the one
that has left me with my legacy visions
it was not a rich town
my parents were not rich
it was not a poor town
an’ my parents were not poor
it was a dyin’ town
(it was a dyin’ town)
a train line cuts the ground
showin’ where the fathers an’ mothers
of me an’ my friends had picked
up an’ moved from
north Hibbing
t’ south Hibbing.
old north Hibbing . . .
deserted
already dead
with its old stone courthouse
decayin’ in the wind
long abandoned
windows crashed out
the breath of its broken walls
being smothered in clingin’ moss
the old school
where my mother went to
rottin’ shiverin’ but still livin’
standin’ cold an’ lonesome
arms cut off
with even the moon bypassin’ its jagged body
pretendin’ not t’ see
an’ givin’ it its final dignity

Bob’s father, Abe Zimmerman, was the son of Zigman and Anna Zimmerman, Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe. Zigman was born in 1875 in the Black Sea port of Odessa and grew up in desperate times. As the power of Czar Nicholas II faltered, he blamed Jews for the problems besetting the Russian empire, and thousands were murdered by mobs. Anti-Semitic hysteria reachedOdessa in November 1905. Fifty thousand Czarists marched through the streets, screaming “Down with the Jews,” and shot, stabbed, and strangled a thousand to death. In the wake of the massacre Bob’s paternal grandfather fled the country, telling his wife and children he would send for them when he had found a place to settle.

Zigman Zimmerman caught a ship to the United States and found his way to Duluth, one hundred and fifty-one miles north of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Like many émigrés, Zimmerman gravitated to a place similar to the land where he was born. Duluth was a small but bustling port, like Odessa, with an almost Russian climate of short summers and long, bitter winters. Duluth was a fishing port, but its main trade was in the iron ore from the Iron Range, a necklace of mining towns to the northwest. The ore was transported by train to Duluth and transferred to ships that carried it to iron and steel works in Chicago and Pittsburgh. Zimmerman worked as a street peddler, repairing shoes. When he was established he sent for his Russian wife, Anna. She came with three children, Marion, Maurice, and Paul. Three more boys—Jack, Abram (also known as Abe), and Max—were born after the couple was reunited in America.

Abe Zimmerman was born in 1911. By the age of seven, he was selling newspapers and shining shoes to help the family. Although Abe was not tall and wore glasses, he was an athletic boy. He was also a musician, and the Zimmerman children formed a little band. “Abe played violin. I played violin [and] Marion played piano,” says Abe’s brother Jack. “We had pretty good talent and played together at some high schools.” Abe graduated high school in 1929, a few months before the Wall Street stock market crash, and went to work for Standard Oil.

Abe Zimmerman’s favourite singers were Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole.

Bob Dylan’s mother, Beatrice Stone—whom everybody called Beatty, pronounced Bee-tee, with emphasis on the second syllable—was from a prominent Jewish family in the Iron Range town of Hibbing. Her maternal grandparents, Benjamin and Lybba Edelstein, were Lithuanian Jews who had arrived in America with their children in 1902, and came to Hibbing two years later. Her grandfather, known as B. H., operated a string of movie theaters. B. H.’s eldest daughter, Florence, who was born in Lithuania, married Ben Stone, also born in Lithuania, and they ran a clothing store in Hibbing, selling to the families of miners, most of whom were also immigrants. Beatty was born in 1915, the second of Ben and Florence’s four children. Her siblings were named Vernon, Lewis, and Irene [Goldfine]. Like the Zimmermans, the Stones were a musical family and Beatty learned to play the piano.

Although Hibbing was the largest of the Iron Range towns, the population was only ten thousand, and the Jewish community was small. “It was quite difficult for us because there weren’t too many young Jewish people,” says Beatty’s aunt, Ethel Crystal, who was like a sister to Beatty because they were close in age. “So we used to go to Duluth to visit our relatives.” They were in Duluth, at a New Year’s party, when Ethel introduced Beatty to Abe Zimmerman. “He was a doll,” says Ethel Crystal. “Everybody liked him.” Abe was a quiet, almost withdrawn, young man, and Beatty was vivacity itself, but their differences were complementary.

Abe and Beatty married at her mother’s home on June 10, 1934, three days after her nineteenth birthday. Abe was twenty-two at the time. The country was still gripped by the Depression. Sharecroppers from the Midwest were migrating to California. Newspapers reported the desperate crimes of gangsters like Bonnie and Clyde, who were involved in a shoot-out in St. Paul in March. John Dillinger was shot dead in Chicago a couple of weeks after Abe and Beatty honeymooned in the city. It was a strange, hard time, and it would be six years before they could afford to start a family. In the meantime, they lived with Abe’s mother in Duluth.

It took the Second World War, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, to pull America out of the Great Depression. By 1941, Abe had been promoted to management level at Standard Oil, and he and Beatty had enough money to get their own apartment. Beatty was pregnant when they moved to 519 North 3rd Avenue East, a clapboard house with a steeply pitched roof and verandah, built on a hill above Duluth. They rented the two-bedroom top duplex. At five past nine on the evening of May 24, 1941, Beatty gave birth to baby boy at nearby St. Mary’s Hospital. He weighed seven pounds and one ounce. Four days later when the child was registered and circumcised he had a name. In fact, he had two. In Hebrew he was called Shabtai Zisel ben Avraham. In the wider world he would be known as Robert Allen Zimmerman. Robert was the most popular name for boys in the country at the time. Almost immediately he was known as Bob, or Bobby. His mother said he was so beautiful he should have been a girl.

 

1993.35.741.184 Robert Shelton Collection, Experience Music Project permanent collection (Bob Dylan’s American Journey, 1956-1966, 2006)

Although Hibbing was the largest of the Iron Range towns, the population was only ten thousand, and the Jewish community was small. “It was quite difficult for us because there weren’t too many young Jewish people,” says Beatty’s aunt, Ethel Crystal, who was like a sister to Beatty because they were close in age. “So we used to go to Duluth to visit our relatives.” They were in Duluth, at a New Year’s party, when Ethel introduced Beatty to Abe Zimmerman. “He was a doll,” says Ethel Crystal. “Everybody liked him.” Abe was a quiet, almost withdrawn, young man, and Beatty was vivacity itself, but their differences were complementary.

Beatty graduated from Hibbing High School in 1932.

As a local businessman, Abe Zimmerman was active in local organizations, like the Chamber of Commerce, the Rotary, etc., and was known as a gregarious man in town. His speech was slow and deliberate — compared to Beatty’s machine gun style — and he was often seen with a big cigar in his mouth. Abe’s style of dress was generally a bit different than that of the average Ranger, with sport shirts, slacks and sweaters suggesting more of a West Coast image. Dark hair flecked with gray, and strong glasses rounded out Abe’s appearance. His bout with polio had left him with a slight limp and some weakness in his legs. Abe felt Bob should have shown more interest in taking over the family business someday. After all, it was a fairly successful venture. Abe thought that guitar playing was finefor a hobby, but it was a waste of time that wouldn’t pay the bills…

He impressed his peers and adults alike as being intelligent but unsettled. Even his parents concede that they found some of his ways distressing. That is not difficult to understand, for Bobby stems from a middle-class background in which much emphasis is placed on education and conformity and plans for a respectable career.

Bobby didn’t quite fit into that framework and preferred a more bohemian type of life. His parents say he frowns on being called a beatnik, and they don’t like that designation for him either. But he was in fact adopting some of the manners associated with beatniks – or folkniks – in an area where that makes a person stand out like a strange character.

His parents say they “always knew that Bobby had a real streak of talent, but we didn’t know what kind. We just could not corral it.” Now, obviously, he seems to have done it all by himself.

Bob’s father became president of the synagogue and of B’nai Brith (Bundes Bruder, Sons of the Covenant, a Jewish service organization committed to the State of Israel) in Hibbing. He was a member of the Rotary Club and the Minnesota Arrowhead Association. Bob’s mother became president of Hadassah (the Women’s Zionist Organization of America) in Hibbing.

 

In May of 1932 Beatrice Stone graduated from Hibbing High School. She was listed as a member of the Darwin Science Club, Volleyball, and Track. Beatty’s disposition was described as being “debonair” and her pet peeve was “The depression on dates”.

Marie Munter (Johnson) and her daughter, Jean Pryor and her son Dennis and Beatty Zimmerman (Stone) and her son Bob, Hibbing, 1944. Though living in Duluth Beatty had come back to Hibbing to visit her school friends.

Now the fifth daughter on the twelfth night
Told the first father that things weren’t right
My complexion she said is much too white
He said come here and step into the light he says hmm you’re right
Let me tell the second mother this has been done
But the second mother was with the seventh son
And they were both out on Highway 61.

Some Sunday Morning, Accentuate The Positive.

May 12, 1946 – Mother’s Day Celebration – Duluth, MN
He stamped his foot and commanded attention. Bobby said, ‘If everybody in this room will keep quiet, I will sing for my grandmother.”

June 9, 1946 – Aunt Irene’s Wedding Reception – Covenant Club, Duluth, MN
Bob’s first paid performance. An uncle said, proferring a handful of bills, “You’ve got to sing.” He refused. The pleading increased, although the fee remained the same. “So he sang,” his mother said, but not until he had announced: ‘If it’s quiet, I will sing.’” … Everyone was quiet as Bob’s two-song repertoire was repeated. Again the audience cheered, and Bobby walked over to his uncle and took the twenty-five dollars. He approached his mother with his first gate receipts. “Mummy,” he told her, “I’m going to give the money back.” He returned to his uncle and handed him the money. He nearly upstaged the bridal couple.

B.H. Edelstein from Kovno Lithuania had arrived in Hibbing from Superior with his wife, Lybba (1870-1942), and his then six children in 1906. The atmosphere in Kovno Ковно [Russian for Kovne קאָװנע Yiddish for Lithuanian Kaunas], and in Lithuania, that they left is captured in this 1903 New York Times newspaper article.

Lybba’s parents died of starvation in a pogrom in Kurkel [Yiddish for Lithuanian Kurkliai] Lithuania, near Vilkomir ווילקאמיר [Yiddish for Lithuanian Ukmergė], in either 1915 or 1916.

Benjamin David Stone (1882-1945), Bob’s maternal grandfather.

Ben Stone (centre) had a clothing store in Stevenson Location before the Hibbing store. Ben’s brother Ed had a store in Cooley, Minnesota.

“Irene Goldfine, Ben Stone’s youngest daughter, was about five years old when this store burned down according to her. Their home was in the back of the same store building which was common in those days.”

1114 12th Ave East, Hibbing, MN 55746, at the corner with East 11th Street.

This is the main Edelstein house, where B.H. and Lybba Edelstein lived.

The position is remarkable, as near to the edge of the huge open pit mine as anyone would want. The views from the back of the house are presumably spectacular. And who could not find a two storey porch stylish!

“My family settled in Hibbing I think in about ’46 or ’47. My father had polio when I was very young. There was a big epidemic. He lost his job in Duluth and we moved to the Iron Range and moved in with my grandmother Florence and my grandfather. … We slept in the living room of my grandmother’s house for about a year or two, I slept on a roll-away bed, that’s all I remember. … This was not a rich or poor town, everybody had pretty much the same thing and the very wealthy people didn’t live there, they were the ones who owned the mines and they lived thousands of miles away.” — interview with Cameron Crowe, Biograph booklet

— photograph courtesy of Jackie Chambers Rudnick 20120524

Lewis Label Stone (1918-2005), Bob’s uncle. He owned and operated Stone’s Clothing in Hibbing until his retirement in 1967, when he went to work for Mel Sachs at Sachs Brothers Clothing Store.

This is the uncle who had strong opinions on his two nephews’ piano playing: “David, who was a very, very smart boy, took it all in … and he could play better than Bob,” says his uncle, Lewis Stone. “He was very musically inclined.”

Julius Edelstein (1896-1977) in front of the Victory Theater, 1922.

Benjamin Harold Edelstein (1870-1961), a salesman from Kovno Lithuania had arrived in Hibbing from Superior, aged thirty-six, with his wife, Lybba [Libbe] (1870-1942), and his then six children in 1906. Once established in Hibbing, ‘B.H.’ abandoned selling furniture and stoves and entered the entertainment business, purchasing the first of many Edelstein theatres, the Victory. As vaudeville gave way to the flickering of the movie screen, B.H. Edelstein expanded his operations to include the Gopher on Howard, the State, also on Howard, and the Homer on 1st. That a town of just eighteen thousand could support four cinemas in the forties suggests just how central the images conveyed from Hollywood became to postwar middle America.

Aaron and Leah Jaffe
Benjamin (1870-1961) and Lybba (Jaffe) (1870-1942) Edelstein arrived USA 1902
Ben (1883-1952) and Florence (Edelstein) (1892- 1964) Solemovitz / Stone
Beatty (Stone) Zimmerman (1915-2000)

Robert (‘Sabse’) ( -1945) and Bessie Solemovitz Lithuania arrived USA 1898

Stone/Edelstein family

The maternal side of Robert Allen Zimmerman’s family.

Dylan’s mother was born Beatrice R. Stone in 1915, and had an older brother, Vernon. Two younger siblings followed, Lewis and Irene. All born in the US, they were the children of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants Benjamin David Solemovitz (born 1883), who changed Solemovitz to Stone, and his wife Florence Sara né Edelstein, herself one of ten children.

Florence Sara was the Florence who would become Bob Dylan’s grandmother — she and the other nine Edelstein children were in turn the sons and daughters of Benjamin Harold Edelstein (born 1870) and Lybba né Jaffe, from Korno in Lithuania. (Benjamin Harold’s parents were David and Ida Edelstein; Ida’s parents were Yehada Aren and Rachel né Berkovitz. Lybba Jaffe’s parents were Aaron Jaffe and Fannie.) Benjamin Harold and wife Lybba, plus the first four of their ten children, left their village of Vilkomir, Russia, in 1902, on the ship Tunisia, arriving into the US at Sault St. Marie, Michigan, by way of Liverpool, St. John, New Brunswick and Montréal. They arrived on Christmas Eve 1902 and settled with relatives at Superior, Wisconsin, across Lake Superior from Duluth. The four children who came with them were Bob Dylan’s grandmother-to-be, Florence Sara (born 1892), Goldie and Julius (1896) and Rose (1899). In Superior, Wisconsin, came Samuel (1903) and Jennie (1905). Their father moved to Hibbing in 1904, brought the rest along in the second half of 1905 and in Hibbing they had their last four children, Max (1906), Mike (1908), Ethel (1911) and Sylvia (1912). These siblings all duly became Beatty’s maternal aunts and uncles. Their father, in partnership with one of his immigrant brothers, Julius, starting with tent shows, set up a chain of Iron Range movie theatres. In Hibbing they acquired the Garden Theater in 1925, renamed it the Gopher and sold it to another chain in 1928. In the 1940s they built a new Hibbing movie house, naming it the Lybba after Benjamin Harold’s wife. On Beatty’s father’s side of the family were the Stones, previously known as the Solemovitzes, again a family of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants. Her father Benjamin David Stone was one of four children, his siblings being Rosy, Eddy and Ida, all the children of Robert aka Samuel Solemovitz (aka Solomawitch aka Salamovitz) and Bessie né Kaner. Robert, the son of Abraham and Mary Solemovitz, arrived in Superior from Lithuania in 1888 or 1889, and five years later Bessie and the children arrived. In 1906 Ben’s younger sister Ida was murdered by a Scot named John Young, who had wanted to marry her. Within a year, her mother Bessie had died ‘of a broken heart’. Her husband remarried in 1909, to another immigrant from Russia, May Levinson, who had three children of her own, Roy, Bennie and Sam.

That same year—three years after his sister’s murder—Ben, then aged 26, started work in Hibbing. There he met Florence Sara Edelstein; they married in 1911 and set up a store at Stevenson Location, 12 miles west of Hibbing, supplying clothing to iron ore miners’ families; when the mine was used up, they opened their store in downtown Hibbing instead. Florence’s grandparents— Benjamin Harold Edelstein’s parents— were still alive when Florence and Ben’s first three children, were born: Vernon in 1910, Beatty on June 16, 1915 and Lewis in 1918. But Florence’s grandmother, Ida Edelstein, died at 69 in Superior in 1922, the year before Ben and Florence’s youngest child, Irene, arrived. Florence’s grandfather, David Edelstein, died aged 73 in 1924. Beatty married Abe Zimmerman at her mother’s house on June 10, 1934. He was 22; she was six days short of her 19th birthday. Six years and 11 months later, she had her first child, Robert Allen, on May 24, 1941. Her grandmother Lybba died the year after, on September 5, 1942. Five years after Robert came Beatty’s second child, David. Her father, Ben Stone, died in 1952; her grandfather, Benjamin Harold Edelstein, survived till January 24, 1961, dying in the same Duluth hospital Bob had been born in almost 20 years earlier. Beatty’s mother Florence, the grandmother who then lived in the Zimmerman house when Bob and David were growing up — the grandmother much praised in Chronicles Volume One — died in March 1964.

Some years after the boys’ father’s death in 1968, Beatty married again, to a Joseph Rutman of St. Paul, Minnesota. Beatty appeared on stage with Bob Dylan, clapping along to the music during the finale of one of the 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue concerts in Toronto, as shown in the photo on page 40 of the booklet inside the 2-CD set Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue, released in 2002. She died in St.Paul, Minnesota, on January 27, 2000. She was 84. She was survived by her younger brother Lewis, Bob Dylan’s uncle, who died at home in Hibbing at the age of 86 on January 24, 2005. Their youngest sister Irene, now Irene Goldfine, is still alive and living in Arizona.

Gray, Michael. The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia. New York: Continuum, 2006, 0826469337, page 642.

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