Anna F. Solomon

“We sold everything we possessed except our three children.” – Anna F. Solomon

Anna Freudenthal Solomon.

"We moved to Krushwitz where my father rented a house and started a new business. My parents lost everything they possessed in one year. We left Krushwitz for a very small town, with a very few goods, then I was already nine years old. In one year I learned how to read and write in Krushwitz. I then already helped my parents in the store, but things did not change.

My husband, Isidor Solomon, came on a visit to his home, his parents living in Krushwitz. Our parents on both sides were old friends. We got acquainted and were married two months after our engagement.

The first time I saw my father cry was when I was getting ready to leave home. The wedding was celebrated in a Park Hotel. It was beautiful. My dear mother looked so happy. I never will forget the happy smile on her dear face, but the parting was very sad. When she told me good bye I knew that I would never see her again.

In the year 1876 business was very dull and my husband sold his business to his partner, that is, his part. My father wrote to my husband not to open a business in the east, but to go to New Mexico. We decided to do so.

We sold everything we possessed except our three children, Charles, who was three years old; Eva was two years, and my youngest daughter Rose three months old, and started on our journey to New Mexico. We had a very hard trip even on the railroad, traveling with those three babies was bad enough, but when we reach La Junta, the end of the railroad in those days, and had to travel by stage, packed in like sardines, traveling day and night for six days; Only stopped to change horses and get something to eat, like chile con carne and frijoles. When we got there I was so tired out to death. I forgot to mention that we stopped over in Santa Fe three days then we started for Las Cruces, New Mexico where we had our two brothers Phoebus and Morris.

When we were going to leave Las Cruces we bought a two-seated wagon called a buckboard, and a pair of horses. Into this we put a tent, some bedding, our cooking utensils, our provisions, our clothes, and our children, and ourselves. It took us several days and nights to get here.

But oh, how often I was frightened I was thinking that I saw Indians. I did not expect to get here alive with our children. Just before we reached this place, we heard a dreadful noise that Indians make when they are on the warpath. It was a beautiful night, I remember it as if it was last night. When we were almost home, the Mexicans told us it a was a Coyote, as the Indians make the same peculiar noise.

We arrived here about 12 o'clock at night in August. We slept on the mud floor. My husband woke me up to show me some Indians that were here on passes from San Carlos Reservation. I had never seen an Indian before. Now we had to start housekeeping but we had no furniture, no cooking stove and not anything else that belongs to the comfort of the human race."

Biographical Information

In 1876 Anna Freudenthal Solomon and her husband moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico. Anna's brothers were already settled here, and offered Isador employment, which he refused. Instead he struck out alone and finally located a site suitable for his family, Pueblo Viejo. Two years later, the federal government assigned a post office to the growing settlement and appointed Isador the postmaster of Solomonville, a name that stuck.

Anna worked side by side with her husband. She ran Solomonville's store and the local hotel, all while raising their six children in a refined and cultured home in the midst of the desert southwest. Anna died in San Diego, California, in her late eighties on May 4, 1933.

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How to cite this page

Jewish Women's Archive. "Anna F. Solomon." (Viewed on October 31, 2024) <http://qa.jwa.org/westernpioneers/solomon-anna-f>.