Fanny Jaffe Sharlip memoirs, 1947

Fanny Jaffe came from a small town in Russia and, in 1889, immigrated to the U.S. After she worked in a clothing factory in Philadelphia, she married Ben Sharlip, the brother of her best friend, and moved to Los Angeles where they opened a small corner grocery.

The collection consists of handwritten notebooks and a typescript of “My Memoirs” that describe her early family life in Russia, interactions between Jews and gentiles, immigration to the U.S., settlement and family life in California, and her reaction to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. The memoir also provides her impressions of radical labor leaders Emma Goldman and Job Harriman and descriptions of her lifelong work in social service and with individuals stricken with tuberculosis.