#1083 Rose Weiss Biography 1885-1974 by Dr. Abraham Lavender 3/26/2007
ROSE SA VETIA WEISS f ~ P
THE "MOTHER OF MIAMI BEAC~" pJ ~/ j
1885-1974 r!.f, 1~_- _~~, -/in1
by Abraham D. Lavender, Ph.D. ()/"""{. ( ~ .n
Abelavender@aoLcom AY
RQse (Rivb) Sayetta was born in the village ofMezericb, R...ia, on October 3, 1885, th: oldest of II", ,,1. ,
four children ofW olf and Hannah Sayetta. Mezerich, only eight miles east of Warsaw, previously had been , ~f 7
part of Poland, and although part ofRus~ia when Rosie was born, was returned to Poland thirty-threeyears '1/'~. _~ 0
after Rosie's birth. According to family history, the Spanish-Jewish Sayetta family left Spain because of the J
Inquisition, went to Turkey in the Ottoman Empire, and at some later point migrated northward into Poland.
Sy the time Rosie was born in 1885, many Jews were leaving Eastern Europe to escape persecution,
esvecially pOgroms, and the poverty caused by occupatiohal-and other severe restrictions. Rosie's father
ill1ll1lgrated to New York in 1890, but, as was common for many immigrants, the remainder of the family
came later after the father had established a base of some sort.
Rosie, six years old, arrived with her mother and her little brother Hymie (Jack) on August 16, 1892.
The mother and the two little children had left the Warsaw area in secret, to escape the pogroms, organized
massacres which occurred in hundreds of villages in Eastern Europe and killed thousands ofJews. Years later
Rosie would tell how they had to leave on a moment's notice, how they carried black bread, herring, and
cheese, and how she lost her shoe but didn't have time to get it back because of the rush to escape. A mend
of Hannah had begged her to let her son go with them to America, so 25-year old Yankel <<Jacob" Edelstein
accompanied them, probably giving Hannah some help with the two young children. They went by wagon
about five hundred miles from near Warsaw to Hamburg, Germany, staying in hospitable homes or rooming
houses. They stayed in a rooming house in Hamburg for a couple of days before leaving on a bark, a sailing
vessel, three-masted, and square-rigged. The bark was the "Astronom:' They went by way of Liverpool,
England, before arriving in New York City. They traveled steerage, sleeping on the floor ofthe ship, and at
times ran short on food. Rose later would write that "...1 never did see the ocean during that two-week long
dank, oderi ferous [sic], disease-inviting, noisy voyage." Later, Rosie's two sisters, Sadie and Bessie, would
be born in New Y orlc.
Rosie was listed in a United States census for the fIrst time in 1900. She was fifteen years old, and
liste.d herself as an artist. Her motl-Ief was a housekeeper, and did not "'lark outside of the house. Perhaps the
family was somewhat better off financially than some other immigrant families where even mothers with
smaii chiidren frequently had to work in garment factories. As immigrants escaping persecution, the few
things they did own had to be left behind. Her father was listed as a brush maker, a trade he had learned in
Mezerich where brushes were a major business. Later, the family would go into the restaurant business. The
family lived in Manhattan, on Cohunbus Street, and along with Wolf, Hannah, Rosie, Hymie, Sadie, and
Bessie, were two cousins, including Abraham B.:mlc. By 1905, in a state census, Rosie, now 20, said that she
was a silks waists, basically sewing clothing, as was conunon for young unmarried inunigrant women. Four
years later, in 1909, Rosie married Jeremiah "Abe" Weiss,' who had been born in Hungary, and had
immigrated to the United States in 1880. Their fIrst child, Malvina, was born in 1910. They would have two
other children: Milton, born in 1913, and Eugene, born in 1917.
In late 1920, Rosie, with her three-year old son Eugene and a cousin, horrifIed her Brooklyn relatives
by going to Miami Beach "with its swamps, alligators, and snakes" to try to recover from her astluna. Rosie
sailed from New York to Jacksonville, and took a train on to Miami. In January 1920, when Miami Beach's
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first census was taken, the young city had only 641 residents, but as Rosie arrived it actually was beginning
to develop into a solid small town. About the time she arrived, the County Causeway leading to Fifth Street,
the first public school, the first church, the first post office, and the new twelve-floor Flamingo Hotel were
opening. The mangroves were rapidly being filled in, few alligators remained, and snakes were being forced
out by humans. Probably the first published reference to Rose Weiss in Miami Beach was on December 10,
1920 when a brevity item in the Miami Metropolis noted that Rose Weiss and her son Eugene of New York,
and Sol Blanck ofBrooldyn, were staying at Brown's Hotel. Anti-Semitism was strong in some parts of the
country in 1920, but Rosie soon illustrated her ecumenical spirit. On Christmas Eve 1920, after being in
Miami Beach only a short time, the local newspaper again mentioned her, this time as participating in the
Christmas party, doing impersonations (Abraham D. Lavender, Mimni Beach in 1920, 2002, p. 83). The
astluna disappeared, Rosie returned briefly to New York, and soon she, her husband Abe, and all three
children were in Miami Beach: They bought an unfmished apartment building at 221 Collins Avenue, and
Rose and the family managed it.
Rose Weiss soon became very active in civic life. In 1921, when the little town formed a Chamber
of Commerce, Rosie recruited sixty of the 300 members, and became the membership chair. Polly Redford,
in Billion-:Dollar Sandbar: A Biography of MUlmi Beach (1970), wrote that "One of the fITSt to join [the
Chamber] was Rose Weiss, a warmhearted extroverted immigrant fromNew York's Lower East Side who
was S()()fi .0 become Mama to all South Beach and, eventually, the whole island" (p. 138). Redford also
writes of Rose's help after the great hurricane of 1926, and for years afterwards: "[she] worked for weeks
with the Red Cross, distributing milk and supplies at South Beach, getting fOQd and blanketsto the negl~ted
Negro shantytowns in Miami. When the storm damage was cleared up, she continued her good works, and
. for the next twenty-five years there were few Beach improvement projects -library, PT A, tree planting, bond
issu~, even Christmas baskets - in which Rose Weiss did not playa part. In time she became a kind of
unofficial mother to South Beach..:' (p. 172).
In _ the 1920s Rose. was instrumental in establishing the public park on Washington Avenue. and
Second Street. Ann Armbruster also writes in The Life and Times ofMkImi Beach (1995) that Flamingo Park
"was dedicated in 1930 after a campaign led by community activist Rose Weiss, known as the seventh
member of the six-member city council" (1995, p. 92). Howard Kleinberg, in Miami Beach (1994), writes
that "as a volunteer, [she] ran the city's Welfare Department until a professional came on board" (p. 86).
Rose's daughter, Malvina Weiss Liebman. noted the Weiss family's role in establishing Jewish religious
services in Miami Beach. By the early 1920s "there were some who would not travel on the Sabbath or
religious holidays. A few men formed a committee to establish a congregation on Miami Beach. The first
meetings were held in the Royal Apartments, owned by Rose and JeremiahW eiss..." In 1924 Malvina Weiss
"organized and taught 'Sunday School classes' in a vacant lot opposite the present Beth Jacob Synagogue.
These classes Were later incorporated into tile religious school of Beth Jacob.... From its inception, the
congregation was the focal point of aU Jewish cuItu.ral and religious activitj on the Beach" (Mal vina Weiss
Liebman, '''Beth Jacob: A Nationa! Monument," The Jewish Historical Society of South Florida, r.....c., 1981,
pp. 2 and 3).
During W odd War II, most of the hotels on Miami Beach were taken over by the United States Army
for training the military. The few generally small hotels available for rental usually would not rent to wives
and children of soldiers who were in training. Redford writes that "when Rose Weiss heard about this she
announced that babies were welcome in her apartments, and soon had her picture in the paper surrounded
by a crowd of young tenants from grammar school down to diaper size" (p. 220). Kleinberg notes that during
World War II "Rose sold more than $5 million in War bonds. The immigrant mother with the asthma
problem who came to Miami Beach in 1920 more than paid back the city for her health" (1994, p. 86).
Kleinberg continues that "Rose Weiss traveled the road of social consciousness....In her span of many
decades in Miami Beach, Rose Weiss came to be known as the Mother of Miami Beach, and, also the' Eighth
Councilman' ofthe city, so frequent was her attendance as a watchdog and advocator at council meetings...it
was her civic work that brought Rose into prominence" (p. 85). Along the way in her decades of commitment
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to the city, Rose Sayetta Weiss also designed the city's flag and originated the city's motto of''Forward With
Caution." Jerry Fisher, who wrote the story of his cousin Carl Fisher (The Pacesetter: The Untold Story of
Carl G. Fisher, 1998) refers to Rose Weiss as a community leader, and mentions the friendship and respect
that Carl fisher and Rosie Weiss shared for almost twenty years, until Carl Fisher's death on July 15, 1939
(p.263). When authors write about Miami Beach, they include Rose Weiss, and always in positive tenns.
Rose died at age eighty-eight on August 6, 1974. In her obituary in the Miami Herald on August 8,
1974, along with a photograph and a large headline ('''Mother ofMi~ Beach', Rose Weiss"), Lee Ann
Schlatter wrote that "Candidates for office in Miami Beach sought her advice over the years." Miami Beach
ma10r Chuck Hall Was quoted as saying "She was like a mother to me and to everyone who knew
her...Anyone who had a problem or needed to know the feeling of the people of Miami Beach went to Rosie
as we called her. She always had her finger on the pulse of the people." Councilman Leonard Weinstein was
quoted as saying "She was undoubtedly one of the great ladies of Miami Beach. She was something of a
matriarch. She Was a leader of innovations in the sChool boar4, and helped see that Miami Beach developed
the way it did." City Attorney Joseph Wanicknoted that she earned the title ofunelectedcouncilmanbecause
"she never missed a meeting...She was always there in the front row, and when ~he8poke up, she got.
attention. We always knew she was speaking in the public interest" It is said that she attended every city
council meeting between 1921 and 1959. . _ . _ .
on June 18, 1975, the City of Miami Beach passed Resolution Number 75-14749renamingthe park
on the northea$t corner of Washington Avenue and Second Street the "Rose. Weiss Park." Noting that she
was a pioneer citizen of the community, the resolution also noted that Rose Weiss had been instrumental in
having the city establish a park at this location.
On Septeniber 25, 1975, in a ceremony with Mayor Harold Rosen giving the welcome, the "Rose
Weiss Park" was dedicated with the plaque saying "Rose Weiss Park is so named in recognition of an
outstanding leader and friend. The contribution she has made to the health, welfare, and well-being of her
fellowcitizens and the years of devoted service to civic and philanthropic causes has earned her the gratitude
of the cotnffiunity." This plaque was stolen in the 1980s.
TOday, on May 26,2007, the nad birthday of Miami Beach, .the Miami Beach Historical Association
is proud to cooperate with the City of Miami Beach in honoring Rose Sayetta Weiss, the UIiofficial "Mother
of Miami Beach."
The Miami Beach Historical Association
www.miamibeachhistorv.org
President Abraham D. Lavender Ph.D.
VP Publicity: Laura Jamieson
VP Progi~iins: Dona Zerno
Treasurer: Judi BerSuii-uvinsou, Ed.D.
Secretary: Liliam Hatfield
Aristotle Ares
Seth Bramson
Representative Luis It. Garcia, Jr.
Carolyn KJepser
June Newbauer
Stuart Reed, Esq.
Special appreciation is expressed to Wolffeld of Miami, Florida, and Bruce Feld, of New York City,
nephews of Rose Sayetta Weiss, for their help on the family's history.
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