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According to historical records, about 500,00 people from the Palatinate region emigrated to the United States between 1650 and 1940. Some of the early immigrants settled in the Carolinas, farmers preferred Pennsylvania and grapes growers planted vineyards in California. Others were merchants and sought their fortunes in business centers along the east coast.
One of them was Isidor Straus, born into a Jewish family in the quaint city Otterberg in 1845. In 1854 the family immigrated to the United States, following his father Lazarus, who had left two years earlier.
The Straus family first settled in Columbus, Georgia, and then moved to Talbotton, Georgia. Isidor planned to join the United States Military Academy at West Point when the American Civil War broke out. In 1861 he was elected as officer in a Confederate unit but was not permitted to serve based on his young age and instead was sent to England to secure ships for blockade running. He worked as an aid to a London based Confederate agent and as a salesman in both London and Amsterdam.
In 1871 Isidor met Rosalie Ida Blun, nicknamed Ida, from Worms along the Rhein River and proposed, promising to travel to Germany with her every year. They had seven children together and it is said that they were very close and highly devoted, while Ida also adamantly supported her husband’s career.
After the Civil War the family moved to New York City where his father Lazarus convinced Rowland Hussey Macy, founder of the department store, to allow Straus and his sons to open a crockery department in the basement. Isidor worked there and eventually turned the store into a glass and china department. In 1888, he and his brother Nathan became partners of Macy’s and in 1893 they bought a controlling interest in Wechsel and Straus, which they renamed Abraham and Straus. By 1896 they had gained full ownership of R. H. Macy & Co.
Isidor became politically engaged and served as a U.S. Congressman from 1894 to 1895 as a Democratic representative of New York’s 15th congressional district. He also became president of the Education Alliance and prominent supporter of charitable and education moves and was strongly interested in civil service reform. He declined the office of Postmaster General, offered to him by U.S. President Grover Cleveland.
When a newly formed Mutual Alliance Trust Company was opened in New York in 1902, he became one of the thirteen directors among William Rockefeller and Cornelius Vanderbilt.
Living up to his promise of returning to Germany once a year, Isidor always crossed the Atlantic Ocean on German ships. In 1912 he learned about a new and unsinkable vessel by a British shipping company. Advertising luxury and a quicker passage to New York, he and Ida were immediately inspired and boarded the legendary “RMS Titanic” in South Hampton on their return voyage across the sea.
The ship hit an iceberg on April 14, 1912, and it is reported that Ida refused to leave the ship without Isidor. He, on the other hand, would not get on a lifeboat before all women and children were still aboard. Ida is reported to have said, “I will not be separated from my husband, as we have lived, so will we die, together.” Isidor and Ida were last seen on deck arm in arm, and the scene was described as a most remarkable exhibition of love and devotion, when the “RMS Titanic” sank at 2:20 a.m. that morning. A memorial plaque is mounted at Manhattan’s Macy department store in honor of the valiant couple.
Their great-great granddaughter is known as King Princess, née Mikaela Mullaney Straus, an American singer, songwriter and musician from Brooklyn, New York.
