First Hstd mention 1891 mercantile appraisal. Then 1892 earliest city directory. From Germany.
Arrived 1876. Marriage 1885. 4 children -- only one survived, Regina/Rena, b. 1888 in PA (birth cert?). Separated 1892; divorce 1893. Marcus was prob. gone before RH 1893/March 1894 founding events.) [Can’t find marriage online. Divorce records available?]
Homestead’s first German Jewish family,[1] the Heilbrons, arrived from Philadelphia in early 1891. Fifty-four year-old Marcus came with his much-younger wife Rosa, their two year-old Regina, and some of his grown sons from his first marriage. Having been in the U.S. since 1840 and previously established in business, he opened a dry goods store that was unsurprisingly a couple steps above the other Jewish stores[2]. Not long after they arrived in Homestead, Rosa asked — and he consented — to let her travel to Germany so her parents could meet Regina. She couldn’t forgive him for his treatment of her when she was last pregnant and had grown to resent taking care of him and his sons. Her prolonged absence made the family “the scandal and talk of the neighborhood[3].”