Thanks to another generous gift by long-term Semester in Detroit friend and U-M Alumnus, Ronald Siegel, Semester in Detroit is thrilled to announce the establishment of the Louis Siegel Memorial Fund. The Fund will be used to provide annual awards to undergraduate students participating in the Semester in Detroit program who were born in a country other than the United States or are the children of those born in a country other than the United States, with a preference for students who are the first in their family to attend college.
Semester in Detroit greatly appreciates the long-standing support from Ron Siegel and the thoughtful inspiration and unique purpose for this new fund which is reflected in his own words:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Louis Siegel was born in 1910. He was the first child born to Harry and Annie Siegel, newly arrived immigrants to America and Detroit. They had fled the Bessarabia Governorate of Russia to escape religious persecution following the Kishinev pogrom of 1903. They came to settle in what was then known as the Jewish Quarter of Detroit, on Watson Street, three houses west of Hastings Street.
Harry earned what he could as a “rag man” collecting rags, paper, cans and bottles and trying to sell them for whatever compensation he could receive. His busiest day of the week was Saturday, when he could bring his wooden pushcart to Eastern Market.
When Louis turned 5, he began to accompany his father on his weekly trips to Eastern Market. On Saturday, August 14, 1915, Louis was climbing on his father’s pushcart, when he lost his balance, and fell into the path of a horse. This spooked the horse, resulting in Louis being kicked in the face by the horse’s hoof. Louis was taken to Children’s Hospital, where he died a short time later.
His death certificate (see below) states that Louis was turned over to Beth David Cemetery for removal. Beth David was then a relatively new cemetery, located at what was then the countryside at Van Dyke and Grinnell Avenue in Detroit. The small cemetery was ultimately renamed B’Nai David Cemetery, and later abandoned when the synagogue that established it ceased to exist. Since 2014, a dedicated group of volunteers have lovingly worked to restore and maintain the cemetery.
There is no evidence that Louis was interred in the cemetery. There is no gravestone or record that he was actually buried there. He rests somewhere in an unmarked grave lost to time, perhaps at the B’Nai David Cemetery.
Filled with grief and shame that they couldn’t afford a burial or headstone, the family rarely mentioned him again.
This gift is being established so that the memory of Louis will not be forgotten.
As a result of the death of Louis, Annie and Harry conceived one more child, the donor’s father, Julius, who was born in October 1916.
