My grandmother, Anna Koerner, originally from Austria, journeyed to the US as a single young woman. At the age of nineteen, she voyaged on the SS Amerika, which left Hamburg, Germany on its maiden voyage October 11, 1905. The ship went through Ellis Island some weeks later. At Ellis Island, she gave her profession as a cook and baker. They said “we need those” and she was let in to the country.
Anna then proceeded to work as a governess and cook for wealthy families in NYC.
One of the families was a famous film producer named Jesse Lasky, who ran the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company with Sam Goldwyn and Cecile B. DeMille. Goldwyn went on to found Goldwyn Pictures (which was acquired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) and Samuel Goldwyn Productions. DeMille went on to be a producer and director of big Hollywood films, such as The Ten Commandments and Samson and Delilah. Those were two films written by Lasky’s son, Jesse L. Lasky Jr, whom Anna would have helped take care of as a child!
In 1916, the Lasky company merged with Adolph Zukor’s Famous Players Film Company and was later renamed Paramount Pictures.
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- Anna's business card for the building she leased to run as a boarding house.
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- Anna's card after marrying Jens Peter Nielsen in 1919.
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- Ice skating in Central Park
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- My grandparents' brownstone at 340 West 30th Street
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- With my father and his twin sister, circa 1926
