Our good friend David Saltman is tackling on his blog The Houdini File a part of Houdini's history that is vastly under-researched. I'm talking about the years young Ehrich and his family lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. While Houdini himself said of these years "the less said the better," this was a transformative time for Ehrich Weiss, and David had uncovered some information that has never see print before.
Great stuff here John! Thanks for posting the link to this. One can almost write a new Houdini biography on just the information on your blog!
Hats off to David for this information. Thanks to his efforts, Houdini's childhood is beginning to come into focus. Those were hard times for Houdini. Can we blame him for wanting to put it all behind? Don't we do the same thing in our lives?
Yes, that's got a lot of good clues. He goes a little overboard with assumptions about Samuel Weiss's religiousness (makes him "extremely Orthodox," etc.) which are not borne out by the facts (e.g.: he preached in German, not Hebrew). But Weltman was the pioneer in this kind of research.
Great stuff here John! Thanks for posting the link to this. One can almost write a new Houdini biography on just the information on your blog!
ReplyDeleteHats off to David for this information. Thanks to his efforts, Houdini's childhood is beginning to come into focus. Those were hard times for Houdini. Can we blame him for wanting to put it all behind? Don't we do the same thing in our lives?
Thanks for the kind words. Am discovering more gems in Milwaukee and will be publishing them over the next couple of weeks.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to it!
DeleteI'm assuming you have the Manny Weltman book, Houdini Escape into Legend? Some good stuff in there about the Milwaukee years.
Yes, that's got a lot of good clues. He goes a little overboard with assumptions about Samuel Weiss's religiousness (makes him "extremely Orthodox," etc.) which are not borne out by the facts (e.g.: he preached in German, not Hebrew). But Weltman was the pioneer in this kind of research.
ReplyDelete