Biographical Information As no certain old-country documentation of the family have been found, what we know about Dorothy's family and Dorothy herself is pieced together from American records and the Memoir itself.
Overview
Dorothy's parents were listed (in the 1930 U.S. census, and in Dorothy's marriage document) as Julius and Rose Rogin, née Lippin. Based on the memoir frontispiece, their Hebrew names were Judel and Raize (a diminutive of Raizel, “Rose”).
Dorothy was born ~1908 in Wysokie Litewskie. Her Hebrew name was Dvora, diminutive: Dwoirele (as Dororthy writes here). She had two sisters, Miriam and Lillian. According to their 1930 census record, Julius and Rose were both aged 48 (derived Date-Of-Birth: ~1882).
Miriam was 18 (known DOB: 29 September 1911). Lillian was 8 (derived DOB: ~1922). All excepting Lillian are shown as born in Poland.
Julius was a house painter who emigrated to the U.S. well before 1920 at which point his wife and daughters Miriam and Lillian joined him in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. According to the Memoir, Julius returned to Wysokie for a visit at least once.
Miriam died in San Francisco, California, 22 January 1957.
Dorothy's Life
Dorothy's family lived in Cleveland and Dorothy attended Glenville High School, in the largely Jewish Glenville section of Cleveland. During this time she was mentored by Katherine Wick Kelley, an acress and playwright of the famed Cleveland Play House who also headed the drama program at Glenview HIgh School.
Dorothy's Family in 1930 Census
Source: Ancestry.com
At age 21, on 22 October 1928, Dorothy married Henry M. Kraus of Knoxville, Tennessee. As their honeymoon, they went to Paris, spent as much of their time as possible in the Louvre, and returned several years later to the U.S. when they ran short of money.
Upon their return, the two supported labor-union causes in the U.S.. Henry founded and edited a labor publication he titled United Auto Worker. (The name is said to be the inspiration for naming the well-known union, United Auto Workers, the UAW.) They eventually severed their connections with the UAW and pursued other union activities in California. Post-war, Henry may have been blacklisted due to his union activities. Following a stay in New York, they returned to Paris, where Henry found a job as a medical journalist and they revived their common interest in art.
Subsequent to the death of her husband, Dorothy's
eyesight failed. Her surviving sister returned her to Northern California, where she lived in a senior assisted living home until her death.
The couple was childless.
Sources
The most complete information about Dorothy is held by the Walter P. Reuther Library, at Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan. The Reuther Library collection of Dorothy Kraus Papers includes a great deal of information about Dorothy's labor union work, and a poor copy of the manuscript of My Mother Was The Most Beautiful. The library's on-line catalog entry for the Dorothy Kraus Papers includes a downloadable biography of Dorothy and Henry Kraus.
