Houdini
I. Ehrich Weiss, the Child who Became Houdini
Read It and Know It
After reading this chapter, you will know more about
Houdini’s birth: The famous magician was born in Hungary on March 24, 1874.
Houdini’s father: Mayer Samuel Weisz was a rabbi and passed his love of learning on to his son.
The early years: The Weisz family was poor, and their later-famous son ran away to ease their financial burden.
An early interest in performing: In addition to performing for his family as early as nine years old, Houdini learned about magic from his friend Jacob Hyman.
The man who later became known as Houdini was born on March 24, 1874 in Budapest, Hungary. The name given to him at birth was Ehrich Weisz. Ehrich was the third child born to Rabbi Mayer Samuel Weisz and Cecilia Steiner.
Mayer Weisz was a rabbi with several advanced degrees. A scholar and poet, he practiced German Reform Judaism and spoke German and Hebrew in addition to his native language, Hungarian. Mayer had been married once before he married Ehrich’s mother and had a fourteen-year-old son named Herman at the time of his marriage to Cecilia.
Cecilia Steiner was twelve years younger than her husband. She and Mayer had five boys and one girl together: Nathan, William, Ehrich, Theodore, Leopold, and Gladys, each between two and three years apart in age.
When Mayer was forty-seven years old, he came on his own to the United States, seeking a better life for his family. He changed the spelling of his name from Weisz to Weiss. Despite his inability to speak English, Mayer found a job as a rabbi in Appleton, Wisconsin, which had a small Jewish community. After two years, he saved enough money to send for his wife and four young children, including Ehrich. While the position in Appleton had seemed promising, Mayer made very little money at this job. Soon the congregation wanted a rabbi who was more modern and who spoke English. Mayer was fired after only four years. During that time, two more children were born to the family.
Desperate to make a living for his family, Mayer moved the Weisses to Milwaukee, which had a growing Jewish population due to the arrival of families fleeing anti-Semitic violence in Russia. However, the Jewish families in Milwaukee did not practice a strict form of Judaism, and there was no demand for Mayer’s services as a rabbi. Mayer tried to earn money by conducting private religious services and by opening a school, but was unable to provide for his family. The poverty-stricken Weisses moved from one address to another, and Ehrich worked at odd jobs such as shoe-shining and selling newspapers to make money to support the family.
Ehrich’s older half-brother Herman did not live long after the move to Milwaukee. He married (a woman who was not Jewish), and Mayer sent Herman to New York City to get him away from what he felt were bad influences in Milwaukee. Herman died there of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-two.
First Escape and Establishment in New York City
Ehrich ran away from home at the age of twelve, hoping to spare his parents the expense of providing for him and planning to earn money to send home. He left home without a change of clothes or food, and took a train that he believed was headed to Galveston, Texas. The train was actually bound for Kansas City, Missouri. When Ehrich arrived, he followed a rural road to a town called Delavan on the Wisconsin border. A kindly middle-aged couple, the Flitcrofts, gave Ehrich a place to live while he earned a living shining shoes and selling newspapers on the streets. Ehrich was able to send a small amount of money home. Ehrich always remembered Mrs. Flitcroft and gave her expensive gifts later on in his life.
While living in Delavan, Ehrich learned that his father had gone to New York City to seek a better fortune, temporarily leaving his family behind in Milwaukee. Ehrich traveled to New York City to join his father sometime in 1887, when he was merely thirteen years old. He and Mayer lived in a boarding house in the city until the rest of the family came to New York the following year. The family moved into an apartment in a four-story tenement house.
Mayer tried to earn money as a Hebrew teacher and by performing rabbinical services, but was again unable to make a living wage. Mayer sold his collection of Hebrew books to a local rabbi, and some accounts indicate he went to work at a clothing factory. Ehrich also worked at the clothing factory, as well as at various other jobs, including as a messenger-boy for large companies and at a tool-and-die shop. Even though he was technically enrolled at a local Jewish school, Ehrich did not have very much time to attend classes, and the son of educated Rabbi Weiss grew up with little formal education. Later in life, Houdini worked hard to establish himself as an educated man through his literary forays and many efforts to engage with academics.