Dora Zaslavsky

Dora Zaslavsky Koch (July 18, 1904 – September 9, 1987)[1] was an American pianist who was one of the first graduates and later a teacher of the Manhattan School of Music.[2]

Dora Zaslavsky Koch

Early life

Zaslavsky was born in Ukraine in 1904, arriving in the port of New York as an infant on February 22, 1905. Her family was Jewish, from the city of Kremenchuk in the oblast of Poltava. Her father Max had immigrated to the United States the previous year. She was traveling with her mother Celia née Fleisher,[3] older siblings Joseph and Fay, and a young cousin. Another brother Israel (also George) was born six years later.[4][5] Other sources give Zaslavsky’s birth year as 1905, but this is incompatible with the ship manifest information.[6]

Marriages

Zaslavsky married New Yorker Herbert S. Schwartz (also Herbert Thomas Schwartz) on September 12, 1927.[7] He was a gifted musician whose mother had hoped he would become a concert pianist, as Zaslavsky’s father had hoped for her. Schwartz, however, chose to pursue a college education rather than continue in music. At the time of their marriage he was beginning his third undergraduate year at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, thinking of becoming a physician. He was accepted into medical school but dropped out after one semester, entering Columbia University the following fall to study philosophy. He wrote his doctoral thesis on the Aristotelian theory of music, graduating in 1933. Zaslavsky and Schwartz were amicably divorced on August 10, 1935,[8] each of them interested in someone else at the time.

It’s not clear just when or where Zaslavsky met her second husband, artist John Koch. He grew up in Ann Arbor, joined the art scene in Paris at age nineteen, and lived there for nearly five years. When he settled in Manhattan in 1934, he already knew Zaslavsky, and was “determined to win her.”[9] They perhaps had met when she and her husband were in Paris during the summer of 1932.[10] Koch stayed first with a friend, then moved to a room next door to the one at 56th & Madison in which Zaslavsky was living with her sister Fay. Koch & Zaslavsky were married on December 23, 1935.[11] Their first apartment was at 865 First Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. The bedroom served as his studio; the living room with piano was her studio.[12]

References
  1. "Dora Zaslavsky Koch Dead; Pianist and Teacher Was 82". The New York Times. September 11, 1987. Retrieved February 19, 2014.
  2. "Virtual Yearbooks: Pre-1940s". Manhattan School of Music. Retrieved February 19, 2014.
  3. "New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829-1940," database, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:24WD-SKV : 20 March 2015), Herbert S. Schwartz and Dora Zaslawskaya, 12 Sep 1927; citing Marriage, Manhattan, New York, New York, United States, New York City Municipal Archives, New York; FHL microfilm 1,653,275.
  4. "United States Census, 1920," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MJB6-YTR : 14 December 2015), Max Zaslaffsky, Manhattan Assembly District 13, New York, New York, United States; citing sheet 11B, NARA microfilm publication T625 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 1,821,208.
  5. "United States Census, 1930", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X42N-TK4 : 8 December 2015), Max Zaslavsky, 1930.
  6. Passenger search for Doba Saslawsky at http://www.libertyellisfoundation.org/ accessed 22 Sep 2016
  7. "New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829-1940," database, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:24WD-SKV : 20 March 2015), Herbert S. Schwartz and Dora Zaslawskaya, 12 Sep 1927; citing Marriage, Manhattan, New York, New York, United States, New York City Municipal Archives, New York; FHL microfilm 1,653,275.
  8. http://www.leagle.com/decision/1960388113OhioApp275_1344
  9. Lopate, Phillip; Sussman, Elisabeth; Thomas, Michael M.; Turner, Grady T.; Weiner, Mina Rieur (2001). John Koch: Painting a New York Life. New-York Historical Society in association with Scala Publishers Ltd. p. 31. ISBN 185759 266 2.
  10. "New York, New York Passenger and Crew Lists, 1909, 1925-1957," database with images, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:24J5-KXS : 2 October 2015), Dora Z Schwartz, 1932; citing Immigration, New York, New York, United States, NARA microfilm publication T715 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).
  11. "New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829-1940," database, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:248X-1SX : accessed 14 March 2016), John Koch and Dora Zaslavsky, 23 Dec 1935; citing Marriage, Manhattan, New York, New York, United States, New York City Municipal Archives, New York; FHL microfilm 1,674,300.
  12. Lopate, Phillip; Sussman, Elisabeth; Thomas, Michael M.; Turner, Grady T.; Weiner, Mina Rieur (2001). John Koch: Painting a New York Life. New-York Historical Society in association with Scala Publishers Ltd. p. 108. ISBN 185759 266 2.
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