Finger family mysteries: Bill’s mother(s) and “sisters”

No one in this blog post is as s/he seems…

Prologue:

The book Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman came out in 2012. DC Comics corrected the Batman credit line in 2015. The documentary Batman & Bill came out in 2017.

Yet here I am, in the here and now, still researching Bill Finger. 

In particular his family.

Because there are so many unusual unknowns. 

(To be precise, I am not actively researching. But now that I am perhaps the most prominent living Bill Finger advocate who is not a family member, sometimes research comes to me, and that sends me into the Batcave all over again.)

Below is a consolidation of significant findings I have not yet revealed publicly. Some of it I learned after my book came out. Some of it I learned only weeks ago. But some of it goes back to the beginning of my Bill Finger experience (2006). Between the making of the documentary, other projects, and life itself, I did not make time till now for this long overdue info dump:

BILL’S MOTHERS

In 2013, I received Bill’s short-form birth certificate (i.e. a contemporarily typed version, not a copy of the original), and with it, a stunner. 

It turns out that Bill’s biological mother was not Tessie as I had been told but rather a woman named Rosa. On Bill’s birth certificate, Rosa’s last name is spelled “Rosenblodt” but on her marriage license, it’s clearly “Rosenblatt.”

Louis and Rosa were married by a rabbi (possibly in the rabbi’s apartment) in New York on 11/27/1912, Bill was born in Denver in 1914, and Louis married Tessie Stromberg back in New York on 12/24/1916 (possibly in a more traditional ceremony). 

Therefore, Tessie was Bill’s stepmother. I don’t know when—or if—he learned that. 

Tessie circa 1945; 

I have no photos of Louis

Yet on the marriage certificate for Louis and Tessie, Louis claimed that it was his first marriage. 

Alexandra (Allie) Orton, story producer for Batman & Bill (and a hella beast of a researcher), said “Typically when…a man [did] that, it’s a clue that he [was] a bigamist and he walked out on his first wife. But it is a bit odd considering he seems to take the kid with him. In divorce cases back then, fathers got the children a lot more readily, so that might be it (or he might be widowed), but then why lie?”

The 1913 Denver directory states Louis was a tailor (and still was in the 1930s in the Bronx, when Bill the Boy Wonder starts); Rosa was listed as “Rose.” They lived at 1581 Hooker Street. (Thank you to Meghan O’Sullivan for finding and sending me a scan of this.)

Was Bill born at that address? His birth certificate doesn’t say. (2/9/22 addendum: His long-form birth certificate does: no. He was born in a hospital.) Did Rosa die in childbirth or when Bill was an infant? Or did she and Louis divorce? I don’t know. 

Allie checked for Rosa in Colorado and New York death indexes and cemetery records, but did not pick up her trail. Rosa may have died outside of those states. Allie even tried to determine the synagogue of the rabbi (Joseph Handelman) named on the marriage record. No luck.

I’ve also yet to uncover why Louis lived for that short spell in Denver. It might have been for tuberculosis treatment.

The fact that Rosa was Bill’s biological mom means that Emily, ostensibly born to Louis and Tessie in 1918, was Bill’s half-sister. This implies that Gilda (born circa 1920) is also his half-sister...or another relative, or perhaps even unrelated. (More below on Gilda.)

BILL’S FATHER LOUIS

According to Bill’s birth certificate, when Bill was born in 1914, Louis was 20…but that does not align with Louis’s birth year (1890) as provided on his draft registration cards for both World War I and World War II. 

In other words, in 1914, Louis would’ve been 24 (and therefore older than Rosa, who was 23). But the birth certificate has at least two other typos, so perhaps it’s simply another clerical goof.

Yet another inconsistency: apparently Louis sometimes changed his mind about where he was born. Most sources I have (Rosa/Tessie marriage licenses, naturalization petition, WWI/WWII draft cards, 1920 census, 1940 census) say Austria, but Bill’s birth certificate says Russia (perhaps another typo) and on the 1930 census, Austria is crossed out and Poland written in. Perhaps that has to do with border changes because of the war?

Zoomed in:

And still more weirdness: the 1930 census says Bill was born in New York (correct answer: Denver) and lists Emily first, even though Bill was older. Maybe there’s nothing to read into there, but somehow I think there is.

BILL’S YOUNGER “SISTER” EMILY

In 2007, I heard something that I brushed off at the time because it seemed like a mistake and because I was more focused on a simultaneous discovery, but now I see that it was probably true—and if so, it whispers of even more Finger family secrets. 

The 1930 and 1940 censuses indicate that Louis and Tessie had a daughter named Emily, born in New York. But she was mentioned nowhere else in my research. 

In my quest to figure out what happened to her, I called the New Jersey cemetery where Louis and Tessie (who died about a month apart in 1961) are buried. I was told that the person responsible for tending to their graves was named Emily.

The rub: the cemetery record listed Emily not as their daughter but their niece. 

Second, bigger shock: after a quick search of an online directory, I learned that Emily was still alive.

With immense excitement, I called her. She, however, was the opposite of excited to hear from someone like me. 

2009

She said she did not really remember Bill and could not help. But I did delicately glean a bit from her, and more from her daughter-in-law B and granddaughter T, who went out of their way to try to get Emily to open up:

• T said Emily referred to herself as an only child 
• Emily once told B that she didn’t really have a brother (by which she could’ve meant that they had no relationship…or that they were actually cousins)
• Emily once said that Bill had disappeared off the face of the Earth and she didn’t know if he married or had kids; she had not seen him since before her wedding (and she married young)
• when she last knew Bill, he was still Milton (he changed his name from Milton to Bill sometime between 1933 and 1939, probably closer to ‘39)
• yet Emily said she’d heard Bill was a writer and B remembers Emily saying she was proud of Batman
• I asked if the Finger family had Shabbat dinner when she was growing up and she said something to the effect of “not as a habit”; the family was not religious but did have mezuzahs 
• I asked if Bill moved out after high school and Emily didn’t remember the timeline 
• T thought it sounded like Bill and Emily didn’t live together for long
• when Bill died Emily did not wish him ill, but didn’t go to his funeral (I said that there wasn’t one)

Emily does not appear with Louis and Tessie on the 1920 census—even though she was born in 1918. This seems like further proof that she was their niece (or at least not their biological daughter). If so, I don’t know who her birth parents were or why she moved in with Louis and Tessie.

Further complicating the issue, both the 1930 census and Emily herself said that her mother was born New York...but according to the 1920 census, Tessie was born in Russia.

B later told me that Emily wanted nothing to do with “that side of the family”—which I think means her father’s side. Bill was definitively estranged from his parents, and when Emily told me (in so many words) that she was estranged from Bill, I assumed that there had been a specific rift and Emily had taken her parents’ side. It later occurred to me that perhaps both Bill and Emily had distanced themselves from Louis and Tessie. 

From at least one Finger cousin, I knew the Finger family was fractured...and that now seems like an understatement. 

With her memory vault still mostly sealed, Emily passed away at age 99 in 2018.

BILL’S SECOND YOUNGER “SISTER” GILDA

In 2012, the year Bill the Boy Wonder came out, the 1940 census was released to the public. (Why it takes so long.) 

And it contained another Finger bombshell. Now appearing in the Louis and Tessie household is a second daughter—Gilda. Yet if I’m reading it right, it shows that Gilda had completed four years of high school and was 20 in 1940—so where was she on the 1930 census?

This suggests that Gilda was also not Louis and Tessie’s biological daughter but rather a niece, a boarder (census takers sometimes mislabeled temporary residents as family members), or maybe even the result of an affair that either Louis or Tessie had. One reader of this blog tantalizingly speculated that Gilda could have been a wife of Bill’s before Portia (whom he married in 1943, see below). 

Yet what still seems most likely to me is that Gilda was a niece. Louis had about twelve siblings (I don’t know about Tessie); it is plausible—especially during the Great Depression—that certain kids in the large family could have been forced to change homes. 

Emily graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School in the Bronx in 1937, so I am now checking yearbooks there for Gilda. If I do find proof that Gilda also attended, it almost surely won’t help determine what happened to her after high school…but at least it’ll mean a photo. [5/17/21 update: two contacts at the school checked the yearbooks from 1937 to 1940 and did not find Gilda.]

Speaking of which, here’s Emily’s yearbook entry (with Harry photobombing):

Allie scoured New York for trace of Gilda, but found no marriage records (either with the Finger surname or with a Gilda marrying a Finger), death records, or cemetery records. Gilda also doesn’t appear on any of the other family records.

BILL’S FIRST (KNOWN) MARRIAGE

Bill married Portia (born Ethel) Epstein in New York on 4/24/1943. (Thanks again to Meghan O’Sullivan, in this case for finding and sending me a scans of the bride/groom ledger.)

IN SUM

Mystery lingers with the Fingers. Rosa…Gilda…even Emily. You all remain in the shadows. For now…

Emily Manasch (Bill Finger's younger sister), 1918-2018

This week, I learned that Emily Manasch, Bill Finger’s younger sister, died on 9/27/18, a week shy of her 100th birthday. (Biologically, she was his half-sister.)

In 2006, while researching for Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman, I was stunned to learn that Bill had a sibling (stunned because I’d misinterpreted a statement in a 1941 comic book article). 

Seven months later, I was stunned to learn that she was still alive. 

I was stunned yet again when I found her, then stunned for the fourth time when she explained she and Bill had been estranged since before Batman (so before 1939). 

She declined to answer even the most basic of questions, as did her daughter. (Her son had predeceased her.)

Over the years I tried to earn Emily’s trust in multiple ways, including by speaking pro bono at the schools her daughter-in-law and granddaughter taught at, but she never agreed to talk with me. It is frustrating to think of the knowledge she chose not to share. 

RIP Emily.

Stun #5: in 2012, upon the release of the 1940 census, I learned that Bill had a second younger sister, Gilda. 

I still have not found her…

Bill Finger’s family tree

Here is a family tree for Bill Finger, uncredited co-creator of Batman and star of Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman. Now in convenient list format! (Translation: I don't know how to make a family tree graphic.)

Names in blue were deceased before I started my research.

Names in red are people I spoke with.

Names in black are people I have not found...yet.

• Louis Finger (Bill’s father; born 10/20/1890 in Austria, though one source says Russia and another says Poland; died 2/7/1961 in the Bronx)
• Rosa Rosenblatt (Bill’s biological mother; birth/death currently unknown)
• Tessie Stromberg (Bill’s stepmother; born 12/28/1892 in New York; died 3/28/1961 in the Bronx)
• Milton Finger (changed to “Bill” after high school; born 2/8/1914 in Denver, CO; died 1/18/1974 in Manhattan)
• Emily (Bill’s half-sister or possibly cousin; born 10/3/1918 in New York, died 9/27/2018 in Florida)
• Gilda (Bill’s half-sister or possibly cousin; born circa 1920 in New York)
• Portia Finger (Bill’s first wife; born Ethel Epstein 4/21/1920 in Jersey City, NJ; died 1/2/1990 in Manhattan)
• Irene Flam (Portia’s twin sister; Bill’s sister-in-law; died 1993)
• Judy Flam (Bill’s niece)
• Eric Flam (Bill’s nephew)
• Frederic Finger (commonly called Freddie or Fred; Bill’s only known child; born 12/26/1948 in Manhattan; died 2/15/1992 in Brooklyn)
• Edith (later Lyn) Simmons (Bill’s second wife, 1960s; born 10/30/1922, died 5/2/2018 in New York)
• Bonnie Burrell (Fred’s wife, 1970s; died 2/2/2019 in Massachusetts)
• Charles Shaheen (Fred’s roommate and inheritor of Batman royalties after Fred’s death; died 2002 in Manteo, NC)
• Jesse Maloney (acquaintance of Charles Shaheen’s; after Charles’s death, Jesse claimed to be Fred’s brother and received Batman royalties from 2002-2007)
• Athena Finger (Fred’s only child and Bill’s only known grandchild; born 1976)
• Benjamin Cruz (Athena’s only child; born 2002)

Bill Finger's sister is not in my book, part 2 of 2

Part 1.

The story so far: I was searching for Emily, the only sister/sibling of Bill Finger, uncredited co-creator of Batman; since she was born in 1918 and I knew only her maiden name, I was not confident I would find her. After spending hours futilely looking through vital records in the New York Public Library, I made two lists.

reasons why Bill's sister may not be in NYC Birth Indexes:

• she was not born in NYC, although that seems unlikely
• her paperwork got lost in the influenza epidemic of 1918
• her family didn’t file her birth (could she have been born at home?)
• she was born under another name (i.e. to a family member or friend, and the Fingers immediately adopted her?)
• “Emily” was actually her middle name or nickname
• she was not who I thought she was

reasons why Bill's sister may not be in NYC Death Indexes:

• she is, but under a married (or otherwise changed) name I don’t know
• her death went unreported
• she died after 1982
• she died outside NYC
• she isn’t dead

In other words, all I confirmed is that no one with the name “Emily Finger” died in NYC between 1930-1982.

Eventually I realized another way I could use death to determine if Emily was alive. The New York City Death Index revealed that Bill and Emily’s parents had died within six weeks of each other in 1961, but did not name not their final resting place. I’d been assuming that the Jewish cemeteries of the Bronx would be too numerous to check. Then I learned that most Bronx Jews were buried in one of two cemeteries in New Jersey. I called the first and asked if these particular Fingers were there.

They were.

I asked who was maintaining the graves.

Some cemeteries won’t give out a name. But this one did.

It was Emily.

Luckily, her married name was unusual, and I quickly found her listing online. I called, possibly more nervous than the first time I called a girl my own age. She answered. And like that, I was connected to Bill’s closest living relative and the person who went back the furthest with him.

However, my excitement was short-lived. After all my efforts to track her down, she declined to answer most of my questions. She wouldn’t tell me why but did say that she and Bill had been estranged since even before Batman began. She barely even knew of his role in Batman, nor did she seem to care. She was tired and apologized that she had virtually nothing to contribute. Bill was estranged from his parents, too. They had pressured him to be a doctor, which didn't interest him. When he became a comics writer, they apparently would wait outside the office on payday and make Bill hand over his checks for the family. For these reasons, and possibly others, I imagine Bill developed resentment toward his mom and dad. I suspect this was the cause of the estrangement between them, and that Emily sided with their parents.

Close as I came, I ultimately had to accept that a significant part of Bill Finger, his sister Emily and her memories, will have to remain a mystery. I just couldn’t sway her.

But I did find her.

1937

2009

7/9/12 addendum: Because of the way the earliest biographical sketch of Bill Finger was worded, I originally thought Bill was an only child. Then I learned he had a younger sister. Then via the 1940 census, which was made public in April 2012, I learned Bill had a second younger sister...Gilda, born about 1930.

Bill Finger's sister is not in my book, part 1 of 2

Bill Finger, uncredited co-creator of Batman, had a sister born in 1918 (four years after him).

She and Bill had been estranged since the late 1930s for reasons no one alive but her seem to know—and she’s not talking. Bill never mentioned her publicly and apparently, never privately either; even his second wife did not know he had a sister. As of this writing, she is still alive.

At one point, the story of how I found her was going to be in Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman. However, with so many good stories to include, some good ones had to be cut, and hers was one.

So here it is—and expanded far beyond what I would’ve had space for in print:

No comics historians I talked to during my research knew that toward the end of Bill’s life, he had married a second time. As these things so often go, I stumbled upon ES (to protect privacy) without knowing that I should be looking for her. The moment was jubilant and became one of the first “behind-the-scenes” research stories I posted on this blog. But what made it pivotal was a casual comment ES made about Bill, something else no comics historians knew: his actual first name. (Hint: It was not Bill.)

A short biographical sketch of Bill ran in Green Lantern #1, in 1941. (Bill co-created him, too.) In the bio, Bill is referred to as an “only son.” This clouded my thinking for a while, but then it hit me like a gloved sock to the jaw: “only son” does not automatically mean “only child.”

Bill’s given name and the “only son” recalibration collided in my mind, catapulting me several months back to when I had struck out trying to find his family in census records.

Armed with my new knowledge, I revisited a particular census record and confirmed that I only thought I had struck out. That record indeed listed the right Fingers: Bill (but under his given name, which I’d learned only after first seeing the record), his parents (whose names I hadn’t known previously)…and his younger sister/lone sibling, Emily.

I figured Emily would be either deceased or close to impossible to find because she’d almost certainly have a married name. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t look for her. There would be things about Bill that only she would know.

Emily was born in 1918, most likely in New York. In 2006, attempting to find her middle name with the hope that it would narrow the search, I went through the New York City Birth Indexes of 1918-1920. A reference librarian told me that it was rare for someone not to appear in the index. Yet I found no Emily there.

I also spent hours combing through the New York Death Index (from 1930 to 1982) and obituaries of girls with her first name born in 1918, hoping to come across one whose maiden name was Finger, or one whose parents’ names matched the names of Bill’s parents, or even just one born in the Bronx. I found none of the above.

So I made two lists.

Part 2.

Bill Finger’s parents

Bill Finger, uncredited co-creator of Batman, gave few interviews. (It’s not that he wasn’t willing; it’s that he wasn’t asked.) And he mentioned his parents Louis and Tessie * precisely zero times.

Tessie circa 1945; I have no photos of Louis

What little is publicly known about Bill’s parents comes from two sources: a sketchy biographical sketch from 1941 (sketchy in that it brazenly whitewashes Bill’s involvement on any level with Batman) and Alvin Schwartz, a celebrated DC Comics writer and old friend of Bill’s who passed away 10/28/11.

From talking to Finger family and to FOB (Friends of Bill) who’d not been interviewed before, I learned that Bill and his parents had been estranged for most of Bill’s adult life.

Bill had also become estranged from his only sibling ** sometime before her wedding—and also, I think, before Batman (1939).

In Alter Ego #98 (12/10), Schwartz is quoted as saying, “[Bill] married Portia because he had to get away from home. He couldn’t stand his parents nagging, the fact that they would show up every payday and take his check.”

[Perhaps this aligns with the comment from that bio in Green Lantern #1 about Bill’s parents wanting him to be a doctor.]

In Schwartz’s 11/8/99 “After the Golden Age” column at World Famous Comics, he speculated that Bill’s dislike of his parents influenced the origin of Batman—namely, that Bruce Wayne’s parents were murdered. That is heavy stuff and I hope it wasn’t the case.

Whatever the full story behind the rift, I suspect Bill’s sister sided with her parents; when I tried to find out what had happened between Bill and her, she wouldn’t say, even though this is going back seventy years and even though Bill has been gone for half of them.

** 7/9/12 addendum: Because of the way the earliest biographical sketch of Bill Finger was worded, I originally thought Bill was an only child. Then I learned he had a younger sister. Then via the 1940 census, which was made public in April 2012, I learned Bill apparently had a second younger sister...Gilda, born about 1920.

7/12/15 addendum: Louis was born 10/20/1890. His birth country is, well, take your pick. On two marriage licenses (Rosa, Tessie) and two draft cards (WWI, WWII): Austria. On Bill’s short-form birth certificate: Russia. On 1930 census: Austria is crossed out and Poland written in. Tessie was born 12/28/1892 in New York. Louis died 2/7/61 and Tessie just over a month later, on 3/28/61, both in the Bronx.

* 5/30/20 addendum (based on information I learned in 2013): It turns out Bill’s biological mother was not Tessie but rather Rosa Rosenblatt. She and Louis married in New York in 1912, Bill was born (in Denver, for reasons as-yet unconfirmed) in 1914, and Louis married Tessie in New York in 1916; I have not found out what happened to Rosa. Therefore, Emily, born to Louis and Tessie in 1918, was Bill’s half-sister. This implies that Gilda (again, born circa 1920) is also his half-sister...or another relative, or perhaps even unrelated. 

Finger Tip #10: The most startling Finger

A short biographical sketch of Bill Finger appears in Green Lantern #1 (1941). In it, Bill is referred to as an “only son.” This colored my thinking for a while, but then I realized that “only son” does not automatically mean “only child.”

Turns out Bill had a sister, younger than him, born in 1918.Bill was born in Colorado but his sister (if I had the timeline correct) would’ve been born in New York. Yet searching in 2006, I found no record of her in the New York City Birth Indexes of 1918-1920. A reference librarian told me that it was rare for someone not to appear in the index.

So I made a list.

reasons why Bill's sister may not be in NYC Birth Indexes:

• she was not born in NYC, although that seems unlikely
• her paperwork got lost in the influenza epidemic of 1918
• her family didn’t file her birth (could she have been born at home?)
• she was born under another name (i.e. to a family member or friend, and the Fingers immediately adopted her?)
• the name I had for her was actually her middle name or nickname
• she was not who I thought she was

Then I checked the Death Indexes from 1930 to 1982. (I didn’t note why I stopped with 1982.) She didn’t appear in any of those, either.

reasons why Bill's sister may not be in NYC Death Indexes:

• she is, but under a married (or otherwise changed) name I don’t know
• her death went unreported
• she died after 1982
• she died outside NYC
• she isn’t dead

In other words, all I confirmed is that no one with the name of Bill’s sister died in NYC between 1930-1982.

But then, half a year later, through totally different circumstances, and to my own great surprise, I tracked her down.

And she was alive.

I noted at the time that there were “probably no other people I could find that I would be as excited about.” Yet that had less to do with what she told me than with how I found her.

I can’t yet say how I learned of her, how I found her, or what she told me. As we get closer to the July 2012 publication of the book, I will share the story.

In the meantime, what I can say is that she was, in one sense, my biggest find in that she was the still-living person who knew Bill the earliest.

7/9/12 addendum: Because of the way the earliest biographical sketch of Bill Finger was worded, I originally thought Bill was an only child. Then I learned he had a younger sister. Then via the 1940 census, which was made public in April 2012, I learned Bill had a second younger sister...Gilda, born about 1930.

Rebuilding Bill Finger

Let's take a side trip from Cleveland to the Bronx, from Metropolis to Gotham.

Even before I sold Boys of Steel, I knew what I wanted to write about next: Batman. More precisely, the creation of Batman. Even more precisely, the co-creator of Batman whose name is not on every Batman story.

Bill Finger.

Fragments of his story have been told, notably in Men of Tomorrow. But like the hero he molded, so much about Bill remains unprinted: his upbringing, his personal life, the truth about his death, the family he left behind. He died in 1974, too soon to see fandom unite in his honor and demand what they feel is justice: a co-creator credit—or at least more than he's currently getting. (The realities of that will be the topic of future posts.)

I talked to or e-mailed with more than 200 people during an intensive year of research; I've got the Palm entries to prove it. Many of them knew Bill personally. Some, such as Bill's old friend and champion Arnold Drake, have since passed away.

I staked out his former residences, scrolled through decades of New York Times obituaries and microfiched phone books, cold-called every Finger in Florida.

In a series of increasingly more exciting moments, I found the Bill Finger no fan has yet discovered.

I found the one time Bill was quoted in The New Yorker.

I found his only known handwritten note, including signature (more revealing than the 1963 promise to Julius Schwartz that he would not ask for advance checks).

And I found the family no writers before me had talked to, let alone known about. Not first cousins—though I did find two of those, and incredibly nice ones at that—but rather intimates:

• His longtime writing partner and friend and class A gentleman Charles Sinclair.
• His heretofore unmentioned second wife.
• His sister—who was still alive at age 88 when I found her a year ago this week.
• His only granddaughter, who is a few years younger than I am.

If you know anything about Bill's immediate family, this last one will make no sense to you. Yet.

This is my plan: as we get close to the August publication of Boys of Steel, I will begin to reveal these never-before-heard stories about the first son of Gotham, Bill Finger.

You've probably seen the only two photographs of him that are perpetually recycled (these scans from Batman: The Complete History and DC Comics: A Celebration of the World's Favorite Comic Book Heroes, respectively):

© DC Comics

There's a third, a grainy photo of him from Green Lantern #1 (1940), but that's rarely seen.

More than a couple comics historians told me with authority that those are the only Finger photos in existence. What they meant is those are the only known Finger photos in existence. There are more. You just have to ask everyone you talk to.

Of those 200+ people, seven sent me never-published photos of Bill, totalling ten "new" images at Bill Finger from the early 1930s to the late 1960s (even one of his desk). All but one are better quality than the three that have been published.

Here's the one that is not:

I will share more when the time is right.

3/25/08 addendum: I forgot to mention that I got this photo from Bill's second wife. It's the only one she had. "We weren't photo people," she said.