DOCUMENTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS RELATED TO MORRIS OLEESKY

The depositor's great-grandfather and mother came to Manchester from the Minsk area of Russia in 1869. His great-grandfather, who died c.1870's, was buried in one of the Three Jewish Cemeteries in Urmston.

The depositor's grandfather was Samuel Oleesky (born 1860 died 1901), kosher butcher, who lived at 42 Cheetham Hill Road. He had 8 children, all born in England.

The depositor's father was Morris Oleesky (born 1885) the 4th child. The butcher's shop remained in the family until round about the First World War. It was given up when Morris Oleesky went in the army in 1915. He served at the Somme. There were two elder brothers in the Broughton Rangers. At one time there were no Jewish butcher's in South Manchester. The donor's father used to deliver in horse and trap to Palatine Road area (Sephardim area).

The family worshipped at the New Synagogue on Cheetham Hill Road.

The depositor's father came out of the army in 1919. In 1920 he married a girl from Liverpool (orginally from Slonim, Russia/Poland). She was born in 1892.

The family lived near the shop in a slum house near Victoria Station. Then over the shop at Huxley Avenue, off Cheetham Hill Road, near St. Luke's Church.

Dr. Oleesky can remember delivering meat on his bicycle before going to school and before going to university. He was educated at the Jews School, Derby Street and the Central High School, Whitworth Street. He did science at school and said he drifted into medicine and qualified in 1944. He moved to south Manchester, Didsbury in c.1950.

The depositor gave the following information about the chronology of Synagogues in South Manchester.

1. All Saints 1872.

2. Wilbraham Road 1912.

3. Queens Road, Now Queenston Road, Spanish and Portuguese.

4. C.1923 Sharezedek 'House of Righteousness', Lansdowne Road (East Med. Arab) textile merchants used to worship there. (Cemetery - part of Southern Cemetery).

5. Sale.

6. Gatley.

7. Last year or two, Hale Barns.