Early Life
Wise stated that he was born in Vienna and Budapest, he was descended from a long line of rabbis and was to become the seventh in direct succession. His grandfather, Joseph Hirsch Weisz, was Chief Rabbi of a small town near Budapest. His father, Aaron Wise, was born in Eger, Hungary, earned a Ph.D. at the University of Leipsic, earned his Rabbinical degree in Eisenstadt, and in 1874 emigrated to the United States to serve as rabbi of Congregation Baith Israel Anshei Emes in Brooklyn, New York, and was for a period editor of The Boston Observer. His wife (Sabine Fisher), and their children (including a 4 month old Stephen Samuel) arrived in the United States on August 11, 1875 aboard the S.S. Gellert. Wise's maternal grandfather, Móric Farkasházi Fischer, created the Herend Porcelain Company. When Wise's father Aaron Wise sought to unionize the company, Moric gave the family one-way tickets to New York.
Wise's family name was originally Weissfeld, changed to Weiss by his grandfather, then to Wise by his father.
Wise's personally completed United States passport applications from 1893, 1898, 1904, and 1913 all state that he was born on March 17, 1872, in Vienna, Austria, or Budapest, Hungary, on the later two applications. On a passport application Wise completed in 1922, he claimed he was born March 17, 1874. Immigration records show Wise was just four months old when he arrived in the United States on August 11, 1875 abroad the Hamburg America Line owned ship the S.S. Gellert, with his mother, Sabine, his brother, Otto, and two sisters, all under the surname of Weiss.
Read more about this topic: Stephen Samuel Wise
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