Ursula Nelson collection

Ursula Nelson was born Ursula Kantorowicz, in Berlin in 1921, the daughter of Sigbert and Claire (née Casper) Kantorowicz. Her parents divorced around 1928 and her mother later married Ernst Warschauer. Ursula grew up in Berlin, but in 1939 was sent to England on a "Kindertransport," just three months before her eighteenth birthday. During this period, Ursula's biological father had died in 1939, and her mother and stepfather applied to emigrate, and successfully did so, arriving in New York in May 1940. Ursula remained in England for eight years. living in Reading and working for the Society of Authors. She married an English soldier, Leslie Smith, and in 1947 the two of them immigrated to the United States, settling in New York, but they subsequently divorced. Ursula later met a former classmate from Berlin at a reunion in New York, Ernst Schlochauer (1921-1961), and the two married in 1957. Ursula worked for Doubleday Books in New York, and subsequently worked as a librarian at Queens College. After her husband Ernst died in 1961, she later met and married Edward Nelson. Photographs (two albums, two loose photographs) and certificate from the Deutscher Makkabikreise, 1938, both related to Ursula Kantorowicz (later Nelson), documenting her childhood in Germany and young-adult years as an emigre in England. Photograph albums include images of Nelson's parents and relatives in Germany, childhood friends, her life in Britain after emigration, including her friends and work, and her first husband, Leslie Smith.