My Brooklyn

Lew Goldklang / David Kavanov

I am searching for my birthmother. She has been a missing person for 54 years. Her last known civilian address was 1487 Nostrand Ave., Brooklyn.

If anyone reading this has any information about her whereabouts after 1946, please contact me.

I grew up in North Bergen / Jersey City, NJ. I was only in Brooklyn a few times; once for a Dodgers/Cardinals doubleheader at Ebbets Field. I clearly remember watching Stan Musial hit a home run out of the park.

I graduated from Stevens Institute of Technology. My two best friends lived in Brooklyn, so I occasionally took the subway to meet them. More often, they would come to NJ, or we would meet in Manhattan.

I discovered in mid-1996, when I was 50 years old, that I had been adopted. The news was quite a shock to me. My adoptive parents are both deceased.

My birth mother is Elaine Kavanov. She was born in Manhattan on December 16, 1920. Her birth certificate number is 55208. Her parents were William J. Kavanov and Beatrice Goodman. Elaine was their only child.

I have Elaine's Social Security number, confirmed by the SSA itself. She went by the name Elaine Diana Losow when it was issued to her. I don't know if she ever applied for, or was issued, a different number.

Elaine married Max Katkin in the Bronx on 2/22/41. Her name and address on their marriage certificate is Elaine Kavanov at 1506 Crotona Park East, Bronx. Max worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Elaine entered the Army (WACs) on 9/28/43. She entered and left the service under the name Elaine K. Katkin. She attained the rank of Sergeant, and worked both as a recruiter and with medical records. Her army service number was A-206518; her internal record number was 10502649. The National Military Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri claims that all her medical records were destroyed in the Great Fire of 7/12/73. They list her last civilian address as 1487 Nostrand Avenue, Brooklyn.

Elaine's marriage to Max was annulled on 10/3/45 in Manhattan. They had no children together. She became pregnant by an Army colleague, Sgt. Saul Herstein (he apparently did not know). She was honorably discharged from the Army on 10/26/45, returned to New York, entered the Lakeview Maternity Home (then affiliated with the Rabbi Stephen Wise Agency), and gave birth to me in Staten Island Hospital on 4/22/46, naming me David Kavanov. The Goldklangs adopted me exactly four months later.

After the war she was "thinking of returning" to either Reading or St. Louis, since she had been stationed in both places and "had friends there [St. Louis] who could help her get a job and find a place to live." A close friend of her [deceased] half-brother Jack Losow thinks she went to California after the war. We have not yet contacted anyone who has heard from her since 1946, when she apparently disappeared from all public records.

A search for Elaine through these databases, containing around 3.8 billion records, yields no match as of 5/17/99: CDB, DCS, DNIS, CSRA, Online Searches, Insight, Merlin, Social Security Death Index.

Please help me find out what happened to Elaine. You can send e-mail to lew@goldbux.com.

Thank you, Lew Goldklang / David Kavanov

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