Singer Family
Bella Singer was born in 1880 in Radom, Poland, the eighth of eleven children of Wolf Baer Switzer. In 1905 she married Abraham Singer the couple soon left to seek a better life in Canada.
They first settled in Toronto, where their oldest son, Hymie Singer, was born. Bella and the baby returned briefly to Poland, while Abraham worked as a railway labourer, reaching Calgary in 1907. In 1910 the Singers were reunited in Calgary, where they stayed to form the base for the city’s largest extended Jewish family.
Bella first worked at the Palliser Hotel, and then ran rooming houses during the early years, while Abraham began a number of successful business ventures. He was a scrap dealer, a second-hand store operator, a Banff hotelier, and later owned a number of farming and commercial realty operations.
Bella devoted her efforts to bringing the rest of the Switzer family from the Radom area to the safety and prosperity of Canada. She first sent tickets to her nephews Charlie Switzer and Saul Bleviss, who came to Calgary as teenagers in 1912.
Other relatives, financed and “guaranteed” by Bella Singer, followed during the post-World War I years. Each was expected to repay “Meema” Singer by bringing over other family members. Over two hundred came to Calgary during the twenties.
Six of Bella’s siblings came to Calgary: Mendel Switzer (1923); Mindell Bleviss (1927); Rifka Belzberg (1928); Jacob Switzer (1929); Meyer Switzer (1920); and Gershon Switzer (1920). Most of their children came to Calgary, as did those of Bella’s sisters Sarah Aizenman and Jessie Fishman.
The families of two of Bella’s sisters, Faiga Cyngiser and Noma Farber, were largely lost in the Holocaust.
In all, the descendants of Wolf Baer Switzer now number well over fourteen hundred, about a third still living in Calgary. All cherish the helping hand of Bella Singer, the first Switzer to come to Canada, and who in turn enabled them to reach this land of freedom and plenty.
Bella Singer made major contributions to the Calgary Mizrachi organization, and to the building of the Shaarey Tzedec Synagogue. Her son Jack and grandson Stephen Singer continue as major Calgary Philanthropists, having endowed the Jack Singer Concert Hall at the Calgary Centre for the Performing Arts.
Abraham and Bella had four children, three were born in Calgary. They are Hymie Singer (Estelle Labelle, Ruthe Cohen) of Los Angeles; Diane Aceman (Jack Aceman), Vancouver; Rose Franks (Lou Geller, Monte Franks) of Los Angeles and Jack Singer (Shirley Cohen) of Calgary.
Abraham Singer died in 1942 at the age of 62. His was the first burial in the Jewish section of Queen’s Park Cemetery. Bella Singer passed away in 1984; at the age of 103, she was the oldest Jewish resident of Calgary.