Funeral services for Abraham Benjamin and his two sisters, Hatty and Amelia, were held yesterday at Riverside Chapel, 76th street and Amsterdam avenue. All three had committed suicide by gas the previous day.
The Benjamin family had lived together behind drawn shades in their apartment at 668 Riverside drive for more than twenty years. Hardly a soul knew them well. None was married, and they had few friends. Recently Abraham, the sixty-five year old brother, was stricken with heart disease. A doctor’s prophecy that he had not long to live is believed to have resulted in the suicide pact between the brother and two sisters.
At Riverside Chapel yesterday, surrounding the three coffins, sat solemn rows of employes of Oppenheim Collins and Company, who had come to pay last tribute West End Synagogue read the euto Abraham, a faithful fellow worker. Rabbi I. Schachtel of the logy. One woman, Miss Catherine Newman, an old friend of the spinster sisters, wept a little.
Interment took place at Beth Olem Cemetery in Long Island. There are no surviving members of the Benjamin family.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
