Lipman and Moritz Rich, with their wives Eva and Bertha, left Neustadt, in the Prussian province of Posen, and landed in Charleston in the early 1850s. The brothers opened dry goods and variety shops on King Street and joined the new “Polish” congregation, Berith Shalome. After the Civil War, the two families moved inland to Orangeburg, South Carolina, with its growing community of German-born merchants.
At age 54, Moritz and Bertha Rich’s son, Isadore, traveled to a spa in Wiesbaden, Germany, “in search of health.” From the Hotel Schwarzen Bock he wrote to his wife and children on June 16, 1910, explaining his doctor’s treatment plan.