By Marjorie Barkin Searl
Edith Becker was born in Posen or Gosen, Poland, based on the manifest of the ship taking her from Shanghai to the United States. However, in subsequent documents, her birthplace is listed as Germany, which is no doubt because she was fluent in German and English, and many places in Poland went back and forth with Prussia in the nineteenth century. In 1938, she escaped from Europe to Shanghai, one of the only places that did not require entry visas. After a sojourn in Shanghai, she was able to come to the United States in 1947. The ship manifest said that she was Hebrew and stateless. She became a United States citizen in 1952. Records indicate that she was married to Kurt Becker, who is also buried in Mount Hope, and that she was a lunchroom supervisor.