For yesterday, today, tomorrow

A family photo (top) shows the Mezikofskys in Alexandria, Russia, in 1905. The descendants at last weekend’s reunion included Colleen Mezoff, and Naomi Mezoff with Russ Mezikofsky.

Little is known of the reasons Morris and Sarah Mezikofsky had for coming to America in 1912. It could have been to escape the persecution of Jews in Russia in the early 1900s, to avoid the mandatory 25-year conscription into the czar's army for young Jewish men, for economic gain, or for all of these reasons. But today, thanks to great-grandson Russ Mezikofsky, much more is known about the results of that journey.

Mezikofsky, 34, has devoted the past three years to tracking down the descendants of his great-grandparents - more than 300 people in all - and last weekend his efforts were rewarded when 115 of them showed up for a family reunion in the ballroom at the Needham Sheraton.

"When our grandparents came over here they worked their butts off so we could have what we have today," Mezikofsky said. "We should never take that for granted."

The family emigrated in stages. First came 18-year-old Lena, who, with her new husband, Louis Wernon, started a liquor business in Boston's West End. She soon persuaded her parents, Morris and Sarah, to join her. Altogether, 13 Mezikofskys - including Russ's grandfather, William - had arrived on Massachusetts shores by 1913.

That same year, Morris started selling kosher meats out of a storefront at 28 Poplar St. that was to become a West End institution. "He had great salamis," recalls Jim Campano, president of the West End Museum, which opened last year on Staniford Street. "You can't find anything like that anymore. Abie and Hymie were running the store when I was growing up. My mother had cats. She'd send me down for ten cents' worth of liver to feed the cats. Even after a lot of the Jewish people had moved away, they would still come back on the weekends and get their meats."

When Mezikofsky's - with satellite branches in Lynn and Chelsea - closed in 1958, during the city's widely reviled "urban renewal" project that displaced thousands from what is now Government Center, a Boston Sunday Herald headline read "Tiny, Famed Shop Closes Oct. 24: Mezikofsky and His Salami Bow to West End Progress." (Today, although the original recipe has been lost, a near-match lives on thanks to Russ Mezikofsky's second cousin Richard Mezoff, who produces the sausage in Madison, Ind.)

"When the West End was done," Mezikofsky said, "my great-grandmother died that year, too, and it changed all their lives." Morris and Sarah's 11 children moved to various Boston suburbs and began to fall out of touch. The connection became even more tenuous as their children and their children's children scattered across the country and the world. "Edith was the only one who didn't marry," Mezikofsky said of the eighth in line. "She provided a bond. She really loved the family, and left all the children and grandchildren money under the condition that they have family reunions and create a book about the family." In a roundabout way, he adds, "this whole reunion wouldn't have happened without her."

Shortly after Edith's death, a small reunion was held in 1981 at Russ's parents' house in Wakefield; the next two, in 1982 and '83, were even smaller. But Milton Mezoff, the 10th son of Morris and Sarah - all the boys in the family, except for Russ's father, shortened their last name - did use the money Edith left him to create a book that partly traced the family tree. With that book as a starting point, Russ Mezikofsky began amassing the list of relatives he has today.

"You have to give him a lot of credit, for a young man to do this," said Lana Levine, who is married to sixth-born Hyman's grandson, Murray Levine, of Fairfield, Conn. "Hopefully the next generation will take it on and keep it going."

Last Saturday's reunion brought Mezikofskys and Mezoffs from 10 states and all generations, from six-week-old Noah Shirazi to Naomi Mezoff Oppenheim, 88, Sam Mezikofsky's daughter. Russ Mezikofsky hopes to reunite those who live in Massachusetts every year, and the entire family every other year. He's also working on two books - one a picture-memory book, and the other based on questionnaires and short biographies that he is collecting.

"The goal is that 200 years from now, our ancestors will know our words," he said.

"Most people go through life talking to their parents about daily events, but never really know their parents. That's what I want to get out of people."