Sophie Tucker (ca.1884-1966) was born Sonya Kalish while her mother and brother were en route from Russia to the United States to join her father in Boston. Sophie’s father had deserted the Russian army, immigrated to the United States and found work in Boston under the name “Charles Abuza.” The family lived in Boston as the Abuzas for the first eight years of Sophie’s life and then moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where she began singing in her father’s kosher restaurant. By the time she was seventeen, she was performing in New York City and on her way to headlines in vaudeville. Her signature song was Some of These Days. In later life she became a philanthropist for many causes.
