Rebecca Notlowiz

  General Notes:

Born 9.1.1888 as Mikhla Rivka Tsykovna Notelevich in the village of Malyati, governorship of Vilni, Lithuania. Like his great-grandfather Jabez, Sidney Bunting chose a wife from "within the movement" - in this case the socialist movement, in which she had been brought up in Lithuania. She emigrated with her family in the early 1900s to escape the Tsarist persecution of the Jews, first to London, then in 1914 to South Africa. In London they stayed at Leman Street near Aldgate East. Her father was Isaac and her mother Sarah: he retailed chickens from a cart. She had been trained, and practised, as a midwife in Lithuania but had also been active in the socialist movement there. In South Africa she became active in the International Socialist League at the earliest possible opportunity. Her Jewish family refused to attend the wedding after which she had yet to finish learning English properly. The stress of travelling to Moscow in 1922 made her ill and by one account she suffered a nervous breakdown. In 1929 she stared taking in work as a dressmaker. Lived on as caretaker at Circle Court a further 27 years after Sidney's death. Arrived by ship at Southampton in summer 1963 together with Stephen Bunting, the two being met on the dock by Brian and Sonia Bunting, plus Arthur Hugh Bunting and Daniel Bunting. At the age of 80 she was stopping people at Parliament Hill, Highgate and making them sign Communist petitions. Died in London at Whittington Hospital 8.11.1970. Sisters Annie, Sonia (alias Sarah) and Rosie, brothers Solomon and Maurice. Annie had daughter Jose and son Stanley. Maurice married a Miss Visser. Sonia married Wolf Kaplan, and their daughter Phoebe married a Mr Lange. Their son, in the US, was Nord ("Pikey") Lange. Much of the whole family emigrated to Buenos Aires in 1926.

Rebecca married Sidney Percival Bunting, son of Percy William Bunting and Mary Hyett Lidgett, on 22 Dec 1916. (Sidney Percival Bunting was born on 30 Jun 1873 in Somers Town, London and died on 25 May 1936 in Johannesburg.)