Historian E. Topkis dead at 94

By WILLIAM P. FRANK
Staff reporter

Emile V. Topkis, whose research led to the formation of the Jewish Historical Society of Delaware in 1974, died Friday in The Kutz Home, 704 River Road. He was 94.

Mr. Topkis, formerly of 2000 Franklin St., retired as a president of Modern Homes, Inc., a Wilmington building company, in the mid-1960s.

He became interested in Delaware-Jewish and American-Jewish history in the late 1940s. In his spare time, he pored over thousands of old Delaware newspapers, jotting down notes on any reference to American or Delaware Jewry.

As a result, Mr. Topkis accumulated a huge collection of recorded references, which he presented in 1974 to Rabbi David Geffen, former spiritual leader of the Beth Shalom congregation in Wilmington.

Geffen, also an amateur historian, later became a  founder and first president of the Jewish Historical Society.

The Topkis collection, including not only newspaper references to Jewish history in the United States and Delaware, but also a vast collection of correspondence with archivists throughout the country, became the core of the present archives of the Jewish Historical Society of Delaware.

Mr. Topkis was born in Newark, N.J., the son of David L. and Hannah Ray Topkis. He graduated from Wilmington High School and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.

Mr. Topkis was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1914 and practiced law until 1917, when he joined the Army soon after the country entered World War I. He left the Army in 1919 as a second lieutenant.

He was a member of Congregation Beth Emeth, 300 Lea Blvd.

He is survived by his wife, the former Hannah Segal; two daughters, Eleanor Topkis and Constance T. Wahl, both of Wilmington; a sister, Jechebet T. Roos of Wilmington; three granddaughters and a great-grandson.

Services will be 2 p.m. Sunday in Chandler Funeral Home, 2506 Concord Pike, Sharpley. Burial will be in Beth Emeth Memorial Park, DuPont and Faulkland roads. Shiva will be observed at the Wahl residence.

Instead of flowers, the family suggests contributions to The Kutz Home, 704 River Road, Wilmington, DE 19809.