Rebecca Matthias was a Prussian-born immigrant to the United States. She married Lewis Kauffman, a fellow German Jewish immigrant, and by the mid-1850s they were living in Rockland, Maine. Their daughter Rose was born there in 1857, and a second daughter, Helen, followed three years later. The family subsequently moved to Chelsea, Massachusetts, and then to Richmond, Virginia. Lewis died in 1879, and Rebecca would remain in Richmond for the rest of her life. In 1900 she was listed as living with Rose and her husband Isaac Kaufman—another German Jewish immigrant—and Rebecca’s grandchildren Louise, Irvin, and Carrie.