Sophie Hamburger was the older sister of Congresswoman and one-time U.S. First Lady Flora Blackford of New York City. During the Great War, her boyfriend, Yossel Reisen, Sr., volunteered for the United States Army. She had sex with him before he was deployed on the Roanoke Front and conceived. Yossel promised to marry her as soon as he could arrange a four-day furlough, but he was killed before that could happen. She gave birth to a son and named him Yossel Reisen, Jr. after his late father.