Loeb Strauss, whose name was later changed to Levi, was born on February 26, 1829, in Buttenheim Bavaria in Germany. He was born to his Jewish parents Hirsch Strauss and his second wife, Rebecca Haas Strauss. His father, was a dry goods peddler who traveled around the country selling dry goods. Hirsch Strauss had five other children Jacob, Jonas, Louis, Rosla and Mathilde from his first wife, who had died several years earlier. Loeb and his older sister Fanny were the two children Hirsch had with his second wife. In 1845 Hirsch died of tuberculosis. After this, the already poor Strauss family became much poorer because there was no income. At this time two of Levi’s older brother