Bertha May was born in Nuremberg in 1892 as the first daughter of the hops dealer Moritz May (1864-1926) and his wife Rosa Rosenstein (born in Schwabach in 1864). 

Initially, Bertha May attended a grammar school in Munich and then studied French and English at Munich University, which was rather unusual for a woman in those days. At the age of 18, she went to England for a year in order to study the language. Later, she also spent a year in France to improve her knowledge of French. But she never actually taught the languages at a school. After her marriage, she only gave private lessons - mostly to spa guests - in her apartment in the Jewish Community House and thus supplemented the income of the family.

In 1919, Bertha married Ludwig Steinberger from Schonungen who worked in Bad Kissingen as the Jewish cantor and teacher of religious education. After the wedding, she moved into the spa town. Ludwig and Bertha Steinberger had three children: The oldest son Herbert was born in Bad Kissingen in 1920, followed by Hans Jakob (Jack) in May 1921 and Rudolph in May 1924.

Jack Steinberger describes his mother as “unusually intelligent and kind in her way but also judicial with a tendency of expressing things which sometimes didn’t go down well.” Life in his family was, according to Jack Steinberger, “carefree, but not luxurious”. But the situation for Jewish citizens changed dramatically after Hitler’s seizure of power in 1933. Then anti-Semitism was clearly recognizable for the Steinberger family.

And, therefore, the Steinberger couple decided with heavy hearts to send their two older sons to America on a children’s transport, where they – through the agency of a Jewish charity organization - were to be taken care of by foster parents. Their parents stayed in Bad Kissingen with their youngest son Rudolph. As Bertha’s father Moritz May had died early, they cared for Bertha Steinberger’s old mother who was in need of care in her apartment in Bad Kissingen. But when the political situation became increasingly dangerous and when Rosa May had died in August 1936, the Steinbergers made up their minds to emigrate to the USA. In that endeavor, Barnett Faroll, Jack’s foster father, was very helpful as he had provided the entry visa necessary for immigrating to the United States. On May 14, 1937, they arrived at New York harbor on board the “S. S. Manhattan”.

Since 1938, the whole family could live together again in Chicago. With financial help from Barnett Faroll, the parents had bought a small delicatessen whose profits only allowed them a very scanty life. “Rudi and I”, Jack Steinberger said in retrospect, “helped in the shop in the evenings and at the weekends. Mother, whose English was better, took care of the shop, Father helped with all the other things. He kept everything in order and delivered the groceries on his bicycle. We were not very gifted as merchants and times were hard. There was an economic crisis, but with the support of lots of people from the local community we were able to struggle through in very poor conditions.” But in spite of all the efforts, the shop didn’t run well. A relocation of the shop to Irving Park Road also wasn’t successful. When the Steinberger couple got some money from the German government as compensation, Ludwig and Bertha Steinberger retired in 1952 and moved to New York.

On June 17, 1957, Bertha’s husband Ludwig died at the age of 83. She outlived him by 16 years and died in Moorestown in 1973 at the age of 80.