Leon Sipser was born 16.7.1896 in Stanislav, Ukraine (formerly Stanislau, Galicia) to Mendel  Max and Elka Sabina. The family moved to Vienna in 1910. Leon went to commercial college in Vienna and went on to run a successful coat tailoring business. He came to the UK shortly before the outbreak of World War II. His father had already died and his mother eventually came to the UK via a circuituous route. 

Leon met and married Fany Turteltaub in the UK. Fany was born in Vienna in 1906 and was sent to live in Zürich some time during the 1930s, eventually coming to the UK in 1939 on a German passport. Most of her family were murdered during the Holocaust.

The only other member of Fany’s family to survive was her aunt, Rosa Zernicka, who met and married in the UK a Josef Braun from Hungary.