The years between 1910 and 1918 saw three major losses for the children of Moses, Jr. and Henrietta Cohen. First, on March 20, 1918, Henrietta Loeb Cohen, Moses, Jr.,’s widow, died. The Washington Evening Star ran this obituary:
Henrietta Loeb Cohen obituary March 21, 1918
(Thursday, March 21, 1918, Evening Star (Washington (DC), DC) Page: 4)
It’s interesting that the obituary mentions only seven of Henrietta’s eight children, neglecting to mention Mabel. Once again, there was an error in the number of children, as in Moses Jr.’s obituary, but this time it is more obvious who was omitted, the youngest child, the one with Down’s syndrome. Was this something that was kept a secret, or was it just another error by the newspaper?
It certainly does not seem that Henrietta had forgotten her daughter Mabel. She made a special provision for her in her will, ensuring that Mabel would be taken care of for the rest of her life:
Will of Henrietta Loeb Cohen
(Tuesday, March 26, 1918 Paper: Evening Star (Washington (DC), DC) Page: 19) [Note the error in the headline—she was Mrs. Moses Cohen, not Mrs. Myer Cohen.]
Sadly, Mabel did not survive her mother for very long. She died on September 25, 1918, just six months after her mother. Mabel was only 35 years old. Like her mother, she was buried in the Washington Hebrew Congregation cemetery.
The family suffered another terrible loss when Marjorie Cohen, the daughter of Myer Cohen, Sr., died on July 6, 1920, when she was only 23 years old. I have not yet found a record or document that explains her death.
Although these losses must have been very painful for the family of Moses, Jr., and Henrietta, in many other ways those years were good to the family. They did not lose one member to World War I, although three of Henrietta’s grandsons served in that war. Three of the grandsons became doctors. In the next series of posts, I will focus on each of the children and their offspring and the lives they lived, starting with the children of Augusta Cohen and her husband Julius Selinger, the jeweler.
Moses Cohen, Jr. and Henrietta Loeb Cohen headstone Photo courtesy of Ira Todd Cohen
Brotmanblog: A Family Journey 
I wonder if Henrietta was Mabel’s main care giver. Do you think perhaps Mabel could not go on without her mother and that this lead to her own untimely death?
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Actually, at least in 1910, Mabel was living in an institution—the Maryland Asylum and Training School for the Feeble Minded in Baltimore. I don’t know where she was in 1918 when her mother died. I also think that back then the life expectancy for people with Down’s was not much more than forty, so perhaps her death was not at all related to the loss of her mother. We will never know.
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