Category Archives: Seligman/Seligmann

The Magic of Photography

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As I wrote last time, I did not have any photographs of my great-grandmother Eva Seligman Cohen despite the fact that my father lived with her for many years of his childhood and the fact that she took many pictures of him and his sister.  When I received some photographs from my cousin Marjorie’s cousin Lou Mahlman, in the mix was this photograph of Marjorie with Arthur Seligman and a woman who Lou said was Arthur’s wife Franc.  The photograph was taken in 1932 in Atlantic City.

Arthur Seligman, Marjorie, and Eva May Cohen, 1932 Atlantic City

Arthur Seligman, Marjorie, and Eva May Cohen, 1932 Atlantic City

 

But when I showed the photograph to my father, he said that the woman in the photograph was not Franc, but his grandmother, Eva Seligman Cohen.  I was so excited to hear him say that and to watch his face when he saw her face in the photograph.

There was another photograph, also from Atlantic City in 1932, in which Arthur Seligman is sitting with two women on the beach.  The initial version we saw was overexposed, but Arthur “Pete” Scott, Arthur Seligman’s grandson, was able to enhance the photo, and once my father saw the enhanced version, he said that the woman sitting next to Arthur Seligman is also his grandmother.

Eva M. Cohen, center, 1932 (Arthur Seligman, right)

Eva M. Cohen, center, 1932 (Arthur Seligman, right)

So now we have two photographs of my great-grandmother Eva May Seligman Cohen, or Bebe, as she was known by all her grandchildren.  Thank you, Marjorie, for sharing these with all of us, and thank you, Lou, for scanning and sending them, and thank you, Pete, for enhancing the second photograph.  With these two photographs, we all now have a face to put with the name and the deeds of this wonderful woman who gave so much to others.

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The Seligmans: My New Mexican Ancestors—An Introduction

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State flag of New Mexico copyright friendly picture

Flag of New Mexico

Although my parents did not talk very much about their ancestors or families when I was a child, one of the claims my father often made with pride was that his great-uncle had been the governor of New Mexico.  I used to find this both amusing and irrelevant.  A seemingly distant relative who died 20 years before I was born?  Why would I care about that? And New Mexico? How could we possibly have a relative—a Jewish relative—who came from New Mexico? We were from New York and Philadelphia—we were not from the Southwest; we were not cowboys.  Who was this relative, and how in the world did he get to be a governor?  It all seemed rather preposterous—like saying we were descended from Napoleon or George Washington.

Not that I doubted that my father was telling the truth. It just seemed unimportant to me—until I started to delve into my family’s history.  As I started to research and read about this side of my family, I realized how remarkable and interesting a story it is and what a uniquely American story it is.  But before I get to that story, I need to begin at the end and explain how the story of the New Mexican Seligmans is part of my family’s story.

I have written quite a bit about my great-grandparents, Emanuel and Eva M. Cohen, and in particular about my great-grandmother Eva.  You may recall that it was Emanuel and Eva who took in Emanuel’s brother Isaac and his teenage son when Isaac’s wife died.  It was Emanuel and Eva who opened their home for Emanuel’s uncle Jonas’ funeral.  And it was Eva who took care of my father and his sister for almost ten years when my grandparents were both unable to do so.  Both my father and his cousin Marjorie have described Eva as the sweetest, most loving, and kindest woman.

Eva was a Seligman, the daughter of Bernard Seligman and Frances Nusbaum.  She was born in 1866 in Philadelphia, but moved with her parents to Santa Fe, New Mexico when she was a young girl.  She returned east to go to Swarthmore College outside of Philadelphia, and while there, she met Emanuel Cohen and married him in 1886 when she was only twenty years old.

Eva Cohen in the Swarthmore Bulletin

Eva Cohen in the Swarthmore Bulletin 1885-1886

https://archive.org/details/annualcatalogueo1885swar

 

Marriage announcement of Emanuel Cohen and Eva Seligman

Marriage announcement of Emanuel Cohen and Eva Seligman

(Matrimony Notice,  Friday, February 5, 1886, Jewish Messenger (New York, NY)   Volume: 59   Issue: 6   Page: 6)

Together she and Emanuel had four sons, one of whom, Herbert, died as a toddler.  Their son Maurice ended his own life after suffering from cancer, and their son John, my grandfather, was disabled by multiple sclerosis as a young man when my father was just a little boy.  So Eva endured more than her fair share of tragedy, yet somehow she remained a positive and loving person who seemed to have an incredible ability to care for others.

One of my great disappointments was not having a photograph of Eva.  She wrote inscriptions on many of the photographs I have of my father and his sister, but she must have been taking many of the pictures and thus is not in any of those in my family’s collection.  I suppose that is consistent with what I know about her—someone who was focused on others and not on herself.

My father and his cousin Marjorie are the only surviving grandchildren of Eva and Emanuel Cohen, and my siblings and I are the only great-grandchildren.  In the last few weeks, I’ve been very fortunate to receive from Marjorie’s maternal cousin Lou a number of photographs of Marjorie and others, and I was thrilled to be able to see the face of the woman with whom I’d had such wonderful conversations this summer.  Below are several photographs of Marjorie as a child and as a young woman, including some with and of  her parents Stanley and Bess Cohen.

Stanley Cohen World War I

Stanley Cohen World War I

 

Marjorie and her mother Bess Craig Cohen

Marjorie and her mother Bess

 

 

 

Set Marjorie and Stan

Marjorie and her father Stanley

Stanley Cohen 1928

Stanley Cohen 1928

Marjorie 1933

Marjorie 1933

Marjorie and Bess 1933

Marjorie and Bess 1933

Marjorie Cohen

Marjorie Cohen with Pete-page-001

Marjorie with Pete from Our Gang

Marjorie and her parents Stanley and Bess Cohen at her graduation from Trinity (DC), c. 1947

Marjorie and her parents at her graduation from Trinity (DC), c. 1947

Marjorie as a student at NY Dramatic Arts Academy

Marjorie as a student at NY Dramatic Arts Academy

Marjorie model 2-page-001

 

Marjorie and her father Stanley 1981

Marjorie and her father Stanley 1981

Included in that group of photographs was a photograph that Lou had labeled as Bess and Stanley 1923, but when I showed it to my father, he said that it was his parents, John and Eva (Schoenthal) Cohen.  When I compared it to the only other photograph I have of my grandparents together, it was obvious that this was John and Eva, not Stanley and Bess.  I was delighted to have another picture of my grandparents.

Eva Schoenthal and John Cohen, Jr. 1923

Eva (Schoenthal) and John Cohen, Jr. 1923

 

John and Eva Cohen c. 1930

John and Eva Cohen
c. 1930

Also mixed into the group of photos from Marjorie’s cousin Lou were a few taken in Atlantic City during the summer of 1932 that finally allow me to see the face of my great-grandmother Eva Seligman Cohen.  I will post those in a later post.

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How They Met: The Cohens

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In a much earlier post, I wrote about how some of my maternal relatives met—my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, my parents, and others.  When researching my great-grandparents Emanuel and Evalyn Cohen and my grandparents John and Eva Cohen, I wondered how they had met.  Fortunately, my brother had heard the stories years ago and shared them with me.

My great-grandmother Evalyn Seligman Cohen was born in Philadelphia in 1866, but her family had moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, before 1880 (more on that at a later time).   Evalyn (later Eva May) was probably the first woman in my family to go to college.  She came back to Philadelphia to start college at Swarthmore College and met Emanuel Cohen.  They fell in love and married in 1886, and Evalyn never finished college.  (Maybe if she had, Swarthmore would have accepted me back in 1970 when I applied there. But then again, if she had, I would never have been born.)  She was only twenty years old when they married.  If not for her ambitious and independent spirit, she might never have traveled east and met my great-grandfather.

Swarthmore College

Swarthmore College (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

My grandparents also only met because my grandmother Eva Schoenthal Cohen was willing to make the long trip back east.  She also was born in Pennsylvania, but her parents, Isadore and Hilda Schoenthal, had moved west to Denver, Colorado, by the time Eva was six years old.  Sometime in 1922 when she was eighteen years old (she had graduated from high school that June, so perhaps over the summer), she came east to visit with some of her family in Philadelphia.  She met my grandfather John Cohen at some social event while visiting Philadelphia, and as the family story goes, he was so smitten with her that he followed her back to Colorado to woo her and ask her to marry him.  She accepted his proposal, and they were married on January 7, 1923, when he was 27 and she was 19 years old.  As with her mother-in-law, if my grandmother had not been brave enough to travel from Denver to Philadelphia, my grandparents might never have met.

Denver Capital building

My father, the third Cohen man to fall in love quickly and marry a very young woman, also only met my mother because of her willingness to travel, although not across the country.  As I’ve recounted before, they met at Camp Log Tavern in the Poconos where my father was working as a waiter at an adult camp in the summer of 1950.  My mother, who was nineteen and living in the Bronx, came for a vacation, and my father fell in love with her at first sight.  She was less interested, so he had to track her down in the Bronx phonebook after she left.  They married in 1951 when she was twenty years old and he was twenty-four.  They will be celebrating their 63rd anniversary this September.

Camp Log Tavern Milford, PA

Camp Log Tavern Milford, PA

Do you see a pattern here? Not only the serendipity of how each couple met, but both my father and my grandfather had to pursue the woman they loved, my grandfather by taking a train across the country, my father by searching through phonebooks to find my mother.  Thank goodness for those impulsive and determined Cohen men and the traveling women they met and married, or my siblings and I would not be here today.

Florence and John Cohen 1951

Florence and John Cohen 1951