Bernard Seligman: His Political Career and His Family 1870-1890

Posted on October 7, 2014 by Amy

I want to thank my cousin Arthur “Pete” Scott for all his help with finding newspaper clippings (including some of the ones appearing in this post) and other information to try and fill in the timeline for Bernard and the other Seligmans. He has also contributed a great deal of information about our family at the Voces de Santa Fe website. Like my father, Pete is a great-grandson of Bernard Seligman and thus my second cousin once removed.

I have been having a hard time tracking the whereabouts of my great-great-grandfather Bernard in the 1870s. Although I know that Bernard and his family had moved back to Santa Fe sometime before their youngest child Arthur was born in June, 1871, it seems that Bernard was in and out of town during the 1870s. In 1873, he withdrew from the Seligman Brothers partnership:

Date: Thursday, January 2, 1873 Paper: Santa Fe Daily New Mexican (Santa Fe, NM) Page: 1

The firm of S. Seligman and Brother was dissolved, and a new firm owned by Sigmund and Adolph Seligman and Julius Nusbaum was created named Seligman Bros. and Company. Who was Julius Nusbaum? He was Bernard’s brother-in-law, the brother of Frances Nusbaum, Bernard’s wife.

Daily New Mexican, January 13, 1873

I cannot find an explanation for Bernard’s withdrawal, and he certainly was involved in the business again in later years. He had applied for a passport on April 3, 1873, and he served as a representative to the Vienna Exposition of 1873, so maybe that prompted his withdrawal.

Bernard Seligman passport application 1873

Maybe it’s my modern skepticism that is coloring my perception, but it also seems possible that Bernard withdrew only in name, placing his wife’s brother in the firm in his stead. Was this done for political purposes to avoid at least the appearance of any conflicts of interest?

Henry Tobias, author of The History of the Jews of New Mexico (University of New Mexico Press, 1990), writing about New Mexico in the 1880s and 1890s, described Bernard Seligman as “probably the most political of all the Santa Fe Jews” during that era (Tobias, p. 117). Ralph Emerson Twitchell, author of Old Santa Fe: The Story of New Mexico’s Ancient Capital (Rio Grande Press, 1925), wrote, “A public speaker of great force and convincing power, [Bernard Seligman] found time to engage in the public affairs of the country of his adoption and was elected and appointed to many positions of profit and trust.” (Twitchell, p. 477) Twitchell also pointed out that Bernard “was a linguist of rare ability; speaking with fluency the English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Hebrew idioms.” (Ibid.) Bernard must have been well suited for a career in politics and government in bilingual New Mexico.

Tobias wrote that Bernard became a member of the territorial legislature in 1880. (Tobias, p. 117) Both Bernard’s obituary (“A Good and True Man called Home,” Santa Fe New Mexican, February 3, 1903, p. 1) and Twitchell (p. 477 ) also state that Bernard served several terms in the Legislative Assembly for New Mexico. Another source reported that Bernard was instrumental in the passage of the mechanic’s lien law while he served in the territorial government, a law considered to be very important at that time. (George B. Anderson, History of New Mexico: Its Resources and Its People, Vol. 2 (Pacific States Pub. Co. 1907)).

One newspaper clipping shows that Bernard was the Democratic Party’s nominee for Santa Fe County Commissioner in 1884.(Las Vegas Daily Gazette., October 22, 1884, Image 2, at http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90051703/1884-10-22/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1873&index=5&rows=20&words=Bernard+Seligman&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=New+Mexico&date2=1903&proxtext=bernard+seligman&y=4&x=6&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1 ). Twitchell wrote that Bernard was chairman of the board of the Santa Fe County Commission for three terms, presumably in the mid-1880s. (Twitchell, p. 477)

Bernard and the Santa Fe County Commission ran into some legal trouble when a local resident and attorney, Thomas Catron, sued the Commission, alleging fraud. Catron claimed that in 1886 the Commission had issued warrants to raise money for a new courthouse that would increase the county debt beyond the limits set by a new federal statute; he alleged that to avoid that new limitation, the Commission had falsely stated the issuance date of the warrants so that they predated the effective date of that new law. Bernard Seligman is named in the case as the chair of the Commission at the time of this alleged fraud. The Supreme Court of the Territory of New Mexico found that Catron had stated sufficient facts, if proven, to support a claim against the Commission and remanded the case for trial. Unfortunately, I cannot find any report on the final outcome of the case on the merits.[1] Given Bernard’s future political success, perhaps Catron lost the case.

Bernard also encountered some controversy when the Governor of the New Mexico Territory, Edmund Ross, named him as his choice to be the treasurer of the territory. Thomas Catron was again involved in the fight against Bernard. Catron was himself a political leader in New Mexico, having served as Attorney General and US Attorney for the territory and later serving as one of its first US Senators when New Mexico became a state.

English: Thomas Benton Catron, Senator of the United States from New Mexico (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In July, 1886, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported that Governor Ross might appoint Bernard as treasurer:

Bernard Seligman medicine man to be treasurer

Date: Friday, July 16, 1886 Paper: New Mexican (Santa Fe, NM) Page: 2

I am curious about the reference to Bernard as a “medicine man;” I have no idea what it means in this context.

Governor Ross did in fact appoint Bernard Seligman to be territorial treasurer, but that appointment was then resisted by a man who claimed to be the sitting treasurer, Antonio Ortiz y Salazar, who refused to turn over his office to Seligman. Ortiz, represented by the same Thomas Catron who was suing Bernard for fraud in his role as County Commissioner, argued that the governor had not had authority to appoint Seligman because there was no vacancy to fill as Ortiz still held the seat and had not resigned or died.

Seligman brought a mandamus action against Ortiz, seeking to have him hand over the incidents of the treasurer’s office. Seligman claimed that the oath taken by Ortiz when sworn in for a second term in 1884 was void because of some irregularities. Ortiz responded that he had been properly sworn into office in 1882 for his first term, and thus he still had a valid claim to the treasurer’s office despite the governor’s appointment of Seligman. The trial court judge disagreed and ruled that Seligman’s appointment was valid and that Ortiz had to give up his seat. Ortiz requested a rehearing, and on review, a different judge reversed the first court’s decision and ruled in favor of Ortiz, concluding that the appointment of Seligman as treasurer was not valid because Ortiz still properly held the seat.

Date: Thursday, August 19, 1886 Paper: Santa Fe Weekly New Mexican and Livestock Journal (Santa Fe, NM) Page: 4

Henry Tobias saw this incident as an example of the resentment some New Mexico residents felt about the success of the Jewish merchants in New Mexico. In response to his appointment of Seligman, Ross was advised by one prominent resident that there were already too many Jews in Santa Fe politics and government. (Tobias, pp. 119-120.)

Edmund G. Ross. Library of Congress description: “Hon. E. G. Ross of Kansas” (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Governor of New Mexico Territory 1885-1889

In December 1886, Governor Ross made a statement explaining his choice of my great-great-grandfather that upset some residents of the territory because of the insulting and discriminatory assumptions underlying that statement:

governor ross appoints bernard seligman-page-001

Date: Wednesday, December 29, 1886 Paper: Santa Fe Daily New Mexican (Santa Fe, NM) Page: 2

Perhaps there was prejudice on both sides: anti-Mexican prejudice by Ross and anti-Semitic prejudice on the part of those opposing the appointment of my great-great-grandfather.

Several sources, however, state that Bernard Seligman did serve as territorial treasurer: his obituary, Twitchell, and Tobias all refer to the fact that he served as treasurer. The Legislative Blue Book of the Territory of New Mexico (1911) lists Bernard Seligman as territorial treasurer from 1886 through 1891. None of these sources explain, however, what happened that allowed Seligman to continue in office after the court decision in favor of Ortiz in 1889.

Thus, for much of the 1880s Bernard was pursuing his political career. However, he also must have been somewhat involved in the Seligman Brothers business. This news clipping dated April 8, 1889, certainly suggests that Bernard was active in the business:

New Mexican (Santa Fe, NM), Monday, April 8, 1889 , Volume: 26, Issue: 41,Page: 4

Meanwhile, at home his children were growing up. In 1881, my great-grandmother Eva, then fifteen years old, left Santa Fe for Philadelphia where she went to Swarthmore[2] and later married my great-grandfather Emanuel Cohen in 1886. Her younger brother James also went to Swarthmore, where he was a member of the class of 1888 and a member of the literary society.

Bernard and Frances’ next child, Minnie, also followed in her siblings’ footsteps and enrolled at Swarthmore as did her younger Arthur. Although Arthur was two years younger than Minnie, they both enrolled at Swarthmore the same year—1885-1886. In that year James, Minnie and Arthur were all students at Swarthmore, James a sophomore in the college and Arthur and Minnie as juniors in the preparatory school. I am not sure where Eva was living that year as she appears to have finished her studies at Swarthmore in 1884 and did not marry Emanuel until 1886.

With at least three of their children living in Philadelphia and Bernard busy with politics, I wonder whether Frances had also returned to Philadelphia to be closer both to her Nusbaum family and her children and whether Eva was also living with her mother there. Although Eva and Frances are listed on the 1885 New Mexico Territorial Census, so are the other three children, despite the fact that those three were enrolled at school in Philadelphia that same year. The news clipping above reported that Frances had stayed behind in Philadelphia “with friends” in 1889 when Bernard had returned to Santa Fe.

The family suffered a tragic loss on January 14, 1887, when Minnie, only seventeen years old, died from meningitis while in Philadelphia. The address on the death certificate was 829 North 5^th Street, Philadelphia. Although I cannot find where the other Nusbaums were living in 1887, earlier Philadelphia directories list several members of the extended Nusbaum family living at residences nearby on North 6^th Street and North Marshall Street.

Minnie Seligman death certificate 1887

This note in a Quaker publication says that Minnie died at the home of a relative:

Friends’ Intelligencer United with the Friends’ Journal, Volume 44 (Google eBook), p. 59

Minnie was buried in Philadelphia at Mt Sinai cemetery, the same cemetery where her infant sister Florence had been buried in 1867 and where her uncle Sigmund Seligman had been buried in 1876 and where her parents and her sister Eva would later be buried. Although the family may have left Philadelphia for Santa Fe almost twenty years before, it is pretty clear to me that the ties back to Philadelphia remained very strong for the family of Bernard Seligman.

[1] Catron v. Board of Commissioners, 21 P. 60 (N.M. 1889)

[2] Swarthmore had a preparatory school as well as a college in those days, and my great-grandmother and her siblings all attended the preparatory school and then most attended the college for at least some time as well.

Jews on the Santa Fe Trail 1848-1871: My Great-Great-Grandfather Bernard Seligman and his Brothers

Posted on September 30, 2014 by Amy

Sign for Santa Fe National Historic Trail. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My great-great-grandfather Bernard Seligman was born on November 23, 1837 in Gau-Algesheim, Germany. When I learned about the small town in Germany where my great-great-grandfather Bernard Seligman was born, I was not surprised that he had decided to move away when he reached adulthood. Gau-Algesheim was itself a very small town, and the Jewish population was tiny—perhaps 60-80 people during the 1840s and 1850s when Bernard was growing up. The opportunities for a young Jewish man must have been very limited—socially and economically. My research of the town indicated that by 1900 the Jewish population had declined dramatically. My great-great-grandfather and his brothers were therefore not unlike many others who moved out of their small hometown to seek greater opportunities.

Before leaving Germany, Bernard received what was described as a “first class education in the public and commercial schools of his native land where he also gained considerable actual business experience while employed a wholesale establishment there.”[1] According to a book written in 1925 by Ralph Emerson Twitchell, then the official state historian for New Mexico, Bernard Seligman had been associated with the Rothschild banking house in Frankfort-on-the-Main before coming to the US.[2]

Bernard was not the first of the Seligman brothers to arrive in the United States. His older brother Sigismund or Sigmund, born in 1830 in Gau-Algesheim, had arrived in Santa Fe in 1849. At first, Sigmund found work as a photographer, running a daguerreotype portrait studio for a few years.[3] But within a few years he and another recent German immigrant named Charles Clever “formed a business partnership … under the firm name and style of Seligman and Clever, engaging in general merchandizing and freighting over the old [Santa Fe] Trail.”[4]

This photo is claimed to be the oldest photograph of Santa Fe, taken about 1855. You can see the sign for Seligman and Clever on the right. At one time one of the streets in this photograph was called Seligman Street.

Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, Negative 10695 courtesy of http://www.vocesdesantafe.org/index.php/explore-our-history/santa-fe/item/1090-my-grandfathers-birthplace-on-the-santa-fe-plaza

Sigmund’s younger brother Bernard, my great-great-grandfather, arrived in the United States on March 23, 1857, coming aboard the ship Mercury and landing in New York. On the record for the passenger manifest it says that his occupation was a merchant.[5] Twitchell wrote that Bernard initially settled near Philadelphia and worked for a cotton manufacturing business.[6] He is said to have arrived in Santa Fe in 1858, taking a position in his brother Sigmund’s business, according to Bernard’s obituary. [7]

When Sigmund’s partner Charles Clever resigned from the business a few years later to become a lawyer, Bernard became a partner with his brother Sigmund in the business, and it was renamed S. Seligman and Bro. Some years later a third brother, Adolph, born in 1845, also settled in Santa Fe and joined his brothers’ business in the 1860s.[8]

As described by William J. Parish in “The German Jew and the Commercial Revolution in Territorial New Mexico 1850-1900,” New Mexico Historical Review, Vol. 35, p. 1 (1960), until the arrival of Jewish German immigrants like the Seligmans, the trade conditions in the New Mexico territory were quite rudimentary, a few small stands relying upon traveling merchants to provide them with merchandise. According to Parish, heavy taxes and the high cost and risk of travel made many reluctant to deal in the region. Storekeepers could not rely on these traveling merchants to supply an adequate inventory of goods. Thus, few merchants established permanent roots in the area.

English: “Arrival of the caravan at Santa Fe” — Copy of original lithograph ca. 1844 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

These conditions provided a substantial opportunity for Jewish German immigrants like my ancestors, the Seligmans. Beginning in the 1840s around the time that Sigmund immigrated, there were a number of recent Jewish German immigrants who brought a thriving economic base to Santa Fe and other New Mexican cities based on transporting goods from the eastern United States over the Santa Fe trail to the New Mexican territory recently acquired by the US after the Mexican War ended.[9]

As postulated by Parish, German Jews came to the US with a particularly good background to take advantage of these entrepreneurial opportunities. Parish discusses how historically Jews in Western Europe, although foreclosed from entering many trades, had been allowed to take on the role of the moneylender, a livelihood to which Christians had an aversion and, in some cases, a religious opposition, thus leaving that unpopular job for their Jewish neighbors. Although this created some hostility and resentment (as seen, of course, in The Merchant of Venice and the character of Shylock), it also provided Jewish men with the opportunity to develop skills in banking, business, and capitalism. Jewish immigrants brought these skills with them to the US wherever they settled, and, as Parish points out, those who came to New Mexico had a profound impact on the fledgling economy that existed there.

This is a photograph of my great-great-grandfather Bernard Seligman (far left) with two other Santa Fe merchants, Zadoc Staab and Lehman Spiegelberg, and two Kiowa Indian scouts.

Freighters on the Santa Fe Trail, Bernard Seligman, Zadoc Staab, Lehman Spiegelberg and Kiowa Indian scouts Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, New Mexico History Museum, Santa Fe

The growth of the economy is illustrated by the growth in the number of Jewish merchants in Santa Fe from 1850 to 1870. In 1850 there were eight such merchants; by 1860 that number had doubled to sixteen.[10] By 1870 it had doubled again to 32; clearly, my relatives had arrived at the right place at the right time.[11] These merchants were not transient traveling merchants. They established permanent businesses and stayed in the community.

Twitchell provided this vivid description of the scale of the Seligman brothers’ business:

“A Fair exemplar of the magnitude of the business of this firm is recorded in the fact that one caravan, conducted by firm, loaded at the Missouri river eighty-three wagons of merchandise consigned to the firm at Santa Fé, each wagon carrying not less than three tons of high class freight. Another record in the books of the firm shows the payment of $30,000 in transportation charges on one caravan alone, all of the merchandise having been disposed of to New Mexican buyers within the brief period of three weeks after arrival in Santa Fé[. N]early three quarters of a century disclose an aggregate of more than fifteen millions of dollars.”[12]

Courtesy of Arthur Scott http://www.vocesdesantafe.org/index.php/explore-our-history/architecturebuildings/item/283-exchange-hotel-ca-1886

Thus, by the 1860s, the Seligman Brothers’ business was thriving. They and the other Jewish merchants had brought a reliable source of goods to Santa Fe for the first time.

These merchants, however, were not involved in any of the traditional practices of Jewish life. According to Henry J. Tobias, the author of The History of the Jews in New Mexico, although these men identified as Jews, there was no evidence of any regular Jewish observance in Santa Fe during those early days—no evidence of a synagogue or any form community prayer or celebration, no observance of dietary laws.[13] The Jewish population was less than five percent of one percent of the overall population at that time, and the Jews had to adapt to living in a culture where they were such a tiny segment of the community.

Most of the Jewish residents in the 1860s were single men, although a few women and families were starting to arrive. In 1860 there was a celebration of Yom Kippur at the home of Levi Spiegelberg, another Jewish merchant, who had recently married a Jewish woman from Germany. Tobias speculated that perhaps the arrival of Spiegelberg’s bride, one of only two Jewish women in the town at that time, made the others nostalgic for the traditions from back home and thus inspired this day long observance of fasting and prayer.[14]

After the Civil War[15] and after his younger brother Adolph had arrived in Santa Fe, Bernard moved back east to Philadelphia for several years. Parish pointed out that there were no Jewish single women in Santa Fe in the 1850s and 1860s, and that while some Jewish men intermarried, most went back east to find a Jewish woman to marry.[16] Sigmund never married, and Adolph did not marry until he was in his 60s, but Bernard went back east and found a Jewish woman from Pennsylvania, my great-great-grandmother Frances Nusbaum. She was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1845, but by 1860 she and her family had moved to Philadelphia. Bernard and Frances married on March 28, 1865, and my great-grandmother Eva (named Evalynn at birth) was born the following year on May 27, 1866 in Philadelphia. According to the Philadelphia city directories for 1867, Bernard was in business with his Nusbaum in-laws at that time.

On August 17, 1867, Bernard and Frances had a second daughter, Florence; the baby only lived five weeks and died on September 26, 1867. She was buried at Mt. Sinai cemetery in Philadelphia, along with many of the Nusbaum family members (and also many of my Cohen relatives). A third child, James Leon Seligman, was born on August 11, 1868, and then another daughter, Minnie, was born on October 31, 1869. All of these children were born in Philadelphia, and Bernard, Frances and the three surviving children are all listed in the 1870 census as living in Philadelphia in the 13^th Ward. Bernard is also listed in 1871 in the Philadelphia directory.

Bernard, however, must have been traveling back and forth between Santa Fe and Philadelphia because he is also listed in Santa Fe on the 1870 census, living with his brother Sigmund and two clerks. Bernard is listed as owning $25,000 worth of real estate and $20,000 in personal property. (Strangely, Sigmund only claimed $20,000 in personal property and no real estate, despite being the founder of the store and the full time resident.)

At some point, however, in 1871, Bernard and Frances and their children relocated to Santa Fe, and their last child, Arthur Seligman, was born on June 14, 1871, in Santa Fe, the first family member to be born in that city. According to Twitchell, Frances Nusbaum Seligman was one of only eight women living in Santa Fe at that time who did not come from a Spanish background. Twitchell described my great-great-grandmother as “a woman of rare beauty, great intelligence and charming personality.”[17] Although I will write about the Nusbaum family at a later time, for now I can say that they were a large and successful Philadelphia family with a German Jewish background; it must have been very difficult for Frances to leave her family behind and move all the way to Santa Fe, a frontier town far different from Philadelphia.

My great-grandmother Eva was only five years old when she made that cross-country trip with her parents and her siblings, leaving Philadelphia temporarily behind. She lived there for ten years, and when she was fifteen years old, she returned to Philadelphia for college and married my great-grandfather Emanuel Cohen when she was twenty. She lived in Philadelphia for the rest of her life. But most of the Seligman family developed and maintained deep roots in Santa Fe, ties that still exist today for many of their descendants.

In my posts to follow, I will first write about the years that my great-grandmother lived in Santa Fe, 1871-1881, and about her family. Then I will write about the years that followed, including the story of my great-great-uncle Arthur Seligman and his career as a political leader and ultimately governor of New Mexico.

Santa Fe Trail around 1845 plus connecting trading routes to commercial hubs and ports in the USA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

[1] “A Good and True Man Called Home,” Santa Fe New Mexican, February 3, 1903.

[2] Ralph Emerson Twitchell, Old Santa Fe: The Story of New Mexico’s Ancient Capital (The Rio Grande Press 1925), pp 476-478. I found a few errors in Twitchell’s account of Bernard Seligman, including the birth year of his brother Sigmund and the birth places of his first three children. I cannot independently verify some of his other assertions, unfortunately, but report them here as they were reported in Twitchell’s book.

[3] Arthur Scott, “My Grandfather’s Birthplace on the Santa Fe Plaza,” found at http://www.vocesdesantafe.org/index.php/explore-our-history/santa-fe/item/1090-my-grandfathers-birthplace-on-the-santa-fe-plaza

[4] Twitchell, p. 477. It is important to note that there was an entirely separate Seligman family that settled in Bernalillo, New Mexico around the same time that my Seligman ancestors were settling in Santa Fe. As far as I can tell, there is no familial relationship between the two families and the “other” Seligmans came from a different region in Germany, but one never knows. Henry Tobias and Sarah Payne, “Jewish Pioneers of New Mexico: The Seligman Family” (The New Mexico Jewish Historical Society, 2005).

[5] United States Germans to America Index, 1850-1897,” index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/KDWS-R3N : accessed 20 Sep 2014), Bernhard Seligmann, 23 Mar 1857; citing Germans to America Passenger Data file, 1850-1897, ARC identifier 1746067; Ship Mercury, departed from Havre, arrived in New York, New York, New York, United States, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington D.C.)

[6] Twitchell, p. 477. Bernard’s obituary claimed that he had come to Santa Fe directly after immigrating, but it makes sense that he would have spent some time in the east since he arrived in NY in 1857 and is said to have arrived in Santa Fe in 1858. Also, perhaps it was that initial stay in Philadelphia that caused him to return to Philadelphia some years later and to meet and marry my great-great-grandmother.

[7] “A Good and True Man Called Home,” Santa Fe New Mexican, February 3, 1903.

[8] Arthur Scott, “Seligman Brothers—Pioneer Jewish Entrepreneurs of Santa Fe and the New Mexico Territory,” http://www.newmexicohistory.org/people/seligman-brothers-pioneer-jewish-entrepreneurs-of-santa-fe-and-the-new-mexi

[9] Parish; also, Gunther Paul Barth, Instant Cities: Urbanization and the Rise of San Francisco and Denver

(Oxford University Press, 1975), pp. 71-73.

[10] Parish, p. 15. See also Henry J. Tobias, A History of the Jews of New Mexico (Univ. N. Mex. Press. 1990), p. 40-41.

[11] Parish, p. 15

[12] Twitchell, p.477.

[13] Tobias, pp. 43-44.

[14] Tobias, pp. 42-43.

[15] During the Civil War, Bernard served as a captain and quarter master for the Union Army. Arthur Scott, “Seligman Brothers—Pioneer Jewish Entrepreneurs of Santa Fe and the New Mexican Territory,” at http://www.newmexicohistory.org/people/seligman-brothers-pioneer-jewish-entrepreneurs-of-santa-fe-and-the-new-mexi See also Tobias, p. 54.

[16] Parish, p. 23, 129.

[17] Twitchell, p. 477.

Gau-Algesheim and the Seligmans: My Great-great-grandfather’s Birthplace and What I Learned

One Lovely Blog Award—A Nice Start to the New Year

Posted on September 27, 2014 by Amy

My new year started off on Thursday morning in just the right way. First, my daughter texted me to tell me that her baby, my grandson Remy, had slept through the night for the first time. Then I checked my email and saw there was a new post from one of my favorite bloggers, Pancho of The People of Pancho. She’d been nominated for The One Lovely Blog Award and was very excited. I was excited for her because I really enjoy her blog about her family research and about her childhood growing up in the Panama Canal Zone.

But imagine my surprise as I read through her blog post to see that she had in turn nominated me for The One Lovely Blog Award! I am so honored and flattered to have received this nomination. So Pancho, thank you so much for this nomination and for starting my year off with this great ego boost!

Now part of the deal in accepting this nomination is that there are certain rules to follow. Here are the rules for this award:

Thank the person who nominated you and link to that blog. (Thanks again, Pancho!)
Share seven things about yourself.
Nominate 15 bloggers you admire (or as many as you can think of!).
Contact your bloggers to let them know that you’ve tagged them for the One Lovely Blog Award

So… seven things about me? In no particular order, here are seven rather random thoughts about who I am:

My family is the center of my life, and not just my dead ancestors! My living and breathing family—those who have known me since birth and childhood and those I’ve only known since adulthood. I have been married for 38 years to the guy I met working at a day camp back in 1973. I still am amazed by how wonderful a man he is. My children and grandchildren give me endless joy. I am writing this blog for them, whether they realize it or not.
I taught law for 32 years—copyright, trademark, antitrust, and contracts law. I retired last spring, and so far retirement has been wonderful! I have more time to pursue genealogy, and I am exploring various volunteer projects that give me a chance to work with children and use my teaching skills.
I love animals, especially cats and dogs. I have never met a cat I didn’t like. They are all beautiful to me. I love dogs also, but not as much as I love cats. Except my dog. I love her as much as my cats.
The Outer Cape in Massachusetts—the location of the towns of Wellfleet, Truro, and Provincetown—is my favorite place in the world. No place else is as beautiful to me. Put me on the beach in the National Seashore or overlooking Cape Cod Bay, and my mind immediately clears.
I am a die-hard Red Sox fan and have been for 39 years…ever since 1975 when the Red Sox lifted me out of the doldrums and stress of my first year of law school. This year might have been the hardest season ever to be a Sox fan, from last to first to last again. Go Sox….2015?
English: Boston Red Sox Cap Logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Reading has been my favorite pastime since I was very young. I am always reading something for pleasure. My tastes are pretty eclectic, but mostly I read novels, biographies, and memoirs. I thank my mother for getting me hooked on books at a very early age. My favorite two books from childhood are The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster and Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White. The first taught me that books could create a whole imagined world where anything can happen; the second taught me that books could make me care enough about well-developed and well-written characters—even a spider—that I would cry over them. I still cannot think about the ending of Charlotte’s Web without getting choked up.
Cover of The Phantom Tollbooth

Charlotte’s Web (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Since I first started reading books on my own as a child, I have always been inspired by good writing. I have always, always, wanted to write. Work, family, and life got in the way. This blog has been a gift for me—I finally get to write what I want to write the way I want to write it. Thank you to all my readers and followers for giving me an audience and the encouragement and the inspiration to keep on writing. I share this nomination with you all.

And now my turn to recognize some of the blogs that have inspired me and that teach me something about genealogy, about writing, and/or about life. First, Pancho already recognized three of my favorite blogs: Bernfeld Family of Galicia & More, The Genealogy Girl, and Shaking the Tree. I would also have nominated these three as all are wonderfully written, very expressive, and very well-researched genealogy blogs. All three touch me and help me all the time.

I would also re-nominate The People of Pancho for all those reasons and also Jana’s Genealogy and Family History Blog, though I know that Jana nominated Pancho thus must herself have been nominated. So those are five genealogy blogs that I would also have nominated even though they’ve already been nominated. But I will spread the wealth and nominate a different group of fifteen.

These are in no particular order, but the first group are all genealogy blogs that I enjoy reading, find helpful, are amazingly well-researched and well written.

1. Root to Tip

2. The Family Kalamazoo

3. The Lives of My Ancestors

4. The Legal Genealogist

5. Genealogy Sisters

6. Moore Genealogy

7. Genealogy Lady

8. One Rhode Island Family

To demonstrate that I do have interests outside of genealogy, here are seven non-genealogy blogs that I enjoy:

9. wmtc: formerly, We Move to Canada, a blog originally (not surprisingly) about Laura Kaminker’s move to Canada from the US, but now much more than that: politics, books, travel, personal reflections, dogs, baseball, you name it—all clearly and beautifully written and often very provocative.

10. The Joy of Sox: the very first blog I ever read—all about the Red Sox. Allan Wood’s latest book about the Red Sox, Don’t Let Us Win Tonight, has made me an even bigger fan.

11. BJJ, Law, and Living–the thoughts and experiences of the blog owner, who is a recent law graduate and mother

12. Wellfleet Today—the ins and outs and ups and downs of running a B&B in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. Amazing photographs.

13. Rex Parker Does the New York Times Crossword Puzzle—ever since I discovered this site a few years ago, I no longer have to wait 24 hours to find out what obscure answers I missed, and I also get to read all the rantings of Rex and his followers.

14. Over the Monster–another Red Sox blog

15. The TTABlog–a blog I followed regularly while teaching trademark law. Although I am retired and no longer reading it regularly, I want to recognize it because it was tremendously helpful to me while I was teaching.

So those are my fifteen nominations. Now I have to go tell them all they’ve been nominated. I hope they are as pleased as I was by my nomination.

Looking back: The Cohen Family from Amsterdam to England to Philadelphia and Washington and beyond

Posted on September 17, 2014 by Amy

Amsterdam coat of arms

T wo months ago I wrote a summary of my perspective on the descendants of Jacob and Sarah Jacobs Cohen and their thirteen children, including my great-grandfather Emanuel Cohen. I wrote about the way they managed to create a large network of pawnshops that provided support for the generations to come. Many of the Philadelphia Cohens stayed in the pawnshop business into the 20^th century. The generation that followed, those born in the 20^th century, began to move away from the pawn business and from Philadelphia. Descendants began to go to college and to become professionals. Today the great-great-grandchildren of Jacob and Sarah live all over the country and are engaged in many, many different fields. Few of us today can imagine living with twelve siblings over a pawnshop in South Philadelphia. We can’t fathom the idea of losing child after child to diseases that are now controlled by vaccinations and medicine. We take for granted the relative luxurious conditions in which we live today.

Philadelphia flag

The story of the Cohen family in Washington is much the same in some ways, different in other ways. Jacob’s brother Moses and his wife Adeline also started out as immigrants in the pawnshop business , first in Baltimore and then Washington. But unlike Jacob who lived to see his children become adults, Moses Cohen died at age 40 when his younger children were still under ten years old. Adeline was left to raise those young children on her own as she had likely raised her first born son, Moses Himmel Cohen, on her own until she married Moses Cohen, Sr. When I look at what those children accomplished and what their children then accomplished, I am in awe of what Adeline was able to do. For me, the story of the DC Cohens is primarily the story of Adeline Himmel Cohen for it was she, not Moses, who raised the five children who thrived here in the US. She somehow instilled in those children a drive to overcome the loss of their father, to take risks, to get an education, and to make a living.

Her son Moses, Jr., an immigrant himself, had nine children; his son, Myer, became a lawyer. To me it is quite remarkable that a first generation American, the son of a Jewish immigrant, was able to go to law school in the late 19^th century. Myer himself went on to raise a large family, including two sons who became doctors and one who became a high ranking official at the United Nations in its early years after World War II. Moses, Jr.’s other children also lived comfortable lives, working in their own businesses and raising families. These were first generation Americans who truly worked to find the American dream.

Adeline and Moses, Sr.’s other three children who survived to adulthood, Hart, JM, and Rachel Cohen, all took a big risk and moved, for varying periods of time, to Sioux City, Iowa. Even their mother Adeline lived out on the prairie for some years. JM stayed out west, eventually moving to Kansas City; he was able to send his two daughters to college, again something that struck me as remarkable for those times. His grandchildren were very successful professionally. Hart, who lost a son to an awful accident, had a more challenging life. His sister Rachel also had some heartbreak—losing one young child and a granddaughter Adelyn, but she had two grandsons who both appear to have been successful.

Three of the DC Cohen women married three Selinger brothers or cousins. Their children included doctors, a popular singer, and a daughter who returned to England several generations after her ancestors had left. The family tree gets quite convoluted when I try to sort out how their descendants are related, both as Cohens and as Selingers.

There were a number of heart-breaking stories to tell about the lives of some of these people, but overall like the Philadelphia Cohens, these were people who endured and survived and generally succeeded in having a good life, at least as far as I can tell. The DC Cohens, like the Philadelphia Cohens, have descendants living all over the United States and elsewhere and are working in many professions and careers of all types.

flag of Washington, DC

Looking back now at the story of all the Cohens, all the descendants of Hart Levy Cohen and Rachel Jacobs, I feel immense respect for my great-great-great grandparents. They left Amsterdam for England, presumably for better economic opportunities than Amsterdam offered at that time. In England Hart established himself as a merchant, but perhaps being a Dutch Jew in London was not easy, and so all five of Hart and Rachel’s children came to the US, Lewis, Moses, Jacob, Elizabeth, and Jonas, again presumably for even better opportunities than London had offered them. Eventually Hart himself came to the US, uprooting himself for a second time to cross the Atlantic as a man already in his seventies so that he could be with his children and his grandchildren. Rachel unfortunately did not survive to make that last move.

The flag of the City of London

Arriving in the US by 1850 in that early wave of Jewish immigration gave my Cohen ancestors a leg up over the Jewish immigrants who arrived thirty to sixty years later, like my Brotman, Goldschlager, and Rosenzweig ancestors. Of course, the Cohens had the advantage of already speaking English, unlike my Yiddish speaking relatives on my mother’s side. They also had the advantage of arriving at a time when there wre fewer overall immigrants, Jewish immigrants in particular and thus faced less general hostility than the masses of Jewish, Italian, and other immigrants who arrived in the 1890s and early 20^th century. Also, my Cohen relatives may not have been wealthy when they arrived, but Hart and his children already had experience as merchants and were able to establish their own businesses fairly quickly. Thus, by the time my mother’s ancestors started arriving and settling in the Lower East Side of NYC or in East Harlem, working in sweatshops and struggling to make ends meet, my father’s ancestors were solidly in the middle and upper classes in Philadelphia, Washington, Sioux City, Kansas City, Detroit, and Baltimore.

When I look at these stories together, I see the story of Jewish immigration in America. I see a first wave of Jews, speaking English, looking American, and living comfortably, facing a second wave who spoke Yiddish, looked old-fashioned, and lived in poverty. No wonder there was some tension between the two groups. No wonder they established different synagogues, different communities, different traditions.

A recent study suggests that all Ashkenazi Jews were descended from a small group of about 350 ancestors. We all must share some DNA to some extent. We are really all one family. But we have always divided ourselves and defined our subgroups differently—Orthodox, Conservative, Reform; Galitizianer or Litvak; Sephardic or Ashkenazi; Israeli or American; so on and so forth. We really cannot afford to do that in today’s world; we never really could. Today very few of us make distinctions based on whether our ancestors came in 1850 or 1900 because we are all a mix of both and because we have blurred the economic and cultural distinctions that once were so obvious. But we still have a long way to go to eradicate the divisions among us and to overcome the prejudices that continue to exist regarding those who are different, whether Jewish or non-Jewish.

A wonderful email from a Selinger cousin

Posted on September 13, 2014 by Amy

Yesterday I received an email from Ann Griffin Selinger, whose husband was John Reynolds Selinger, Sr. John Selinger was the son of Maurice Selinger, Sr., and the grandson of Julius Selinger and Augusta Cohen, the oldest child of Moses, Jr, and Henrietta Cohen. I was so touched by the stories that Ann had to share about her husband John and his family that I asked her whether I could quote from her email on the blog and share these memories of her family. She graciously gave me permission to do so, and so here they are with just a few side comments by me. Ann’s language is italicized, whereas mine is in regular font.

My husband, was John Reynolds Selinger, 1933-2007, born in Washington, DC as was his brother, Maurice Arthur Selinger, Jr. For a time we lived in Chevy Chase, Maryland and one day we received a visit from Eliot Selinger who apparently lived around the corner from us with his family. We had exchanged mail a few times without meeting, but never looked into whether we were related. He told us at the time that he thought we were related and that his father and John’s grandfather were brothers – Frederick and Julius. We had been under the obviously false impression that Julius had no siblings.

Interestingly, Mildred Selinger, Dr. Maurice A. Selinger’s wife, having lived in Washington her whole adult life, lived with us just before she died in 1981. I see that Eliot died a year later. He must have knocked on our door just before he died.

The comment about Julius and Frederick Selinger being brothers was a very important revelation for me because it confirmed what I had suspected. I assume that Alfred Selinger was also, given that he lived with Julius and traveled with Julius and Augusta before marrying Augusta’s sister Fanny.

Here is a bittersweet story about Eleanor Selinger, the daughter of Julius and Augusta who married Henry Abbot and moved to England as discussed here.

Years earlier, John and I were in England and he said he would like to see if he could find his Aunt Eleanor.
We were successful and made arrangements to have tea with her in her apartment just before we left London. When she opened the door, John was astonished to notice she looked exactly like his Dad who had died over ten years before. We had a lovely visit. She shared that she loved to play cards, but had a hard time see the cards now. So the next day we had some “jumbo faced” cards sent over to her from Harrod’s – a fun idea. She called us to say she was so flustered when the delivery man said he was from Harrod’s that she had a hard time buzzing him in. Very sweet – a wonderful connection that pleased my husband very much. We flew home the next day and then received word a day later that she had died.

Ann also told me more about the accomplishments of Dr. Maurice Selinger, her husband’s father, who along with his brother Jerome were probably the first doctors in the extended Cohen family, as discussed here.

Dr. Maurice Selinger, my father-in-law, who died before John and I were married, served in World War I and World War II as a physician. He was a very dedicated doctor who gave his all to medicine and his patients. He was very highly regarded in the Washington medical world. He was instrumental in bringing three hospitals together (Garfield, Emergency, and one other – can’t remember) to form the new Washington Hospital Center. I remember just after we were married going to a diabetes center in Maryland that was dedicated to Dr. Selinger. I know nothing more about that. Amazing what you don’t pay attention to when you are young.
They lived in a lovely home on California Street, NW – should look up the number, that is now the Embassy of Venezuela.

Washington Hospital Center
“WHCExtGarden”. Via Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WHCExtGarden.JPG#mediaviewer/File:WHCExtGarden.JPG

And finally this story about John’s father Maurice and his grandfather Julius and the Selinger’s jewelry store on F Street discussed here.

John always told the story that when his father was a young boy he would earn his allowance by winding the clocks on F Street that were installed by his grandfather, Julius. They also put the clock in the tower of the old National Savings and Trust Building downtown. Years later, John became a banker and worked as a Vice President in that same bank.

National Savings and Trust Building, Washington, DC
“15th, New York, & Pennsylvania Avenue, NW” by AgnosticPreachersKid – Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:15th,_New_York,_%26_Pennsylvania_Avenue,_NW.jpg#mediaviewer/File:15th,_New_York,_%26_Pennsylvania_Avenue,_NW.jpg

There is nothing better than hearing and preserving these family stories. They take the facts and inferences I make from government documents come to life and fill them with the love and respect that these people deserve. Thank you so much, Ann, for sharing these with me. I can’t tell you how much it meant to me.

Blog Update: Cohen Family Trees

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Amy

English: Leaves of Utah mountain trees changing color during autumn. Deutsch: Die Farbe der Blätter ändert während des Herbstes. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have added a new page to the blog. If you look at the top where all the fixed pages are listed, you will see that the last entry is one that says “Cohen Family Trees.” If you click on it, you will see a page that has a list of links. Each of those links will lead to a PDF version of a family tree. You can download and/or print these.

As I explain on the page itself, the first three trees are very large. There is one for Hart Levy and Rachel Cohen, one of Jacob and Sarah Cohen, and one for Moses and Adeline Cohen, each going to several generations, but not including any living descendants. To see these, you will probably need to print out the pages and line them up to see the overall family.

The other trees are for each individual child or grandchild of Hart and Rachel so that you can see each “branch” more clearly. The bigger trees are rather difficult to use, so I made these smaller trees. I hope this is helpful.

The Cohen family is very large, and there are so many people with similar or identical names. I’ve lost track myself of how many Jacob Cohens there are, how many Isaac Cohens, Joseph Cohens, Rachel Cohens, etc. I hope the trees will help keep these straight.

Hart Cohen of DC: The Rest of the Story

Posted on September 1, 2014 by Amy

It’s been a week since I last posted anything new about the DC Cohen family. I had last written about Solomon Monroe Cohen and his family, the son of Moses, Jr., and Henrietta Cohen. Although I will continue to try and fill the gaps left in the research of the children of Moses, Jr. and Henrietta Cohen, I am now going to move on to the other children of Moses, Sr., and Adeline Cohen, first focusing on their son Hart, who was born in 1851 in Maryland.

It was this Hart (whom I’ve referred to as Hart DC) who had me confused because of the similarities between some of his biographical facts and those of his first cousin, my great-grandfather Emanuel’s brother, Hart Cohen of Philadelphia. They had the same name, were born the same year, and were both married to women named Henrietta. It was this Hart who led me to the discovery of the DC branch of the Cohen family. Hart and his wife Henrietta Baer had four children: Frances, Munroe, Isadore, and Jacob. Their son Munroe was killed in an awful accident while working as a brakeman on the railroad in Kingston, New York, in 1903. Isadore had married Frances David in 1907, so in 1910, Hart and Henrietta had two children living at home, Frances (32) and Jacob (25). Jacob was working as a chauffeur, and Hart was working in a jewelry store. On August 8, 1914, Hart’s wife Henrietta Baer Cohen died; she was only 62.

Isadore and Frances had had a son Monroe born in 1910, presumably named for Isadore’s brother. In 1916, they had another son, Burton. In 1917, Isadore was working as a department manager for a hotel according to his World War I draft registration.

Isadore Baer Cohen World War I draft registration

I found two World War I draft registrations for Jacob. The earlier one, dated June, 1917, listed Jacob’s business as the concessions business and said he suffered from heart trouble. His marital status was single, and he was living with his father and his sister Frances at 1802 7^th Street NW in Washington. The second one, dated September 1918, had a number of changes: he was working in the restaurant business and was self-employed, he was married, and there was no mention of heart trouble.

Jacob M. Cohen World War I registration (first)

Jacob M. Cohen World War I registration (second)

According to the Philadelphia marriage index, Jacob had married Rose Serge in Philadelphia in 1918. He was 33, and she was thirty when they married. In 1918, they were living at 1802 7^th Street with Jacob’s father and sister Frances.

In 1920, Hart and his daughter Frances were still living at 1802 7^th Street, but Jacob and Rose had moved to their own place in Washington. Jacob was still in the restaurant business. Isadore and his family were also still living in Washington, and Isadore was still in the hotel business.

On August 10, 1926, Hart died at the age of 75. His daughter Frances continued to live in the same residence at 1802 7^th Street, now living alone and working as a retail merchant in the dry goods business, a business she had been working in since at least 1915. She would continue to work in that business until her death in February, 1941, at age 62, the same age her mother had been when she died. Frances’ death notice said that she had died suddenly. She was buried at Washington Hebrew Cemetery. There is no mention of her brother Jacob in her death notice, only mention of her brother Isadore. Frances never married or had children.

Ancestry.com. Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, & Death Announcements, 1851-2003 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006.

In 1930 Jacob and Rose were living in Philadelphia, where Jacob was the manager of a restaurant. I could not find Jacob or Rose on the 1940 census, nor can I find a death record for Jacob, but given that he was not listed in his sister’s obituary and that he had had a history of heart trouble, my guess is that he had died before the 1940 census. He would have been younger than 55 years old when he died. He and Rose did not have any children.

Although I could not find Rose on the 1940 census, she was still alive in 1949, as I found her on a ship manifest traveling to Hawaii. According to the ship manifest Rose was living at 41 Emory Street in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1949. Rose had lived in Jersey City as a child, and 41 Emory Street is where her mother had been living in 1925 and where two of her sisters were living in 1930. Obviously, Rose had returned to her hometown after Jacob died. She was still alive in 1952 when her sister Minnie died, but after that I cannot find any mention or record for her. I tried contacting the funeral home that had handled other deaths in the Serge family, Wien and Wien in New Jersey, but sadly their records for the Jersey City funeral home were burned in a fire fifteen years ago. I also called the cemetery where Minnie is buried to see if they have any records for Jacob or Rose Cohen, but have not heard back from them.

As for Isadore, in 1930, he and his family were living in Chicago, where Isadore was working as a salesman in the paper industry. His son Monroe was a clerk in the weather bureau there. I wonder what prompted the move to Chicago and the career change for Isadore.

Isadore Baer Cohen and family 1930 census

In 1940, the family was still living together in Chicago, and Isadore was a book salesman. Both Monroe and Burton had changed their surname from Cohen to Coulter, though their parents were still using Cohen. Although Monroe was now 30 and Burton 24, there is no occupation listed for either of them on the 1940 census.

Isadore Baer Cohen and family 1940 census

By 1942, Isadore had retired, according to his draft registration. He gave Burton’s name as his contact person, which I found interesting since his wife Frances was still alive at that time.

Isadore Baer Cohen World War II draft registration

Sometime between 1942 and 1949, Isadore and Frances moved to California, where Frances died in 1949. Isadore died in 1958 when he was 77 years old. He lived a much longer life than any of his siblings or his mother. His father Hart was the only other one to live past seventy.

According to his obituary in the Chicago Tribune of September 8, 1996, Isadore’s son Monroe Coulter had enlisted in the Army Air Corps before World War II and was an electrical engineer. He married Fannie Simon on November 25, 1942, in Chicago and appears to have settled in Illinois. They had two children. Monroe worked on the Air Force missile program and retired from the military in 1970 with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was living in Itasca, Illinois, when he died on September 6, 1996, and is buried at Shalom Memorial Park in Arlington Heights, Illinois.

His brother Burton moved to California in the 1950s. He was married and had two children. In 1952 he was working as the deputy county assessor in Alhambra, California, according to a directory for that city. Then, according to Sacramento city directories, from at least 1959 through 1966 he lived in Sacramento and worked as an appraiser for the California Department of Equalization, a state agency responsible for administering the state tax laws. Burton died in Los Angeles, California in 1978. He was only 61 years old and thus was another family member who did not live to see seventy.

The family line of Hart and Henrietta Cohen thus is somewhat limited. Of the four children of Hart and Henrietta, only Isadore lived past seventy, and only Isadore had children. Frances never married, and Jacob married, but did not have children. Munroe, Jacob, and Frances all died at relatively young ages, as did their mother Henrietta. Although Munroe died in an accident, I do not know what led to the early deaths of Henrietta, Frances and Jacob, but will see if I can find out.

I am hoping that one of Isadore’s descendants will be able to provide a Y-DNA test to provide evidence of the genetic link between Moses Cohen, Sr., and my great-great-grandfather Jacob Cohen, but I am having some trouble making contact with them. They are the only direct male genetic descendants of Moses Cohen, Sr. and thus my only option for finding that genetic connection between Moses and Jacob. Maybe one of them will find this blog post and find me.

Wonderful Surprises and Gifts

Posted on August 29, 2014 by Amy

I had two wonderful surprises this week. Usually I am hunting down family members, hoping for a response. Twice this week I heard from relatives who found me.

Lou, a relative by marriage, is a cousin of my cousin Marjorie. He had visited Marjorie recently and heard about my contact with her. He sent me two wonderful photographs of Marjorie. One is posted here: a photograph of Marjorie and her parents, Bessie and Stanley Cohen, at her graduation from Trinity College in Washington, DC, probably around 1947. I’d never seen a picture of any of these family members before, and it was so meaningful to be able to see Marjorie’s face after spending time getting to know her on the phone this summer. I hope to be able to meet her in person in the coming months. I also was excited to see what my great-uncle Stanley looked like and what his wife Bessie looked like. It really helps to bring these people to life when you can put a face to the name. Bessie and Stanley look so proud of their daughter, a college graduate back when most women did not even dream of going to college. (The second photograph I will post when I get to my Seligman relatives as it depicts two of them.)

Bessie and Stanley Cohen with their daughter Marjorie at her graduation

The second wonderful surprise came in the form of a comment on the blog from a descendant of Julius and Augusta Selinger, their great-grandson Cito. He had just accidentally found the blog while searching for something else and was pleased to see and learn more about his family’s history.

He then sent me this wonderful photograph of his great-grandfather Julius’ jewelry store. Although the photograph is not dated, if you look at it closely, you can read the larger sign in the window that says “Sale…Watches…$4,” and see at the bottom “Price during the War +15.” I am not exactly sure what that means, but I assume that the reference is to World War I, dating the photograph during the second decade of the 20^th century.

Selinger’s Jewelry Store 820 F Street, Washington, DC

That makes sense because the young woman to the right standing in the doorway is assumed by the family to be Eleanor Selinger, the daughter of Julius and Augusta who married Henry Abbot and moved to London in 1926. Eleanor would have been about 22 years old in 1917 when the US entered World War I. I love being able to see Eleanor’s face also. She has such a searching, pensive look on her face—what was she thinking? You can see the reflections of a crowd of people looking into the window as well as some of the buildings across the way. The store was at 820 F Street in Washington, DC. Perhaps some of you recognize that location?

Thanks to both Lou and Cito for generously sharing these photographs and for contacting me. I am so happy that you both were able to find me. I also received photographs from another family member this week, my cousin Jack, the great-grandson of Joseph Cohen, who was my great-grandfather Emanuel’s older brother. I will post some of those photographs next week after I have a chance to scan them.

So it’s been a great week to be doing genealogy research. I am feeling very fortunate for all the gifts that genealogy has provided to me. Happy Labor Day Weekend, everyone!

The Flat: A film by Arnon Goldfinger

Posted on August 24, 2014 by Amy

The other night we watched a fascinating movie, The Flat. It is a documentary made by Arnon Goldfinger about what he learns about his grandparents after his grandmother dies and he and his family clean out their apartment in Tel Aviv. His grandparents had lived in Berlin until 1936 when they left for Israel. Goldfinger and his family, including his mother, had almost no knowledge of the grandparents’ lives before they left Germany.

I do not want to reveal too much about what they learn because each viewer should be able to experience the revelations as they are uncovered in the course of the film. But I will say that this is a film that anyone interested in family history and the ethical dilemmas that are created when you learn something surprising and perhaps troubling about the past should watch. What is our obligation to reveal the truths we learn to those left behind, even if they were innocent of the past actions of their family members? Why do people hide from the truth? Why do some of us ask questions and seek answers whereas others prefer to avoid uncovering the past?

But this is not only a film for genealogists. It is a film for everyone who has an interest in human nature. The film addresses important questions of identity and nationality. What makes people identify with a country, a religion, a family? How do we pick our friends? How does denial play into our sense of who we are?

Finally, this is also a film about our legacy. What will our families do and think after we are gone? When the family throws out bag after bag after bag of the treasured belongings of the grandparents, I couldn’t help but think about the way we all collect objects—clothing, books, jewelry, letters, photographs—that our descendants will toss away with barely a thought. We have to leave something else behind besides these material things—our good name, our good deeds, our stories, and our love. All else will vanish.

Solomon Monroe Cohen/Cole: Post Script

Posted on August 22, 2014 by Amy

Yesterday I received a copy of the death certificate of Sol Cole, who died on June 11, 1938.

I learned a number of things from this document. First, Sol died of heart disease when he was only 58 years old. He had had hypertension and arteriosclerosis for fifteen years and myocarditis for over a year, and then for a week before he died, he suffered from coronary thrombosis and finally acute cardiac failure. He had been under the same doctor’s care for close to a year and had been living in New York City for about the same period of time.

He had been living at 12 West 72^nd Street in what was then a hotel, located less than a block from Central Park. The certificate indicates that he was working up until a month before he died as a manager in the furniture business, the same industry he had been working in for 35 years, starting in Detroit, then in Columbus, and ultimately in New York City.

The certificate also corroborated the fact that Estelle had predeceased him, as he was a widower at the time of his death. Sol’s remains were cremated by Ferncliff Crematory, and both of his sons, Ralph and Robert, signed a sworn statement to the New York City Department of Health that it had been their father’s wish to be cremated. I called Ferncliff to see if they had any records for Estelle, but they did not; they only had records for Sol. Although I cannot be certain, my hunch is that Sol moved to New York after Estelle died since there is no record of her death in New York City nor were her remains handled by the same institution. I still do not know when or where Estelle died, but I will focus on Ohio as that is where I know she was living as of 1935.

Brotmanblog: A Family Journey

Adventures in Genealogy

Category Archives: Genealogy

Bernard Seligman: His Political Career and His Family 1870-1890

Jews on the Santa Fe Trail 1848-1871: My Great-Great-Grandfather Bernard Seligman and his Brothers

One Lovely Blog Award—A Nice Start to the New Year

Looking back: The Cohen Family from Amsterdam to England to Philadelphia and Washington and beyond

A wonderful email from a Selinger cousin

Blog Update: Cohen Family Trees

Hart Cohen of DC: The Rest of the Story

Wonderful Surprises and Gifts

The Flat: A film by Arnon Goldfinger

Solomon Monroe Cohen/Cole: Post Script

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