My Cousin, the Musical Star

Posted on August 14, 2014 by Amy

When I spoke with my cousin Ellen Kleinfeld last week, she asked me whether I knew that there had been an opera singer in the family. I said that I had not yet run across any family members who were opera singers. She thought the cousin’s name was Sylvia, but wasn’t sure. I told her that I would keep researching and would let her know if I found anyone that might fit that description. I was skeptical of the claim that we had a singing star in the family, knowing how family myths can grow beyond the basic facts, but I figured I’d keep my eyes open for anyone who might be this musical “Sylvia.”

Well, it did not take long to find her, and it was not because I was looking for her specifically. The fourth child of Moses, Jr. and Henrietta Cohen after Augusta, Myer, and Jacob was Fannie Cohen. As written earlier, Fannie married Alfred Selinger, the assumed relative of Julius Selinger, who had married her older sister Augusta. Fannie and Alfred had one child, a daughter Selma. Selma was the mysterious singer my cousin Ellen had heard about as Sylvia.

Selma, who was born in 1894, was already performing as a singer at a Fourth of July celebration in Washington, DC, by 1905, when she was only eleven years old, and she is mentioned as a singer in numerous articles in the Washington area newspapers over the next 20 years.[1]

On September 14, 1912, Selma married William Danforth, who was an actor who worked under the stage name Billy L. Wilson, according to his passport application. Three years later they had a daughter Mildred, but the marriage did not last. An article from the Eau Claire (Wisconsin) Leader on April 10, 1917, told of a trip that Billy L. Wilson was making to Australia with his vaudeville partner, Joe F. Willard. The article said that Billy and Joe had been on B.F. Keith‘s vaudeville circuit in the eastern and southern parts of the US. (This is the same B.F. Keith who had married Ethel Chase, the sister-in-law of Ruth Cohen Chase, Selma’s first cousin, in 1913, six months before he died. Ethel Chase later married Ruth and Selma’s other cousin, Jerome Selinger. Perhaps Selma met Billy also through Ruth’s connection to B.F. Keith, or maybe Billy introduced Ethel to B.F. Keith.)

Apparently being on the road was not good for the marriage between Selma and Billy, and by 1920, they were divorced. She and Mildred were living with her parents, Fannie and Alfred. Alfred was working as a tailor, and Selma gave her occupation as a stenographer for a concert business. Throughout this time, however, Selma had continued to perform.[2] I could only find one photograph of Selma, however, despite all the news coverage, and it is not a very clear photo.

Selma Selinger New York Times 1919

On June 6, 1920, Selma sang at an event where a young man named Earl I. Klein was also performing and at later events he performed as her accompanist.[3] Earl also had been a musician since an early age, performing as a pianist and a violinist at numerous events since 1907, when he was thirteen. He had attended the Columbia Conservatory of Music.[4] What may have started as a professional relationship turned romantic, and on July 15, 1921, Selma married Earl Klein, and the two continued to perform together for some time thereafter. Selma also sang on some radio broadcasts in the early 1920s.

Unfortunately, I could not find any coverage of Selma and Earl’s careers after 1922. By 1930, however, it seemed that both may have ended their musical careers. On the 1930 census, Earl’s occupation is listed as the manager of a taxi company, and Selma has no occupation listed. In 1940, Earl was selling insurance, and Selma again had no occupation listed. Selma’s parents, Fannie and Alfred Selinger, were living with them, as was Selma’s daughter Mildred. (Fannie and Alfred must have also had a place in St. Petersburg, Florida, as they are listed in the city directories for that city in 1924 and 1934.)

Selma lost her mother, Fannie Cohen Selinger, on August 21, 1940, and her father Alfred Selinger died seven years later on October 11, 1947. Her husband Earl died of a heart attack on June 9, 1957. Earl was buried in Washington Hebrew Cemetery where Selma’s parents Fannie and Alfred are buried as well as her grandparents Moses, Jr. and Henrietta Cohen.

(Photos courtesy of Ira Todd Cohen and Jane and Scott Cohen)

Sometime thereafter Selma remarried a man named Theodore C. Lewis. Selma died on January 2, 1973, in Silver Spring, Maryland. The Washington Post published the obituary below, describing some of the highlights of her musical career.

The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973) [Washington, D.C] 03 Jan 1973:

Interestingly, Selma was not buried where her long time husband Earl is buried, and I still have not found where she is buried, though I am checking with the cemetery where her third husband is buried, Fort Lincoln.

UPDATE: I just got confirmation that Selma is buried next to her third husband, Theodore Lewis, at Fort Lincoln cemetery. Poor Earl–buried with the Cohen family, his in-laws, while his wife is buried elsewhere.

Selma’s daughter Mildred married a musician, Maurice or Maury Hall. They lived in Las Vegas and then in North Hollywood, California.

Thus, one family “myth” has been validated. Although Selma did not sing in a traditional opera setting, she was a professional soprano who sang both popular and classical musical works. In the days before radio and recordings were widespread, hiring musicians for entertainment was much more common. I can visualize these society gatherings and charitable and patriotic events where my cousin Selma sang to the delight of her audience, sometimes accompanied by her husband Earl.

I leave you with two links to click on to hear two songs that Selma sang (not, however, sung by her in these recordings). Although Selma sang everything from “Madame Butterfly” to Handel’s Oratorio “Judas Maccabeas” to Kol Nidre at these performances, I particularly enjoyed searching for these two songs that were popular during World War I, as they reminded me of a time many, many years ago I sat with my father and a family friend as they discussed World War I songs. I was probably about thirteen and could not for the life of me figure out why these two men were talking about (and singing) songs written before they were born. As Mel Brooks said in The 2000 Year Old Man, we mock the things we are to be.

Cover of The 2000 Year Old Man

Roses of Picardy

Keep the Home Fires Burning

[1] For example, for some early performances, see The Washington Evening Star, July 3, 1905, p. 3; “Dr. Simon Guest of Honor, Washington Evening Star, June 2, 1908, p. 9; “Eastern Star Entertainments,” April 15, 1909, Washington Evening Star, p. 15; Washington Evening Star, May 9, 1909, p. 65; “Have Lively Debate,” Washington Evening Star, April 6, 1910, p. 2; “Casino,” Washington Evening Star, April 9, 1913.

[2] See “Jewish Women Hear their New Protégé,” Washington Evening Star, January 13, 1916, p. 24 (as Selma Selinger Danforth); “Grotto Will Entertain,” Washington Evening Star, January 13, 1916, p. 24; “Arab Patrol Host to 1,500 Guests,” Washington Evening Star, April 29, 1916, p. 9; Washington Evening Star, December 9, 1917, p. 54 (‘…Miss Selma Selinger sang several patriotic solos which were so well received that she had to respond with several encores.”); “Liberty Loan Boosted at Patriotic Rally,” Washington Evening Star, April 7, 1918, p. 20.1 This is just a sampling; there were also mentions in the Washington Herald and the Washington Post.

[3] See Washington Evening Star, June 6, 1920, p. 53; “Florida Society,” Washington Evening Star, January 9, 1921, p. 25; Washington Evening Star, November 5, 1922, p. 63.

[4] Washington Evening Star, July 5, 1908, p. 26. Also, numerous other articles about Earl Klein’s performances can be found by searching genealogybank.com for Earl Klein in the District of Columbia.

Jacob G. Cohen, Almost State Treasurer, and his descendants: A Sad Ending and a Loose End

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Amy

The third child of Moses, Jr., and his wife Henrietta was Jacob G. Cohen. As I wrote previously, Jacob had married Ida Siegel in 1894 and had moved to New York City, where he first worked as a bookkeeper. Just this week I received a copy of their marriage certificate.

Jacob G. Cohen and Ida Siegel marriage certificate

Jacob and Ida had two children, Aimee and Gerson, and by 1910 had moved to Yonkers, New York, where Jacob worked as the manager of a dry goods store, according to the 1910 census. In 1912, Jacob and Ida traveled overseas, and in 1915 Jacob’s occupation was an office manager for a business that is not legible to me. Maybe someone else can decipher it? Ida’s obituary said he was the treasurer of a department store at some point, so perhaps this says department store?

UPDATE: Thank you to Gil Weeder! He read it as Dry Goods, and now that I look at it, I think that’s right, and it makes sense!

Jacob and Ida Cohen and family 1915 NY census

On February 12, 1917, their daughter Aimee married Lester Wronker, who was working in the leather goods industry. Aimee and Lester had a son, Robert, who was born in April, 1919. In 1920, the family was living in Manhattan.

Ida and Jacob’s son Gerson was a student at New York University at the time he registered for the draft in 1917. He was inducted into the US Army on October 1, 1918, and was discharged on December 19, 1918, without ever serving overseas. He was part of the NYU student training corps.

Gerson Siegel Cohen military record

In 1918, Jacob G. Cohen ran as a Democrat for New York State Treasurer on the same ticket as Alfred E. Smith. Although Smith won the governor’s seat, Jacob was defeated in the general election, losing to the Republican candidate, James L.Wells, 839,777 votes to 1,028,752 votes. Although Smith and the Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor, Harry C. Walker, were victorious, all the other Democratic candidates on the slate were defeated by the Republican candidates.

Alfred E. Smith, Governor of New York

Al Smith served four terms as governor of New York State and in 1928 became the first Catholic nominated by a major party as a candidate for President of the United States. He was soundly defeated by Herbert Hoover. But imagine if Jacob had won and served as NYS treasurer with Al Smith—and imagine if Smith had won in 1928—my cousin Jacob G. Cohen might have become the US Treasury Secretary. If he had won the election for New York State Treasurer, he would have been one of the first Jews to hold statewide office in New York.

Instead, Jacob returned to civilian life as a businessman. In 1920, Jacob and Ida were living in Chicago as lodgers in what appears to have been a very large boarding house or hotel. Jacob was working as the manager of a department store. Did he leave New York to escape after losing the election? In 1925 Jacob and Ida were back in New York, living in Manhattan, and Jacob was working as an insurance agent. Their daughter Aimee and her husband Lester and their son Robert were now living in Yonkers, and Lester was working in the silk industry. I was not able to locate Gerson on the 1920 US census or the 1925 New York State census.

Jacob died on February 13, 1930, according to a death notice in the New York Times.

(Obituary No. 5, February 15, 1930, New York Times, p. 17)

For a long time I could not find any records for Jacob or Ida after 1925, but then by searching for “Wronker” in the New York Times archives, I was able to find this death notice for Jacob, which revealed why I had not been able to find them: they had changed their surname from Cohen to Cole sometime between 1925 and 1930.

Gerson had also changed his last name to Cole and also his first name to Gary. (Even searching for him under Gary Cole has not provided me with any information about his whereabouts between 1918 and 1930 or after 1930.) After Jacob died, Ida moved in with Aimee and her family in Yonkers, where Lester continued to work as a sales manager in the silk industry.

Gerson, now Gary Cole, finally reappeared in 1930 in Detroit as a credit manager for a furniture business. I believe this is the same Gary Cole/Gerson Cohen based on his age (30), birth place (New York), and birth places of his parents (Washington, DC.) He was living in what seems to be a hotel as a guest.

Gary Cole 1930 census

In 1940, Ida was still living with Aimee and Lester in Yonkers. Lester was now an executive in the silk business, according to the 1940 census.

Robert, now 20, was a student at Princeton, although he was still listed as living in his parents’ residence on the 1940 census. (Although the Princeton yearbook lists his address as being in the village of Tuckahoe, the census considered that same address to be in Yonkers.) According to several editions of the Princeton yearbook, Bric a Brac, found in the ancestry.com database, Robert played the oboe in the university band, was on the editorial staff of the Princeton Tiger, was a member of the Princeton Liberal Club and a member of the Nassau Literary Review (“the oldest undergraduate literary review in the country”), and was on the executive committee of the Princeton Anti-War Society in 1939, presumably a group arguing against the United States’ entry into World War II. Robert graduated from Princeton in 1940. The photo below is of Robert as an associate editor of the Nassau Literary Review.

Robert Wronker Ancestry.com. U.S. School Yearbooks [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Original data: Various school yearbooks from across the United States.

Despite his anti-war feelings, Robert enlisted in the military on March 18, 1941, listing his occupation as an “author, editor, reporter,” not surprising given his activities at Princeton.

During the war, Robert served in the medical corps in Italy and then became an editor of the Mail Call column in Stars and Stripes, while stationed in Naples, Italy. After the war he wrote several short pieces for the New York Times, and in 1955 he was working as a feature writer for the publicity department of 20^th Century Fox.

After that he, like his uncle Gary Cole, disappeared. I could not find anything, which was surprising given the unusual name and his interest in writing and journalism. I wondered: Did he also change his name? Did he die? He is not listed under Robert Wronker on the SSDI or anywhere else. Once again, I was left with a loose end, a brick wall.

So I called on my mentor Renee Steinig once again for some direction, and damn, she found him so fast I was blown away. She was able to find a death notice for Robert in the New York Times as well as a death notice in the Princeton alumni magazine that I had not found. Robert had died on August 20, 1956, after a long illness. He was only 37 years old.

Here is what the Princeton Alumni Weekly wrote about him:

(Princeton Alumni Weekly, Volume 57 (1956) )

What a waste. Such a young and bright and talented person taken so young. His mother Aimee died only three years later in January, 1959, when she was 64 years old. His father Lester lived until October 1976, having survived both his wife and their only child.

Renee also helped me find this obituary of Ida Cole, who died July 25, 1949.

Ida Cole obituary Yonkers Herald Stateman July 26, 1949. p. 2

Since Ida was survived by three grandchildren and Aimee only had one child, Robert, Gary must have had two children. I will continue to try and find Gary Cole/Gerson Siegel Cohen in hopes that the line of Jacob G. Cohen/Cole and his wife Ida did not end with the untimely death of their grandson Robert Wronker.

When I think about all the “what ifs” with Jacob and with his descendants, I feel very wistful about how this line might have ended.

Did Eleanor Selinger Marry an English Cousin? And Did She Remember Her American Roots?

Posted on August 9, 2014 by Amy

In my post about the children of Julius and Augusta Selinger, I wrote about the marriage of their daughter Eleanor to an Englishman, Henry Abbot. Henry Abbot was the son of Hyams Auerbach (some members of the family changed the name to Abbot at some point) and Helen (or Ellen or Helena) Selinger. I had wondered whether there was any familial connection between Helen Selinger and Eleanor’s father, Julius Selinger. Both were born in Germany, and they were three years apart in age: Helen was born in 1850, Julius in 1853.

As I wrote then, I was in touch with one of Henry and Eleanor Abbot’s relatives on the Abbot side, Henry’s great-niece, Valentine Ann Abbot Collinson, and was hoping that she would be able to provide some clues to determine whether the two different Selingers were related. Over the last several days I received a number of documents about Helen Selinger and her family from Val that could help answer that question, including this photograph. Val believes that the woman seated in the center of the photograph is Eleanor Selinger Abbot with her husband Henry seated to her right. The others are other members of the Abbot/Auerbach family.

The oldest document is the English marriage certificate of Hyams Auerbach and Ellen Selinger, dated March 19, 1873. According to the certificate, Hyams was a furrier whose father was deceased, and Ellen was the daughter of Abraham Selinger, a teacher.

Hyams Auerbach and Ellen Selinger marriage certificate

Since Julius Selinger’s passport application indicated that his father’s name was Sigmund, I knew that Julius and Ellen/Helena did not have the same father. But could they still be cousins? I do not know Alfred or Frederick Selinger’s fathers’ names, so it still seemed possible that there was some familial connection among the various Selingers.

The next document was the 1881 English census for the Auerbach family.

Hyams Auerbach and family 1881 English census

This is definitely the right family; the page preceding this one includes as its last entry Hyams Auerbach, the furrier. His wife’s name was given as Lenchen, which is the German equivalent of Helen. Her place of birth was reported to be Baden. This was the second clue that there might not be any familial relationship between Helen Selinger and Julius Selinger. Julius and Frederick Selinger were both from Hurben in the region of Bavaria, not from Baden, an entirely separate region of what became united Germany in the late 19^th century, although perhaps no more than a few hours away. I then checked JewishGen.org and found that Selinger was not an uncommon name for Jews in Germany, especially if other spelling variations were included. This makes it harder to assume any family connection between the DC Selingers and Helen Selinger.

Map of Pre Unification Germany http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/history/map_german_unification.html

I do have the names of two other members of Helen’s family; in addition to her father Abraham, her mother’s name was Gali. She died in 1899, and her son, Helen’s brother, Sidney Selinger, was with her at her death. If I can find a way to research the family in Baden, I might find a possible link to the Hurben Selingers, though it seems unlikely.

Perhaps the most intriguing document that I received from Val was an account of the distribution of the estate of Eleanor Selinger Abbot. Eleanor died in 1979, and her will was probated on January 23, 1980. The executor’s report on the distribution of the estate listed seven named beneficiaries, including two whose names were familiar: Marjorie Christian and Ellen Kleinfeld.

Who were Marjorie Christian and Ellen Kleinfeld? They were born Marjorie and Ellen Rosenstock, daughters of Felix Rosenstock and Marjorie Greenberg. Marjorie Greenberg was the daughter of Jacob Greenberg and Ella Cohen. Ella Cohen was the daughter of Moses, Jr., and Henrietta Cohen. She died at age 29, leaving behind her eight year old daughter Marjorie and her husband Jacob. (Ellen Rosenstock Kleinfield was named in memory of her grandmother Ella.) I have just received Ella’s death certificate, and it says that she died from an abdominal hemorrhage caused by an “extra uterus pregnancy,” which is what we would now call an ectopic pregnancy. How tragic it must have been for Marjorie and her father Jacob to lose Ella in such an awful way.

Ella Cohen Greenberg death certificate 1904

As I wrote earlier, Jacob remarried a few years after Ella died and had a son Theodore with his new wife Hattie. Since Jacob lived in New York, I had wondered whether he and Marjorie had maintained much contact with Ella’s family after Ella died. Well, Eleanor’s will would certainly indicate that there was a continuing relationship. Eleanor, who never had children of her own, left part of her estate to her Aunt Ella’s granddaughters. Her first cousin Marjorie Greenberg Rosenstock had died in 1964, but obviously despite living in England since 1926, Eleanor had enough of a relationship with her American family and in particular with her cousin Marjorie Greenberg to leave part of her estate to Marjorie’s daughters.

Marjorie Rosenstock Christian died on July 18, 2013. According to her obituary as published on July 24, 2013 in the Washington Post, she graduated Phi Beta Kappa in math and chemistry from Hunter College and then earned her Master’s degree in chemistry from the University of Maryland. (See more at: http://search.ancestry.com/search/obit/viewbody.aspx?db=web-obituary&pid=219473182&kw=Rosenstock+Christian+Marjorie&cpp=2013%5c07%5c26%5ccp_12269788.html&bhr=http%3a%2f%2fwww.legacy.com%2fobituaries%2fwashingtonpost%2fobituary.aspx%3fn%3dmarjorie-christian%26pid%3d166008840#sthash.E4eCxeTg.dpuf .) She was married to Jack Christian, who died in 2011, and had three children.

I was very fortunate to speak with her sister Ellen Rosenstock Kleinfeld, my fourth cousin, who told me that she remembers Eleanor Selinger Abbot well and that Eleanor had visited with her family many times over the years, including one trip to Long Island during a hurricane after Ellen was married and had children. Unfortunately, I did not learn any more about how Eleanor met Henry or whether the various Selingers were related. Ellen was married to Herman Kleinfeld and had two children.

Thus, from one thread in one family I found a link to another part of the family, tying together the lives of Ella Cohen and her descendants with the life of her niece Eleanor, the daughter of Augusta Cohen Selinger. Eleanor may not have married a cousin, but she kept her ties to her American cousins. She also brought the Cohen family back to its prior home in London.

The Children of Augusta Cohen and Julius Selinger

Posted on August 5, 2014 by Amy

Julius and Augusta Cohen Selinger passport photos 1922

Moses, Jr., and Henrietta’s daughter Augusta celebrated her 25^th wedding anniversary with her husband Julius Selinger in 1909, as described in my earlier post. Their children were all still living at home as of 1910, but the next two decades would see them all finding their own independent paths. Julius continued to work as a jeweler in his store, Selinger’s, and in 1922, he and Augusta along with their daughter Eleanor traveled to Germany, the British Isles, and France, apparently for health reasons, according to Julius’ passport application. That application contains photographs of both Augusta and Julius, shown above.

Sydney, their oldest son, had become an optician as early as 1906 when he was 21 years old. Although he was still living at home in 1910, on September 3, 1917 he married a woman named Grace Bloch. Although I have not yet found an official marriage record, I know from other records that Grace, Sydney’s wife, was born November 20, 1895 or 1896 in Danville, Pennsylvania, and I found this newspaper announcement of the marriage of Sidney Selinger of Washington, DC, and a Ruth Bloch, daughter of Samuel Bloch, in Danville, Pennsylvania.

Sydney and Grace Selinger marriage announcement 1917

(Sunday, September 9, 1917, Evening Star (Washington (DC), DC) Page: 27)

I am not sure why the paper gave her name as Ruth, as every census report shows that Samuel Bloch’s daughter was named Grace. But since they also spelled Sydney’s name incorrectly, I assume it was just an error.

Sydney and Grace did not have children, and they lived in Washington, DC, at least until 1940. They both seemed to be working in the retail jewelry business in 1940, and even in 1930 Sydney listed his occupation as in the jewelry business, no longer as an optician, presumably in the family jewelry store, Selinger’s. By 1956 Sydney and Grace had moved to Hollywood, Florida, where they lived for the rest of their lives. Sydney died in May, 1967, and Grace three years later in May, 1970.

Harry, the second son of Augusta and Julius Selinger, was in the Selinger’s jewelry business from at least 1910 when he was 22 until at least 1935, the date of the last record I have for him. Harry claimed an exemption from the draft for unspecified physical reasons in 1917 and was still single at that time. He married Mary Jessop on August 22, 1924, when he was 36; it appears that he and Mary did not have children either as there were none listed as living with them on the 1930 census when Mary was 43, six years older than Harry. I could find no record of either Mary or Harry after 1935.

Both of the next two sons, Jerome and Maurice, became doctors. I believe these may have been the first descendants of Hart Levy and Rachel Cohen to become doctors. Both also served in World War I, as depicted in this picture of Jerome and Maurice in the Washington Evening Star in 1919.

(Sunday, January 5, 1919,Evening Star (Washington (DC), DC), Page: 62 )

Jerome served overseas from August 7, 1917 until March 1, 1919, serving as a doctor in a mobile hospital unit overseas. Maurice also was already a doctor when he registered for the draft in 1917 and thus also must have served in a medical role during the war. He graduated from Georgetown Medical School in 1915. (Wednesday, June 16, 1915, Evening Star (Washington (DC), DC) Page: 11)

Jerome married a widow named Ethel Chase Keith in 1921. Ethel was born Ethel Bird Chase in Mt. Vernon, Ohio, on November 7, 1886, the daughter of Plimpton Beverly Chase and Anna Bird and a descendant of one of the oldest families in central Ohio. (Their home, the Beverly Mansion, is now used as an event venue.)

Ethel was a 1910 graduate of Bryn Mawr College. (Register of Alumnae and Former Students By Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, 1922, p. 28) She had married Benjamin Franklin Keith in Washington, DC, on October 19, 1913, when she was 26, and he was 67. Benjamin F. Keith was a widower, and he died the following year on March 26, 1914, just six months after marrying the much-younger Ethel Bird Chase. Mr. Keith was a well-known entertainer and theater owner in Boston; the B.F. Keith Opera House was named in his memory (now just known as the Boston Opera House).

So how did Jerome meet Ethel, I wondered. I found a passenger manifest dated August 23, 1914, just over five months after Keith’s death, listing Ethel Chase Keith as a passenger on a ship sailing from Liverpool, England, to Quebec, Canada. At first I thought she was traveling alone, but then I noticed that the entries above hers were for a Harold B. Chase, born in Mt. Vernon, Ohio, obviously Ethel’s brother, and Harold’s wife Ruth Caroline Chase.

Ship manifest dated August 23, 1914 for the Megantic from Liverpool to Quebec

The names seemed familiar, so I checked my family tree, and sure enough, Myer Cohen, Sr., Jerome’s uncle, had a daughter Ruth who married a man named Harold Chase just about a year before in October 29, 1913, the same month that Ethel had married Benjamin F. Keith. So Ethel must have either known Jerome already, as he was Ruth’s first cousin, or she was introduced to him by her brother and sister-in-law. It appears that Ethel was living with Ruth and Harold at that time as well as traveling with them. Unlike the case with her first husband who was more than forty years older than she, this time Ethel married a man three years her junior.

Jerome and Ethel had two daughters, born in 1923 and 1928. They lived in Huntington on Long Island, NY, then in Manhattan, and then in Fairfield County in Connecticut. They were active in various charitable activities, and for some time Jerome was the health director for the town of New Canaan, Connecticut. Jerome and Ethel did a great deal of traveling, according to the numerous passenger manifests. According to Wikipedia, Ethel died in 1971. Jerome lived until April, 1984, and was 94 when he died.

His younger brother and fellow doctor Maurice returned to Washington DC after World War I where he practiced medicine (a general practice, according to the 1930 census). He was living with his parents and sister in 1920 and practicing medicine. He married a woman named Mildred ( I have not yet located a marriage record for Maurice and Mildred). Mildred was born December 23, 1899, in Easton, Pennsylvania, according to one ship manifest. On the 1930 census they reported that they had been married for five years, so I am assuming they were married in 1925 or so.

Maurice Selinger and family 1930 census

They had two sons, one born in 1926 and the other in 1934. In 1940, Maurice was still in a private medical practice, and in addition to his wife Mildred and their two sons, his father Julius was living with them. Julius was now a widower, as Augusta had died in 1936 at age seventy. Although I cannot find a death record for Julius, he was 87 in 1940, so I imagine that he died sometime in the next decade. Maurice died on August 26, 1965, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. His wife Mildred died March 27, 1981, and is buried beside him.

The youngest child and only daughter of Augusta and Julius was Eleanor. Eleanor was still living at home in 1920, working as a bookkeeper at the jewelry store. During the decade from 1910 to 1920, her comings and goings were recorded regularly in the Washington Evening Star—whether it was visiting her cousin Aimee Cohen in Baltimore or friends or other relatives, there were numerous society tidbits about her visits. In 1922, she went with her parents to Europe, including England. In 1924 she was still living at home and working as a bookkeeper. In 1925 she traveled alone to England, and then I lost all evidence of her on ancestry.com.

Washington Star, January 16, 1916

I finally found a marriage record for her in familysearch.org; she married Henry Mortimer Abbot on March 25, 1926. But then I could not find her as Eleanor Abbot. A little more digging, and I finally realized that she and Henry were living in London. Their marriage record said he was born in England, and the passenger manifest dated April 14, 1926, showed Eleanor and Henry Abbot traveling to England. But then the 1928 directory for Washington, DC, listed Eleanor Abbot as residing in Washington without any listing for Henry. I thought perhaps she had divorced Henry or perhaps he had died, but then there were many trips by Eleanor alone almost every other year through the 1920s and 1930s between England and the US. I was quite perplexed.

Fortunately, I was able to find another family tree on ancestry.com which listed both Henry Abbot and Eleanor Selinger. What was particularly interesting to me was that this tree revealed that Henry Abbot was originally Henry Auerbach, son of Hyams Auerbach and Helen Selinger. Another Selinger? Helen Selinger was born in 1850 in Germany, according to that tree, making her a contemporary of Julius and Frederick Selinger, who were also born in Germany in the 1850s. Could Helen be Julius’ sister or cousin? Had she arranged for her son to meet and marry Eleanor, his cousin? I don’t know the answer to those questions just yet, but I have a lead that may help me find out.

I contacted the owner of the Auerbach tree, and she wrote back to me telling me that Henry Auerbach/Abbot was her great-uncle, her father’s brother, and that she had visited Eleanor and Henry many times at their home in London and that they never had children. She said that her father’s family, the Auerbach/Abbot family, was in the fur business and made many trips back and forth to the United States for business. I asked her for more information about Henry and Eleanor and am awaiting her response. Henry died in 1965, and Eleanor died in 1979.

Thus, the five children of Augusta Cohen and Julius Selinger all thrived as adults and seem to have had comfortable lives. Three of their four sons stayed in Washington, DC, although Sydney eventually retired to Florida. Two sons ended up in the family jewelry business, Sydney and Harry. Two sons ended up as doctors, one in Washington and the other in New York and then Connecticut, and their daughter, a bookkeeper, ended up marrying an Englishman and moving to London. Of the five children, only the two sons who were doctors had children, two each, so that Augusta and Julius had four grandchildren. Two of their children, Jerome and Eleanor, seem to have met their spouses through a family connection. Their parents, an immigrant and the daughter of an immigrant, must have been very proud of their children and their accomplishments.

Three Losses for the Family of Moses, Jr., and Henrietta Cohen 1918-1920

Posted on August 3, 2014 by Amy

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

The Family of Moses, Jr. and Henrietta Cohen 1880-1900: Years of Growth and Change

Jews in Iowa? Cohens on the Prairie 1880-1900

Posted on July 27, 2014 by Amy

“Sioux Falls panorama 1908 1” by G.W. Fox – This image is available from the United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID pan.6a09880. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sioux_Falls_panorama_1908_1.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Sioux_Falls_panorama_1908_1.jpg

Although the descendants of Moses and Adeline Cohen stayed close to Washington until 1880, in the next two decades many of them ventured further away. I’ve already written about the children of Moses, Jr., four of whom left DC, three for NYC, and one for Baltimore. But his siblings and their children ventured even further away, although for some it was just a temporary move.

The real adventurer seems to have been Jacob M. Cohen, apparently known as JM. JM married a woman from Cuyahoga, Ohio, named Belle Lehman, on August 19, 1877. Their first daughter, Fannie Sybil, was born in Washington, DC, in 1879, but sometime after 1880, JM and his wife and young daughter left town and moved west to the Dakota Territory where the second child, Seba Maude, was born in 1882. I wish I knew what drew JM away from Washington and off to the prairie and how he met a woman from Ohio in the first place. Was it a desire to be a pioneer or a desire to strike out on his own away from his family? I don’t know, but I was certainly surprised to see “Dakota” as the birthplace of his second child.

Not long after Seba’s birth, the family must have moved again because a third daughter, Ruth Josephine, was born on June 8, 1883, in Sioux City, Iowa. Sioux City seems to be where JM and Belle established deeper roots. They lived there until at least 1905, and their fourth child and only son Arthur was born there in 1885. According to the 1885 Iowa state census, JM was working as a pawnbroker; in the 1888 directory for Sioux City, he is listed as being in real estate, but in 1900 his occupation on the census is a ticket broker. Perhaps the census taker heard that incorrectly; perhaps he was still a pawnbroker. Or maybe a real estate broker.

JM Cohen and family 1885 Iowa census

JM Cohen and family 1900 US census

JM and Belle suffered a terrible loss when their daughter Seba died on January 2, 1886; she was not even four years old.

I fear that their son Arthur, born in 1885, also died young. He does not appear on the 1895 census or the 1900 census when one would assume he would have been only ten and then fifteen years old and presumably living with his family. On the other hand, I cannot find a death record for him in Iowa or elsewhere, nor is he buried where Seba and his parents were buried in Sioux City.

I wondered whether there were any other Jews in Sioux City at that time and was able to locate a book by Simon Glazer entitled The Jews in Iowa: A Complete History and Accurate Account of Their Religious, Social, Economical and Educational Progress in this State; a History of the Jews of Europe, North and South America in Modern Times, and a Brief History of Iowa, published in 1904 by Koch Brothers Printing Company and now available as a free e-book on Google. According to Glazer, there were only 25 Jews in Sioux City in 1869, but by 1904 there were over two thousand, including my relatives. In fact, when the Jewish community decided to form a cemetery association, the Mt Sinai Cemetery Association, in 1884, JM Cohen, my cousin, was one of the founding members. (Glazer, p. 295) Moreover, that same year JM’s wife Belle was the leader of a movement among the Jewish women to create a fund-raising organization to help the poor and to raise money to build a house of worship. (Glazer, p. 296) Despite this burst of energy in 1884, there was no formal congregation until 1898. As described by Glazer:

“The Jewish spirit which kept them together was a mere ghost of little more consequence than a shadow. Everything they had gained during their childhood, everything their parents had imbued within them vanished form [sic] their memories, and nothing new could come and knock at their gates since no effort was endeavored prior to 1898, to form a congregation and engage the services of a minister.” (p. 297)

According to Glazer, “Their temple was built largely through the efforts of the ladies, and the man [sic] frankly admit that had it not been for the heroic efforts of the Jewish women no such place for Judaism in Sioux City would as yet have been made a matter of fact. Their first services were conducted at the Masonic Temple, which is, indeed, very complimentary to both, the Masons and the Jews.” (p. 300)

JM Cohen was listed by Glazer as one of the ten officers and leaders of Mt Sinai Congregation in those early days.

Mt Sinai Synagogue, Sioux CIty, Iowa From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository

Glazer then described the influx of Russian and Eastern European Jews in the late 1880s and thereafter and the divisions between the older assimilated population which had established Mt Sinai, the Reform congregation, and the newcomers who were more Orthodox. He concluded his chapter on Sioux City by saying, “The Jewry of Sioux City is as yet in its infancy, but it has plenty of mettle to make itself a stronghold of both Orthodox and Reform Judaism in the northwest.” (p. 302)

So my cousin Jacob M. Cohen was a pioneer. He left the comforts of a well-established Jewish community in Washington, DC, where his older brother Moses, Jr., was a leader in the Washington Hebrew Congregation, a well-established synagogue, and went out to the prairie lands of the Midwest (the northwest in 1904 when Glazer was writing) to become a Jewish leader there.

JM also succeeded in getting two of his siblings and his mother Adeline to move to Iowa, if for only a short time. Adeline, who was born in Baden, Germany, had immigrated to Baltimore, raised four children on her own when her husband Moses died in 1860, and supported them herself in Washington, DC. Adeline again uprooted herself and left a safe, settled urban world to live in Iowa. In 1888 she was living with JM in Sioux City, according to the city directory. I don’t know how long she lived there, but she did return to Washington, DC, by 1894.

Title : Sioux City, Iowa, City Directory, 1888
Source Information
Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1821-1989

In that same 1888 Sioux City directory is a listing for Hart Cohen as well, JM’s older brother. The first half of the 1880s for Hart and his wife Henrietta brought two more children to their family, Isadore Baer, born in 1883, and Jacob M. II, born in 1885, in addition to Frances, who was born in 1878, and Munroe, born in 1880. Hart, like his brother JM, was a pawnbroker, and like his first cousin Hart in Philadelphia, he was charged in 1885 with receipt of stolen goods in the course of his business; he was acquitted of the charges in 1886.

(“A Pawnbroker Arrested,” Wednesday, March 25, 1885, Critic-Record (Washington (DC), DC),Issue: 5,187, Page: 3)

Letter from Washington. A Pawnbroker Acquitted – Measures to Avert a Flood in the Potomac
Date: Friday, February 12, 1886 Paper: Sun (Baltimore, MD) Volume: XCVIII Issue: 76 Page: 4

It might have been in the aftermath of these criminal proceedings that Hart decided to join his brother JM in Sioux City. He was there at least until 1895, as on the 1895 Iowa census he and his entire family are included. His occupation at that time was described as a jeweler.

Hart Cohen and family 1895 Iowa census

By 1900, however, Hart and his family had returned to Washington, DC, where he was still working as a jeweler. His children were now all at least teenagers, ranging in age from 14 (Jacob) to Frances (21), and perhaps he felt like he had gotten his life in order and could return to his hometown. They were living at 1424 Seventh Street, NW, in 1900.

Hart Cohen and family 1900 census

JM even lured his sister Rachel to come to Iowa for some time. Rachel had been newly married to Frederick Selinger in 1880, and in 1882 they had their first child, Fannie Selinger, in Washington, DC. Their second child, Monroe, was born in 1888 in Washington as well, but in 1891 when Frederick applied for a passport, they were living in Sioux City, Iowa. (Interestingly, the witness on the application was Myer Cohen of Washington, DC, his wife’s nephew, son of her brother Moses, Jr.)

Frederick Selinger passport application 1891

Frederick is also listed in directories for Sioux City from 1890 through 1892. Like Hart and Adeline, however, Rachel and Frederick returned to Washington, DC, where in 1900 the family was living at 1502 Seventh Street, NW.

Frederick and Rachel Selinger and family 1900 census

Thus, by 1900, the great experiment of living out in Sioux City had ended for all of the DC Cohens except for JM and his family, who would never return to Washington, DC. All the rest of the Moses Cohen family—from Adeline (until her death in 1895) to Moses, Jr., to Hart, to Rachel– were living within five or six blocks of each other in the Northwest section of Washington, DC, in 1900.

The twentieth century was about to begin, and with it came new challenges and new family members. The story will continue…

A Brick Wall Tumbles, Thanks Once Again to the Genealogy Village

Posted on July 24, 2014 by Amy

When I learned that my brother’s Y-DNA did not match the Y-DNA of a descendant of Moses Cohen of Washington, DC, I was sorely disappointed. I was sure that all the circumstantial and documentary evidence I had found supported my hunch that Moses was the brother of my great-great-grandfather Jacob Cohen and son of my three-times great-grandfather, Hart Levy Cohen. But DNA does not lie, and I was very surprised by the results.

I had one small glimmer of hope when I learned about a family story that indicated that Moses Cohen, Sr., was not the biological father of Moses Cohen, Jr., who was in fact the biological great-great-grandfather of the living descendant whose DNA had been compared to that of my brother. But how would I ever prove that? It seemed hopeless.

Nevertheless, I decided to see what I could find that might help answer some of my questions. Where and when was Moses, Jr., born? When and where did Moses, Sr., marry his mother Adeline Himmel? I could not find any American records showing a marriage or an immigration record for Adeline and her son Moses, Jr. All I had were census records from 1850 and 1860 showing that Moses, Sr. and Adeline were already married by 1850 and that in 1850, Moses, Jr., was eleven years old. Later census records indicated that both Moses, Jr., and Adeline were born in Germany and that Moses, Sr., was born in England (though a few later census reports filed after Moses, Sr.’s death by his children said he was also born in Germany). Some of Moses, Jr.’s and Adeline’s records were even more specific, several naming Baden as her place of birth.

Several months ago when I first discovered the DC branch of the Cohen family, I had tried without success to find where in Baden Adeline had lived. I sent a message on the GerSIG listserv (German Special Interest Group) of JewishGen.org asking for help. I received many suggestions, but the most helpful one was from a man named Rodney. First, he looked up the surname Himmel in Lars Menk’s “Dictionary of German-Jewish Surnames” and found that there was only one Jewish community in Germany where the name Himmel appeared, in the Eberbach region of Baden. Then he pointed me to a website that compiled various birth, death and marriage records from various towns in Germany, the Landesarchiv, and specifically to a book of the Jewish records for a town in Eberbach called Strumpfelbrunn where Rodney found a birth record for Jacob Himmel that he translated for me. The record said, “On the 24th December 1815 was born Jakob Himmel, legitimate son of Moses Himmel and his wife Bromit nee Jakobin(?). Witnesses are Jakob Goez and Abraham Mond.”

(Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe 390 Nr. 1137, Bild 8
Permalink: http://www.landesarchiv-bw.de/plink/?f=4-1121353-8
Standesbücher / (1691-) 1775-1875 (-1958)
Kernlaufzeit 1810-1870 > Amtsgerichtsbezirk Eberbach >
Strümpfelbrunn, israelitische Gemeinde: Standesbuch 1810-1866 / 1810-1866)

Jacob Himmel birth record

I immediately wondered whether this Jakob Himmel could be the same as the one living next door to Moses, Adeline, and Moses, Jr., in Baltimore in 1850, the one I suspected was the brother of Adeline.

Moses Cohen and family and Jacob Himmel and family 1850 census

Rodney suggested that I look for other records in the Strumpfelbrunn book, but it was written in old German script that looks like what you see above. I wouldn’t even recognize my own name written in that script. I tried my best, but after a few pages, I gave up and said that there had to be an easier way. But there was not. These records are not digitized or translated anywhere yet. So I returned to American records and moved on, figuring I’d either never find Moses, Jr.’s records or I’d find them some other way.

Then in the last few weeks I found the passenger manifest for Jacob Himmel.

Jacob Himmel ship manifest

Detail

I posted it to a Facebook group called Baden Genealogy for help in deciphering the town listed as Jacob’s place of last residence, which looked like Rutlingheim to me and to most others. But there was no such town in Baden, no town that had a name that looked even close. I tried searching for the two men who appeared to be traveling with Jacob from “Rutlingheim” and had no luck at all locating them in the US. Then two days ago, I posted again to the Baden Facebook group, asking whether the town could be Billigheim, a town reasonably close to Strumpfelbrunn where a Jacob Himmel had been born.

Monica, a member of that group, responded, and when I explained why Strumpfelbrunn was my point of reference, she invited me to send her the birth record I had and the source where I had found it and she would translate it for me. Her translation was consistent with that of Rodney except that she read Jacob’s mother’s name as Fromit, not Bromit. She, like Rodney, said I should look for other mentions of Himmel in the record. The book is close to 300 pages long, and I told her that I just could not decipher the old German script. Then she made a brilliant suggestion; she sent me a link to the font for that old script, had me install it into Word, and then suggested I type out Himmel and any other relevant names in the script and compare it to what I could find on the pages of the records book.

And so I did, and on page 78, I found a record that looked like it had the name Moses Himmel in that old script.

Moses Himmel birth record 1839

Moses Himmel birth record 1839 detail

I sent it to Monica, who translated it as follows: “In the year 1839 29th Dec at noon an illegitimate son of the spinster Adelheid Himmel was born. She is the legitimate daughter of the deceased Moses Himmel and of Frommat nee Lagg from Amsterdam. The boy will be named Moses at his circumcision.” It then names some witnesses.

When I received that email with the translation, I felt those bricks tumbling down. Could this be anyone other than Adeline Himmel Cohen and her son Moses? Does this not provide evidence that the family story that Moses, Jr., was not the biological child of Moses Cohen, Sr., is reliable? Doesn’t it explain why Moses, Jr.’s great-great-grandson does not share DNA with my brother, who is a direct descendant of Hart Levy Cohen, who was Moses, Sr.’s father, but not the biological grandfather of Moses, Jr.?

I then found another page, 26, that also seemed to have the name Himmel. Monica translated that one as well. “On the 5th of May 1820 in the morning 4 o’clock he died and was buried at noon. Moses Himmel was married with Fromat Lagg (or Lugg or Legg) from Holland. Age forty and four years.” This was the death notice for Moses Himmel, the father of Adelheid or Adeline Himmel. She named her illegitimate son for her father, not as a junior for Moses Cohen, the man she would later marry, probably in the United States.

Moses Himmel the grandfather of Moses Himmel

Of course, there are many questions remaining. I still don’t know when Moses, Sr., married Adeline. Nor can I be 100% certain this is the right Adeline, though it certainly would appear to be so. These discoveries also open up some new doors for my research. If Adeline’s mother was named Fromat Lagg or Lugg or Legg and she lived in Holland, perhaps there is a connection to my Dutch ancestors in Amsterdam. Her name was given as Jakobin on Jacob’s birth record; perhaps she was part of the same family as Rachel and/or Sarah Jacobs, my three-times and two-times great-grandmothers. Now I need to return to the Dutch research and see what I can find.

In any event, once again the generosity of my fellow genealogy researchers has been demonstrated. I never could have done this without the help of Rodney and Monica, two people I’ve never met, and the larger GerSIG and Baden Genealogy Facebook group communities. It is astonishing what can be accomplished when people work together instead of fighting and killing each other.

Science versus Inference: Was Moses Cohen the Brother of Jacob Cohen?

The Family of Moses, Jr. and Henrietta Cohen 1880-1900: Years of Growth and Change

Posted on July 22, 2014 by Amy

Moses Jr and Henrietta Cohen and children c. 1900

Moses Jr and Henrietta Cohen and children c. 1904 Seated left to right: Myer, Mabel, Henrietta, Moses, Jr., and Augusta; standing left to right: Fannie, Solomon, Grace, Jacob, and Florence. Insert: Ella Photo courtesy of Jane and Scott Cohen

The years from 1880 through 1900 were years of continued growth for the children of Moses and Adeline Cohen, as their children had more children and as their grandchildren grew and had families of their own as well. It was also a time of change, as some of the family members left the Washington, DC, area for other parts of the country.

I will focus first on the family of Moses, Jr. and Henrietta (Loeb) Cohen since he was the oldest of Moses and Adeline’s children by more than ten years. As I wrote last time, by 1880 he and Henrietta already had a large family of eight children, the oldest being Augusta who was already a teenager and the youngest being Solomon, who was just born in 1879. (There also were apparently two other children who died in infancy, but I have no documentation of their births, names, or deaths.) They would have one more child, Mabel, who was born in 1883 when Henrietta was already 41 years old. As reported to me by a direct descendant of Moses, Jr. and Henrietta, Mabel had Down’s syndrome, perhaps not all that surprising given the age of her mother when she was born. Sometime after 1880, Moses had switched from selling clothing to being a sexton for his synagogue and also a collector (a bill collector, I assume), according to city directories for Washington, DC, during that period.

The year after their last child Mabel was born, Moses and Henrietta saw their first child get married. Augusta married Julius Selinger on June 10, 1884, when she was only eighteen years old. Although I do not yet have any record to prove it, my hunch is that Julius was a brother or cousin of Frederick Selinger, the husband of Augusta’s aunt Rachel, her father’s sister. Like Frederick, Julius was born in Hubern, Germany, according to his passport application. Julius had emigrated only a year or so before marrying Augusta. The two Selinger men were only three years apart in age. By 1900, Augusta and Julius had five children: Sidney (1885), Harry (1888), Jerome (1889), Maurice (1893), and Eleanor (1894). Julius was working as a jeweler, and his oldest son Sidney was an apprentice watchmaker. The family was living in DC at 1157 8^th Street, NW. [All addresses in this post are in the NW section of DC.]

Augusta and Julius Selinger 1900 census

During this same time period, Moses and Henrietta’s second child, Myer, was obtaining an education and building his career as well as his family. Myer might be the very first Cohen to get a law degree (or the first I’ve found so far). According to a 1917 alumni directory for George Washington University, Myer Cohen received an LL.B. in 1886 as well as an LL. M. in 1887, and was a lawyer in Washington, DC.

Ancestry.com. U.S., College Student Lists, 1763-1924 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.
Original data: College Student Lists. Worcester, Massachusetts: American Antiquarian Society.

Myer married Helen Wolf on January 14, 1890. Helen was also a DC native, and her father Simon Wolf had been president of Washington Hebrew congregation where Moses Cohen was a member and the shammes for many years. Helen and Myer must have known each other for years before marrying.

Simon Wolf was a very well-known and well-regarded lawyer known for advocating for Jews and Jewish causes; one source described him as “a friend of Presidents from Abraham Lincoln to Woodrow Wilson.”[1] Myer joined his father-in-law’s practice, which became known as Wolf and Cohen; Simon Wolf had also started an insurance business in 1878, which also became known as Wolf and Cohen.[2] It was the first insurance brokerage business in the Washington, DC, area.

Between 1890 and 1900, Myer and Helen had four children: Ruth (1891), Edith (1893), Marjorie (1896), and Roger (1898). Another son, Myer, Jr., would be born in 1907. The family was living at 1711 S Street in DC in 1900.

Myer Cohen Sr. 1900 census

The third child of Moses and Henrietta was Jacob G. Cohen. He married Ida Slegh in 1894; she was also a DC native. They had a daughter, Aimee, born in 1895, perhaps the first ever “Amy Cohen” in the family (although they spelled it the French way). In 1900, their son Gerson was born. The family was living at 1 West 115^th Street in New York City, and Jacob was employed as a bookkeeper.

Jacob G. Cohen and family 1900 census

A third Selinger joined the family in 1893 when Fannie Cohen, the fourth child, married Alfred Selinger. Like Julius and Frederick, Alfred was born in Germany. He immigrated to the US in October, 1888, and in 1891, he and Julius were both living at the same address, 810 I Street, according to a DC directory for that year, certainly an indication that the two were related and probably brothers. In 1892, Julius and his family traveled abroad along with Alfred, according to a society item in the Washington Evening Star on June 17, 1892. (Friday, June 17, 1892, Evening Star (Washington (DC), DC) Page 3) Fannie Cohen married Alfred a year later on June 10, 1893. Alfred and Fannie had one child, Selma, who was born in March, 1894. According to the 1900 census, Alfred was a tailor, and the family was living at 711 I Street in DC.

Fannie and Alfred Selinger 1900 census

Moses, Jr. and Henrietta must have had quite a wedding budget because in 1895 their fifth child, Ella, married Jacob Bernard Greenberg. Ella and Jacob had a daughter Marjorie Ruth the following year, and in 1900 they were living in New York City at 140 West 100^th Street, not too far from Ella’s brother Jacob G. Cohen. Her husband Jacob was employed as a freight clerk.

Ella and Jacob Greenberg 1900 census

The weddings did not end there. In 1898, Florence, the sixth child, married Harry Panitz. Harry was a salesman from Baltimore, where the couple lived in 1898 and thereafter. I thought that they did not have a child until 1902 when their daughter Aline was born, but when my brother visited Washington Hebrew Cemetery to look for the headstones for Moses Cohen, Sr., and his family, he saw one overturned headstone in the same area as other Cohen graves and picked it up. It was very hard to read even in person, but he was able to edit the photo below to highlight the dates.

Headstone for Helen Panitz October 2, 1899 to May 12, 1900 Photo courtesy of Ira Cohen

From those dates, I was able to search the death indices and found that Helen Panitz, less than one year old, had died in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on May 12, 1900, and was buried in Washington, DC, on May 14, 1900. I do not know what they were doing in Fayetteville, nor do I know why Helen died so young. They were not living in Fayetteville as of December 27, 1899, because the Washington Evening Star reported on that day that Grace Cohen, Florence’s sister, had just returned from a visit to Baltimore to see Florence and Harry Panitz perhaps to see the ill-fated baby Helen. (Wednesday, December 27, 1899, Evening Star (Washington (DC), DC), Page 7)

As of the 1900 census, Grace and her sister Mabel were still living with their parents, Moses, Jr. and Henrietta, at 1130 8^th Street, just down the street from Augusta and Julius and their five children, some of whom were not much younger than their two aunts.

Moses Cohen, Jr. and family 1900 census

Moses and Henrietta’s youngest son Solomon was living on his own in New York City in 1900; he was 20 years old and working as a clerk. He was living at 20 West 115^th Street and boarding with a family named Pawel. Solomon’s brother Jacob was living at 1 West 115^th Street, the building across the street, and his sister Ella just a mile away, so Solomon had plenty of family to look after him in New York.

Solomon Cohen 1900 census

So by 1900, almost all of Moses, Jr’s nine children had married and/or moved out on their own. Several had left Washington, DC—three to New York City and one to Baltimore. There were many births and not too many deaths or other tragedies. Moses and Henrietta had a son who was a lawyer and many grandchildren and more to come. From the outside, it looks like life was very good for the entire clan.

There was, however, one major loss suffered by the family during this period. On January 15, 1895, the family matriarch, Adeline Himmel Cohen, died. She had survived the loss of her husband Moses 35 years earlier and had essentially raised the four younger children on her own and perhaps Moses, Jr., as well before she married Moses, Sr. Adeline had worked outside the home to support her children, selling second hand clothing and carrying on the work that her husband Moses, Sr., had been doing before his death. She must have been a very strong and determined woman to have weathered so many storms in her life.

Adeline Cohen headstone Photo courtesy of Jane and Scott Cohen

[1] Website of the Goethe Institute at http://www.goethe.de/ins/us/lp/kul/mag/deu/ewy/per/en6791595.htm

[2] The insurance business still exists today and was partially acquired by the Meltzer Group. See Related articleshttp://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-meltzer-group-inc-acquires-certain-assets-of-wolf–cohen-life-insurance-inc-55350942.html

A Delightful Conversation: Cousin Marjorie

Posted on July 18, 2014 by Amy

There are so many joys that come with doing genealogy work: solving family mysteries, learning about your roots, reliving the lives of those who came before you, working with other researchers and learning and teaching each other, and many other benefits. But perhaps the greatest joy for me has been finding and meeting new cousins. My reunion with my Brotman cousins last April was more than I’d ever expected, and the phone conversations, email exchanges, and meetings I’ve had with other cousins have also all been so much fun and so rewarding.

But this cousin connection was particularly special to me. Cousin Marjorie is my father’s first cousin and close to him in age. They knew each other as children, but have not been in contact for over sixty years. In order to contact this cousin, I could not rely on email or Facebook. I had to do it the old-fashioned way, a handwritten letter. Fortunately, I was able to find her address on line and took a chance that she would still be able to respond and that she would want to respond.

When I did not hear back for nearly two weeks, I assumed that she either could not or did not want to respond, and I resigned myself to the fact that I would not hear from her. Then one day last week my cell phone rang, and a number came up that was not familiar. I answered the phone, and a woman who sounded like someone in her 20s said, “Amy? You will never guess who this is.” I said that I had no idea, and she said, “This is your cousin Marjorie.”

What then followed was an hour long conversation, followed up with another hour long conversation the other day. Marjorie’s memory is remarkable; she was able to confirm a number of dates and addresses and stories that I had found online through public documents, but she had them at her fingertips. She also had memories of my great-grandmother, my grandfather, my great-uncles and great-aunts, stories I had not known before. And she had wonderful stories about her own life and her parents’ lives as well. Our conversations ranged from the particular to the universal, discussing everything from Winston Churchill (from whom she has a signed letter), Queen Elizabeth (to whom she sends a birthday card every year and receives a thank you in return), and how she learned to drive, to current politics and social issues like legalizing drugs and sexual mores and her current day-to-day life with her cat Scarlett and her many friends.

Out of respect for her privacy, I do not want to discuss too many of the details of her own life on the blog, but suffice it to say that she is a very bright, articulate, and opinionated woman. She told me that she had graduated from Trinity College (D.C.) and that she had traveled the world as part of her career working for the American Automobile Association. She is still volunteering one day a week for the local historical society in her neighborhood.

As for some of the family memories, Marjorie did not remember her grandfather Emanuel well since she was only about three years old when he died, but she does remember her grandmother, Eva May Seligman Cohen, lovingly and clearly. She said Bebe, as the grandchildren called her, had been a brilliant woman. Her brother, Arthur Seligman, was the governor of New Mexico (more on that when I get to the Seligman line), and he had been invited to speak one year at Valley Forge. When he had to cancel his plans, my great-grandmother Eva May spoke as his replacement. Marjorie had not been able to attend, but wished that she had been there. Marjorie said that not only was Bebe brilliant, she was kind and giving and would do anything for her family. I shared with her the fact that Eva May and Emanuel had opened their home to Emanuel’s brother Isaac and his son when his wife died, and she was not surprised. Like my father, Marjorie remembers exactly when her beloved grandmother passed away in October, 1939.

I also asked Marjorie what she remembers of my grandfather, her Uncle John, and she said that she has no memory of him before he became disabled, but remembers driving with her parents to Coatesville, Pennsylvania, once a month to visit him at the VA hospital there. She described him as very good looking, thin, with black hair.

She also remembered going to occasional Sunday dinners at her grandmother’s house when my father and my aunt were living there and going to the movies with her cousins. She said that somewhere she has a street photograph of the three cousins—my father, my aunt, and Marjorie—walking in Philadelphia. Marjorie also told me that about 25 years ago she got a call out of the blue from her cousin Buddy, Maurice’s son, saying that he was back east from California and wanted to see her. He and his wife (whom she remembered as being Norwegian) came to visit, and she said she and Buddy stayed in touch until he died in 1995.

Marjorie also spoke adoringly of her parents, Stanley and Bessie Cohen. She said that although they were brought up in different faiths—her father a Reform Jew, her mother a High Episcopalian, they were an ideal match and had a wonderful marriage for well over 60 years. She quoted to me several sayings that her mother used to convey her values to her daughter—as Marjorie described them, common sense statements about the value of an education and the importance of good health. She said her mother was a sweet and kind person who always saw the good in other people. Her father, my great-uncle Stanley, she described as a broad-minded man who had a bit of a temper, but who adored his wife and daughter. He lived to be 98 years old and had good health all the way until the very end. Marjorie said her parents had a very large circle of friends and were very well-regarded in their community.

At the end of our conversation, I told Marjorie that I would stay in touch. She said that I had made her day, and I told her that she had made mine as well. And I meant it from the bottom of my heart.

Two of Marjorie’s heroes:

English: Sir Winston Churchill. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Queen Elizabeth II

Science versus Inference: Was Moses Cohen the Brother of Jacob Cohen?

Posted on July 16, 2014 by Amy

The case for concluding that Moses Cohen, Sr., who lived in Baltimore (1850) and Washington, D.C. (1860), was the brother of my great-great-grandfather Jacob Cohen is built almost entirely on inference. As I’ve described before, I have tentatively concluded that they were brothers based on the following bits of evidence:

The 1841 English census that lists as the children of Hart and Sarah Cohen the following: Elizabeth (20), Moses (20), Jacob (15), and John (14).
Hart Cohen and family 1841 English census
A passenger manifest for the ship New York Packet, dated July 7, 1848, that lists the following passengers: Jacob Cohen, Sarah Cohen, Fanny Cohen, Moses Cohen, and an infant named John Cohen. Source Citation
Year: 1848
Description
Ship or Roll Number : Roll 073
Source InformationAncestry.com. New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.
Original data: Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1820-1897. Microfilm Publication M237, 675 rolls. Records of the U.S. Customs Service, Record Group 36. National Archives at Washington, D.C.Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1897-1957. Microfilm Publication T715, 8892 rolls. Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service; National Archives at Washington, D.C.Supplemental Manifests of Alien Passengers and Crew Members Who Arrived on Vessels at New York, New York, Who Were Inspected for Admission, and Related Index, compiled 1887-1952. Microfilm Publication A3461, 21 rolls. ARC ID: 3887372. RG 85, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004; Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service; National Archives, Washington, D.C. Index to Alien Crewmen Who Were Discharged or Who Deserted at New York, New York, May 1917-Nov. 1957. Microfilm Publication A3417. ARC ID: 4497925. National Archives at Washington, D.C.Passenger Lists, 1962-1972, and Crew Lists, 1943-1972, of Vessels Arriving at Oswego, New York. Microfilm Publication A3426. ARC ID: 4441521. National Archives at Washington, D.C.
Headstones that identify the Hebrew name of the father of both Jacob and Moses Cohen as Naftali Ha Cohen (Hart being the Dutch and English equivalent of a deer, the tribe symbol for the tribe of Naftali)
Jacob Cohen’s headstone

Moses Cohen, Sr. headstone
The fact that both Jacob and Moses named a son Hart, the same name as Jacob’s, and presumably Moses,’ father, Hart Levy Cohen.
The fact that Moses had a granddaughter named Grace Cohen and that a bridesmaid of one of Jacob’s granddaughters was a Grace Cohen from Washington, DC.

These five bits of evidence were enough for me to reach the tentative conclusion that Jacob and Moses were brothers and that therefore the descendants of Moses Cohen were also my relatives. There was also additional “evidence” in my failure to find a Moses Cohen other than the DC Moses who fit as well; there were two Moses Cohens of the right age on the 1851 English census, but neither was the right one. I sent for marriage certificates for both of them, and they were not the sons of Hart and Rachel. I’ve already dug fairly deeply into the history of Moses Cohen and his children and grandchildren based on that hunch and those bits of evidence.

But I wanted something more scientific and definitive. I was very fortunate to find someone who was a direct descendant of Moses’ son, Moses, Jr. He had already done a DNA test with FamilyTreeDNA, so I asked my brother to do the same so that we could compare the results. That was almost two months ago, and I finally received the results late last week. I was very disappointed to see that my brother was not in the same haplogroup with the descendant of Moses, Jr., meaning that there was no genetic link between the two. I was bewildered and discouraged. I looked at all the hours I had spent researching Moses’ family and felt as if I had wasted a tremendous amount of time.

I am in touch with the wife of the Moses, Jr., descendant who was tested, and she also was disappointed, but not as surprised as I was. She told me that there was a family story suggesting that Moses, Jr., had been adopted and was not in fact the biological child of Moses, Sr. Suddenly, other bits of evidence started to make more sense.

The earliest document I have for Moses, Jr. is the 1850 US census. It lists Moses, Sr., living in Baltimore with his wife Adeline and eleven year old son Moses, Jr. Moses, Jr., is reported to have been born in Germany, and since he was eleven, born in 1839.

Moses Cohen and family 1850 census

Other documents record his year of birth as 1840. But Moses, Sr., was living in London in 1841, as seen on the English census of that year. I had been confused by that before, but had assumed it was some error.

Also, Moses, Sr. is variously reported to have been born in years ranging from 1820 to 1828, depending on the document. His headstone says he was 32 in 1860 when he died, giving him a birth year of 1828. Even assuming it was 1820, he would only have been twenty when Moses, Jr., was born. How would he have met a German woman at such a young age, had a child with her in Germany, but then been living without her in London a year or more after the child was born? And where were Adeline and Moses, Jr., in 1848 when Moses emigrated from London to the US on the same ship with his brother Jacob?

I decided I needed to find out more about Adeline, the woman who married Moses and the mother of Moses, Jr. I know that her birth name was Himmel from a birth record for their son Hart. I cannot find a passenger list for Adeline or Moses, Jr., nor can I find a birth record or a marriage record linking Moses, Sr. and Adeline with Moses, Jr. The earliest document I have found for Adeline is the 1850 US census above.

That 1850 census, seen above, show that living in the home next door to Adeline and Moses was a family with the surname Himmel: Jacob, Hannah and Moses Himmel. Jacob, like Adeline, was born in Germany. Both Jacob and Adeline Himmel had sons named Moses. I am going to guess that Adeline was Jacob’s sister, though I’ve yet to find anything to corroborate that.

So this is my new challenge: to find records that will indicate where and when Moses, Jr., was born and where and when Moses, Sr., married his mother Adeline. I am also going to focus on finding a biological descendant of Moses, Sr., so that perhaps I can find some scientific evidence to back up my inferences. In the meantime, I am going to continue to assume that Moses, Sr., was the older brother of my great-great-grandfather and thus to tell his story as best I can as well as the story of his children and grandchildren, including Moses, Jr.

Hart Cohen and Family 1851-1860: Philadelphia

Brotmanblog: A Family Journey

Adventures in Genealogy

Category Archives: Genealogy

My Cousin, the Musical Star

Jacob G. Cohen, Almost State Treasurer, and his descendants: A Sad Ending and a Loose End

Did Eleanor Selinger Marry an English Cousin? And Did She Remember Her American Roots?

The Children of Augusta Cohen and Julius Selinger

Three Losses for the Family of Moses, Jr., and Henrietta Cohen 1918-1920

Jews in Iowa? Cohens on the Prairie 1880-1900

A Brick Wall Tumbles, Thanks Once Again to the Genealogy Village

The Family of Moses, Jr. and Henrietta Cohen 1880-1900: Years of Growth and Change

A Delightful Conversation: Cousin Marjorie

Science versus Inference: Was Moses Cohen the Brother of Jacob Cohen?

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