Henry Schoenthal: His Final Years and His Legacy

Posted on December 10, 2015 by Amy

Although I have completed as best I can the stories of five of the children of my great-great-grandparents Levi and Henriette (Hamberg) Schoenthal (Hannah, Amalie, Felix, Julius and Nathan), I still need to complete the stories of Henry, Simon, and, of course, my great-grandfather Isidore.[1] In addition, there were two siblings living in Germany whose stories I’ve yet to tell, Jakob and Rosalie. First, I want to return to Henry, the brother who led the way for the others.

As I wrote here, after living for over 40 years in Washington, Pennsylvania, Henry Schoenthal moved with his wife Helen (nee Lilienfeld) to New York City in 1909 to be closer to their son Lionel. Lionel had moved to NYC to work as a china buyer, first working for one enterprise, but eventually working for Gimbels department store. Lionel was married to Irma (nee Silverman), and they had a daughter Florence, born on March 22, 1905.

In 1910, Henry and Helen’s other son Meyer had married Mary McKinnie, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist from Colorado. Meyer and Mary had met while Mary was a student at a girl’s boarding school, Washington Seminary, in Washington, Pennsylvania. After marrying, they were living in Los Angeles, and Meyer was working for an investment company.

Hilda Schoenthal, Henry and Helen’s daughter, was working as a stenographer in Washington, DC, in 1911. She was living on the same street as her uncle Julius Schoenthal and cousin Leo Schoenthal, the 900 block of Westminster Avenue.

1911 directory for Washington, DC
Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

According to her obituary (see below), Hilda moved to DC to work for a patent attorney. In 1914, she was working as a bookkeeper for Karl P. McElroy, who appears to have been the patent attorney, as her brother Meyer later worked for him as well, as noted below in his obituary.

1914 directory for Washington, DC
Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

In 1915, Henry and Helen were still living with Lionel (called Lee on this census, as he often was in other documents and news articles), Irma, and Florence on Riverside Drive in New York City. Lee was still working as a buyer, and no one else was employed outside the home. Lee’s draft registration for World War II shows that in 1918 he was still working for Gimbels, living on Riverside Drive.

Lionel (Lee) Schoenthal World War I draft registration
Registration State: New York; Registration County: New York; Roll: 1786675; Draft Board: 141

Thanks to the assistance of the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh, I was able to obtain a copy of a letter that Henry Schoenthal wrote to his granddaughter Florence in December, 1918, when she was almost fourteen years old:

My darling Florence, I told you yesterday that I was mad at you, but I aint. Beg pardon, I mean I am not. I love you just as much as ever, but I would have been so happy if you had stayed a few days with us. Of course I will have to send word to President Wilson that you went home and that you could not come to see him. Maybe after a while when we have a home of our own here you will come and stay with us for quite a while. We will show you that Washington, for natural beauty, beats any city you saw in the many foreign countries you have visited. Will you write me a little letter? Lovingly yours, Grandpa.

I love the teasing tone of this sweet letter to his granddaughter; it shows yet another facet of this interesting great-great-uncle of mine. His diaries from his early years in Washington were all very serious, and the speech he gave on a return trip to Washington, PA, in 1912 revealed his spiritual and sentimental side. Here we get to see some of his sense of humor and the affection he felt for his only grandchild, Florence, who probably like most teenagers was anxious to get home to her friends rather than spend more time with her grandparents.

I was at first a bit confused as to where Henry was living when he wrote this letter. He refers to the natural beauty of Washington, but it’s not clear whether he is referring to Washington, PA, or Washington, DC. I concluded, however, that he meant DC because his daughter Hilda was living there and perhaps he and Helen were planning to relocate there. Also, the reference to seeing President Wilson makes no sense unless he and Helen were in DC.

Not long after the writing of this letter, the Schoenthal family suffered a sad loss. Henry’s son Meyer was living with his wife Mary in Blythe, California, working as a lumber merchant, when he registered for the draft on September 12, 1918. Just three months later, Mary died on December 24, 1918. She was only 31 years old. They had been married for just eight years. There were no children.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=6419650&ref=acom

On the 1920 census, Meyer is listed as a widow, living alone, and still working in the lumber business. He had moved from Blythe to Palo Verde, California.

If Henry and Helen Schoenthal did move to DC for a period of time, by 1920 they had returned to NYC and were again living with their son Lee and his family on Riverside Drive, according to the 1920 census record. Lee was still working as a buyer. Hilda Schoenthal, their daughter, was still living in Washington DC, but was now working as a law clerk for the patent attorneys, according to the 1920 census.

On October 19, 1921, Meyer L. Schoenthal married for a second time. His second wife was Caroline S. Holgate (sometimes spelled Carolyn). By that time Meyer was considered a “prominent lumber dealer” and was president of the Blythe, California, chamber of commerce; his new bride was also “prominent socially” and had been president of the Sunshine Society in Blythe.

Riverside Daily Press article - Meyer Schoenthal 2d marriage 1921-page-001

Riverside Daily Press, October 20, 1921, p. 8

Caroline was also apparently a talented soprano, as I found numerous articles referring to her performances at various social events. Here’s just one example.

Riverside Daily Press article -Mrs Meyer Schoenthal soprano-page-003

Riverside Daily Press, January 28, 1924, p. 9

Perhaps she also sang at the celebration of the 50^th wedding anniversary of her new in-laws, Henry and Helen Schoenthal, which took place on May 8, 1922, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, although they were not among the guests listed in this news item.

Henry Helen SChoenthal 50th anniversary celebration 1922

Washington DC Evening Star, May 7, 1922, p.31

http://www.jewishfamilieshistory.org/document/schoenthal-golden-wedding/?post_id=2664

For that occasion, Lionel/Lee Schoenthal wrote these very loving lines of verse in honor of his parents:

Lionel (Lee) Schoenthal 1922 passport photograph National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C.; NARA Series: Passport Applications, January 2, 1906 – March 31, 1925; Roll #: 1829; Volume #: Roll 1829 – Certificates: 117226-117599, 09 Feb 1922-10 Feb 1922

(I haven’t transcribed the poem or translated the German lines here, but you can always click and zoom if you want to read it.)

Sadly, three years later, the Schoenthal family lost both Henry and his son Lionel. Henry died on October 22, 1925, from heart and kidney disease. He was 82 years old and had lived a good and long life for a man of his generation. After training as a Jewish teacher and scholar in Germany, he had immigrated from Sielen, Germany, to Washington, Pennsylvania,the first of his siblings to do so . Later, he had brought his young bride Helen Lilienfeld from Gudensberg, Germany, to Pennsylvania, and they had raised three children together after losing one as a baby. In Washington, PA, he’d been a successful businessman and respected citizen. When his son Lionel moved to New York City, Henry and his wife Helen moved there also to be near his son and his only grandchild, Florence. He had lived there for the last sixteen years of his life, working for some of that time as an insurance salesman, as indicated on his death certificate. He was buried at Westchester Hills Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson, less than fifteen miles from where my parents are living. Perhaps one day I will pay him a visit.

The family must have been in complete shock when Lee Schoenthal died of pneumonia on December 5, 1925, just six weeks after his father had died; Lee was only 48 years old, and his daughter Florence was only 20 years old when he died.

Here is part of a long and detailed obituary from the December 10, 1925 issue of The Pottery, Glass, and Brass Salesman (p. 153):

I will transcribe some of the content:

Lee Schoenthal, supervisor of the china, glassware and allied departments of Gimbel Brothers’ associated stores, passed away at his home in New York City early on Saturday morning, December 5, following an acute illness of two weeks. [There is then a detailed description of Lee’s poor health, referring to his dedication to his job and overwork as contributing factors to his death.] …

Lee Schoenthal was born in Washington, Pa., April 12, 1877. His father and mother, who were born in Germany, had come to this country some years before and Henry Schoenthal—Lee’s father—had built up a nice retail business in Washington. Lee attended the schools of his native town and then his parents, themselves highly cultured, made the effort to give their son a collegiate training, sending him to Washington and Jefferson College, located in Washington. During his college career he stood well in his classes and was particularly noted for his musical accomplishments, being leader of the college orchestra for several years. As a matter of fact, it is entirely possible that if he had devoted himself wholeheartedly to music instead of to commerce he might have become a musical celebrity. …

Some twenty years ago Mr. Schoenthal came to New York to “seek his fortune.” [Then follows a detailed description of Lee’s business career, first with the Siegel-Cooper Company and then with Gimbels.]…

Mr. Schoenthal, for a man of his comparative youth, probably developed more men as successful buyers of china and glassware than anyone else in the country. He had that rare gift of imparting knowledge and that quality of the really big man of business that he never feared to impart all information he could to those who worked with him. Modest to a degree, he could not help being conscious of his compelling influence and ability, so the thought never entered his mind that he might be jeopardizing his own position by teaching others all they could absorb from his store of knowledge and wisdom.

[The obituary then describes Lee’s interests outside of work, in particular his love of music, but also art and architecture.] Himself a deeply religious Jew of the modernist type, he could talk more familiarly of the history of the Catholic cathedrals and their adornments than many men of the Christian faith.

[Finally, the obituary described his family life: his happy marriage, his talented daughter, and his devotion to his parents, for whom he had provided a home for many years.]

The obituary thus focused not only on Lee’s distinguished business career, but also on his broad intellectual and cultural interests, his musical talents, and his religious and personal life. It described him as a “deeply religious Jew of the modernist type” and as a man devoted to his family. His family must have been very proud of him.

Both deaths were noted in Meyer Schoenthal’s home paper in Riverside, California:

Two years later on October 19, 1927, Florence Schoenthal, the grandchild of Henry and Helen Schoenthal and daughter of Lee Schoenthal, married Verner Bickart Callomon in New York City. Verner Callomon was the son of a German Jewish immigrant, Bernhardt Callomon, who had settled in Pittsburgh and worked for Rodef Shalom synagogue there, the same synagogue to which Henry Schoenthal had once belonged. Verner was a doctor, and his career was described as follows by the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh:

Verner Callomon (1892-1977) graduated with honors from the University of Pennsylvania in 1915 with a degree in medicine. He served as a junior lieutenant in World War I and returned to Pittsburgh to practice internal medicine. He was a pulmonary disease specialist and researcher at Allegheny General Hospital and Montefiore Hospital for nearly 60 years and was the chief of medicine at both institutions at different times during his long career. His research contributed to changes in the treatment of pneumonia. He was known both for his professionalism and for his compassion. In order to visit weather-bound patients, he rowed down Liberty Avenue during the 1936 St. Patrick’s Day flood and secured an Army jeep during the November 1950 snowstorm.

As far as I can tell, Florence and Verner settled in Pittsburgh after they married since that is where Verner is listed in the 1929 directory for Pittsburgh and also were their first child was born in 1929.

(The Rauh website also includes links to several articles about the Callomon family. Of particular interest to me was the oral history interview with Jane Callomon, one of the children of Florence (Schoenthal) and Verner Callomon, on file at the University of Pittsburgh Library (“Pittsburgh and Beyond: The Experience of the Jewish Community,” National Council of Jewish Women, Pittsburgh Section, Oral History Collection at the University of Pittsburgh).)

In 1927, following her husband’s death, Helen Lilienfeld Schoenthal moved to Washington, DC, from NYC to live with her daughter Hilda. They were living at 3532 Connecticut Avenue NW in 1927, and Hilda was still working for K.P. McElroy, now as a bookkeeper and notary public.

Meyer Schoenthal continued to prosper in California and was elected a vice-president of the California Association of Commercial Secretaries in 1928 (“Fresno Chosen Next Meeting Place California Commercial Secretaries,” Riverside Daily Press, January 14, 1928, p, 2) ; in 1929 he and his wife Caroline took an eleven-week trip to the East Coast, visiting not only his sister and mother in Washington, DC, but also his birthplace, Washington, PA, and many other locations.

Riverside Daily Press, August 5, 1929, p. 4

Although Meyer and Caroline were still living in Riverside, California, on April 2, 1930, when the census was taken, by September, 1930, they had moved east permanently:

Riverside Daily Press, September 8, 1930, p. 7

Note that Meyer was going to work for the same business that had long employed his sister Hilda, K.P. McElroy.

In 1930, Hilda and her mother were living in the Broadmoor Apartments at 3601 Connecticut Avenue. By 1932, Meyer and his wife had moved in with them, as listed in the 1932 directory for Washington, DC, and he and his wife were still living there with them in 1937. Both Hilda and Meyer were working for K.P. McElroy, Hilda as his personal secretary, Meyer as the office manager.

Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

In April 1930, Florence Schoenthal Callomon appeared in a production of C.B. Fernald’s “The Mask and the Face” at the Y Playhouse in New York City; a noted Shakespearean actor led the cast, B. Iden Payne. Florence was a woman of many talents, it appears. She also was an artist who had worked as an advertising illustrator for Gimbels before she married. I cannot find Verner or Florence on the 1930 census in either Pittsburgh or NYC, but regardless of where she was living, I am not sure how she pulled off appearing in this production since she had a one year old child at the time.

Florence Schoenthal Callomon http://www.jewishfamilieshistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/YM_WHA_Weekly_v4_no29_04041930_pp1_4.pdf

On October 10, 1937, the family matriarch Helen Lilienfeld Schoenthal died. She was almost 89 years old (despite the headline on her obituary, she was one month short of her 90^th year). She was buried with her husband at Westchester Hills Cemetery:

Washington Evening Star, October 11, 1937, p. 12

Riverside Daily Press, October 18, 1937, p. 3

From the second obituary in the Riverside Daily Press, it appears that Meyer and Caroline Schoenthal had by October 1937 moved to their own place at 2700 Rodman Road in DC.

By 1940, Meyer and Caroline were living as lodgers in a home with thirteen other residents at 2700 Quebec Street; Meyer, 56 years old, was still working for the patent firm. His sister Hilda, now 65, was also still working at the patent firm and still living at 3601 Connecticut Avenue.

Florence Schoenthal Callomon and her husband Verner Callomon were living in Pittsburgh in 1940; Verner was a doctor in private practice. They now had two children.

Hilda Schoenthal died on June 6, 1962. She was 87 years old.

Washington Evening Star, June 6, 1962, p. 41

According to her obituary, sometime after 1940 she had left K.P. McElroy, her longtime employer, to work for Gulf Oil in their patent department. If times had been different, I have a feeling that Hilda would have become a patent lawyer herself. On the personal side, she seems to have had an active social life with many friends and relatives with whom she traveled and socialized, according to several news items from the society pages of the Washington Evening Star. Hilda was buried at Westchester Hills Cemetery, where her parents were interred.

Less than a year later, on February 16, 1963, the last remaining child of Henry and Helen Schoenthal, Meyer Lilienfeld Schoenthal, died. He was 79.

Washington Evening Star, February 18, 1963, p. 24

He died from a heart attack; unlike his sister Hilda and his parents, he was buried in Massachusetts, where his wife Carolyn/Caroline was born. She outlived him by 20 years, dying in January, 1983, when she was 84.

The obituary revealed a few things that I otherwise would not have known about Meyer: that he had helped build a “noted nature trail” in the Southwest and that he was a philatelist (stamp collector). It is interesting that, like his sister Hilda, he had gone to work at Gulf Oil Corporation after working for many years for K.P. McElroy.

The only surviving descendants of Henry Schoenthal after 1963 were his granddaughter Florence Schoenthal Callomon and her children. Florence died in 1994 when she was 89 years old. According to the Rauh Archives, she had been “a member and officer of many Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania organizations, including the Western Pennsylvania Women’s Golf Association, the Women’s Committee of The Carnegie Museum of Art, the Pittsburgh Symphony Association and the Rodef Shalom Sisterhood, among others.” From the oral history interview their daughter Jane referenced above, it is clear that both Florence and Verner were involved in many aspects of the Pittsburgh community.

Thus, Henry and Helen Schoenthal left quite a legacy. Their three children all were successful in their careers and ventured far beyond little Washington, PA, where they’d been born: Hilda to DC, Lionel/Lee to NYC, and Meyer to California and then to DC. Things came almost full circle when Florence Schoenthal Callomon, their granddaughter, returned to western Pennsylvania where her German immigrant grandparents had settled and where her father and aunt and uncle had been born and raised. Pittsburgh is where Florence and her husband Verner raised their children and where those children stayed as even as adults.

I’d imagine that my great-great-uncle Henry would have been very proud of his three children and his granddaughter for all that they accomplished. Even in 1912 he knew how blessed he had been in his life when he addressed his friends in Washington, PA, and told them:

I gratefully acknowledge that God has been very gracious unto me and that he has blessed me beyond my merits.

I feel very blessed to have been able to learn so much about my great-great-uncle Henry and his family, and I hope someday to be able to connect with his descendants.

[1] Two of twelve children of Levi Schoenthal and Henriette Hamberg did not survive to adulthood. Of the other ten, eight immigrated to the United States, including my great-grandfather. One of the siblings remained in Germany, Jakob, and Rosalie returned to Germany to marry after a few years in the US.

Those Who Left Western Pennsylvania: The Schoenthals 1880-1900

Posted on October 29, 2015 by Amy

Although most of the extended Schoenthal family was located in western Pennsylvania during the 1880s, a few family members had moved further east. I’ve already written about Julius Schoenthal and his life and his family in Washington, DC. He was a German and US veteran, a shoemaker, and the father of four children. In the 1880s he and his wife Minnie were busy raising their family.

What I had not mentioned in my post about Julius was that by 1879, he was joined in Washington, DC, by his younger (by nine years) brother Nathan. On the 1880 census, Nathan was living in DC, not married, and working as a clerk in a “fancy store.” I am not sure what that is, but according to the Free Dictionary, it is “one where articles of fancy and ornament are sold.” Nathan and Julius were not living in the same enumeration district, and the 1880 census did not provide street addresses, so I don’t know how close together the brothers were living. I don’t know why Nathan left Washington, PA, for Washington, DC, but I would assume that having a brother there was a factor.

Washington, D.C. (Sept. 26, 2003) – Aerial view of the Washington Monument with the White House in the background. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By 1883, however, Nathan had moved again. He was then living in Richmond, Virginia, working as a salesman, according to the city directory for that year. He was still in Richmond in 1888. According to the 1900 census, Nathan married a woman named Alice in 1890. I have not been able find out very much about Alice except that she was born in South Carolina in 1865. I don’t know her birth name, I don’t know anything about her family, and I don’t know where she married Nathan.

English: Looking east on Main Street, Richmond, Virginia, ca. 1901-1907. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Perhaps Alice had been living in Philadelphia; in 1891 and 1892, Nathan appeared in the Philadelphia city directory, working as a “supt,” which I assume means he was a superintendent. But of what?

Philadelphia City Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well, in 1896 Nathan Schoenthal is listed in the directory for Lancaster, Pennsylvania, working as an assistant superintendent for Prudential Insurance Company, so I assume that that is what he was also doing in Philadelphia and perhaps even in Richmond. He is also listed as an insurance agent in the 1898 Lancaster directory.

English: North Duke Street in Lancaster, Pennsylvania (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But he was not done moving because in 1900 he and Alice were living in Newport News, Virginia, where Nathan continued to work as an insurance agent. They had been married for ten years, as mentioned above, and had no children.



Embed from Getty Images

A year later they moved once again, this time to Petersburg, Virginia, a city about 24 miles south of Richmond. According to the 1901 directory for Petersburg, Nathan was now an assistant superintendent for the Insurance Company of Virginia. He was still in that position there in 1905, but in the 1909 directory for Petersburg he is listed as a solicitor without further description.

Exchange Building (Petersburg, Virginia).(cropped) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

And then in 1910, Nathan Schoenthal is listed in the Baltimore directory as a manager, but I’ve no idea of what. Is it possible that this is not the same Nathan Schoenthal? I don’t know. But this is the last record I have for Nathan. I cannot find him or Alice on the 1910 census, and in June 1912, an “Alice Shoenthal” married a man named John Alexander Mallory in Petersburg, Virginia. Had Nathan died? Had their marriage ended? Had he moved to Baltimore without Alice? Had she finally gotten fed up with moving from place to place? I don’t know.

I’ve hit one of those brick walls, and I have no answers. Nathan Schoenthal, a man who moved from place to place and then disappeared, will be in my “To Be Done” folder for a while.

Yet another brick wall. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The third Schoenthal brother who left western Pennsylvania, in addition to Julius and Nathan, was Simon. Simon had moved to Philadelphia by 1880, where he continued to work as a bookbinder. Unlike his brother Nathan, Simon’s life was remarkably stable and consistent. He was still working as a bookbinder and living in Philadelphia in 1890.

The 1880s were productive years at home for Simon and his wife Rose nee Mansbach. By 1880, they’d had five children: twins, Ida and Harry, born in 1873; then Gertrude, born in 1875; Louis, born in 1878, and Maurice, born in 1879, all of whom were born in western Pennsylvania. After that they had five more who were born in Philadelphia: Martin (1881), Jacob (1883), Hettie (1885), Estelle (1888), and Sidney (1891). Rose had been pregnant nine times, almost every other year over almost twenty years. Wow.

In 1887, the oldest daughter Ida died from heart disease; she was only fourteen years old. No matter how many children they had, losing the first born daughter Ida must have been devastating for the family. It must have been especially hard for Harry, her twin.

Ida Shoenthal death certificate “Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City Death Certificates, 1803-1915,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-267-12895-183388-90?cc=1320976 : accessed 28 October 2015), 004008625 > image 605 of 612; Philadelphia City Archives and Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

By 1890, Simon and Rose had nine children living with them, ranging in age from Harry, who was seventeen, to Sidney, who was an infant. Interestingly, around this time Simon changed occupations. He is listed as selling “segars” in the 1891 and 1892 Philadelphia directories.

By 1898, Simon and Rose had relocated to Atlantic City, where Simon now owned a “notion and bric-a-brac store” that was destroyed by a fire on February 7 of that year.

By 1900, however, Simon was back in business in Atlantic City, as reported on the 1900 census. He was then operating a cigar and stationery store. Six of their nine children were living with Rose and Simon: Louis was working as a cigar salesman, and Martin and Jacob were working as “laundrymen.” Hettie, Estelle, and Sidney were also living at home.

There were three children missing from Simon and Rose’s Atlantic City household on the 1900 census: Harry, Gertrude, and Maurice. Harry, now 27, was a student at Juniata College in Huntingdon in 1900, as listed on the census. Juniata was at that time a relatively new college, founded in 1876 by the Church of the Brethren, a Protestant sect started in Germany. I would be interested in knowing what drew Harry to Juniata and what classes he took while there. Two years later, Harry was living in Atlantic City where his parents and most of his siblings were living; he was working for Atlantic Wine and Liquor, according to a city directory.

Atlantic City
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AA_mile_of_the_Atlantic_City_boardwalk%2C_Atlantic_City%2C_NJ.png

As for Simon and Rose’s daughter Gertrude, she had married a man named Jacob J. Miller in Atlantic City on February 12, 1898, when she was 23. Jacob was born in Germany on June 6, 1873, and had immigrated to the US sometime in the 1880s. A year after marrying, Jacob and Gertrude were living in Tucson, Arizona, where Jacob was working for the Crescent Cigar Company, the same industry in which his father-in-law Simon and brother-in-law Louis were engaged. In 1900, they had an infant daughter Juliette and were living in Pima, Arizona. Jacob was working as a grocer. Gertrude and Jacob would have two more children: Harry in 1902 and Sylvester in 1906.

A stunning view of Cluff Ranch Pond near Pima, Arizona. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As for Maurice, although I cannot find him with the family or elsewhere on the 1900 census, he and three of his brothers are all listed in the 1904 Atlantic City directory, as seen below:

Atlantic City directory 1904 Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1989 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

All four brothers were living at 22 Delaware Avenue in Atlantic City, their mother at 23 Delaware. It appears that Martin and Jacob were running a laundry called Incomparable Laundry at 1432-1434 Atlantic Avenue and that Louis was running a cigar, tobacco, stationery and sporting goods business at the same location. Louis also listed a billiards and pool hall on “S Virginia av n Beach.” Maurice is listed as a manager at “S Virginia av, Ocean end.” I think that those two addresses are likely the same location and that Maurice was managing the pool hall.

As the listings also reveal, Rose was a widow by the time of the 1904 directory’s publication. Simon died on March 26, 1904, in Atlantic City; he was buried at Mt. Sinai cemetery in Philadelphia. He was 55 years old and the first of my great-grandfather’s siblings to die.

I will follow up with what happened to Simon’s children and other descendants in the 20^th century in a later post.

My Great-grandfather Comes to America: The Schoenthals in Western Pennsylvania 1880-1890

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Amy

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Allegheny County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Or how my great-grandfather met my great-grandmother. I love finding stories about how couples met each other. From a little tiny news item in a small local paper in 1887, I may have found a clue as to how my Schoenthal/Katzenstein grandparents met each other.

Isidore Schoenthal

By 1880, many of the members of the family of Heinemann Schoenthal and Hendel Beerenstein had moved from Sielen, Germany, to the United States. Their two daughters had arrived first: Fanny and her husband Simon Goldsmith and Mina and her husband Marcus Rosenberg. They were followed by six of the children of Levi Schoenthal (Fanny and Mina’s brother) and Henrietta Hamberg: Henry, Julius, Amalie, Simon, Nathan, and Felix.

Their father Levi died in 1874; their mother Henrietta was still living in Germany in 1880. Four of the children of Levi and Henrietta were also still in Germany in 1880: Hannah, Jacob, Rosalie, and my great-grandfather Isidore. All but Jacob would soon be in the United States.

Jacob had married Charlotte Lilienfeld in 1879 and was a merchant living in Cologne (or Koln), Germany. Charlotte was the daughter of Meyer Lilienfeld and Hannchen Meiberg of Gudensberg, another small town in the Kassel district of Hessen, not far from Sielen. Charlotte was the half-sister of Helen Lilienfeld, who had married Jacob’s brother Henry in 1872. Although Jacob and Charlotte never emigrated from Germany, they had two sons who did: Lee, born in 1881, and Meyer, born in 1883. More on them in a later post.

HStAMR Best. 920 Nr. 2610 Standesamt Gudensberg Heiratsnebenregister 1879, S. 10

Eine Vervielfältigung oder Verwendung dieser Seite in anderen elektronischen oder gedruckten Publikationen und deren Veröffentlichung (auch im Internet) ist nur nach vorheriger Genehmigung durch das Hessische Staatsarchivs Marburg, Friedrichsplatz 15, D-35037 Marburg, Germany gestattet.

HStAMR Best. 920 Nr. 2610 Standesamt Gudensberg Heiratsnebenregister 1879, S. 10

As for the many Schoenthal family members already in the United States, as of 1880 only Henry and his wife Helen (Lilienfeld) and their two young children, Hilda (six) and Lionel (three), were still living in Washington, Pennsylvania, where Henry owned a retail variety store. Living with them and described as their adopted son was a twelve year old boy named Samuel Hamberg, who was born in South Carolina. I have to believe that Samuel Hamberg was somehow related to Henry’s mother’s family, the Hambergs of Breuna, but I cannot find the connection.[1] Henry and Helen would have one more child in the 1880s, a son born in 1883 named Meyer Lilienfeld Schoenthal, named for Helen’s father.

Henry Schoenthal and family 1880 census
Year: 1880; Census Place: Washington, Washington, Pennsylvania; Roll: 1202; Family History Film: 1255202; Page: 596A; Enumeration District: 271

Although Henry was the only Schoenthal sibling still in Washington, Pennsylvania in 1880, others were not too far away. Amalie and her husband Elias Wolfe were now living in Allegheny (today part of Pittsburgh so from hereon I will refer to both Allegheny and Pittsburgh as Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania. According to the entry in the census record, Elias was a “drover.” I’d never heard this term before, but according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary online, a drover is “a person who moves groups of animals (such as cattle or sheep) from one place to another.” Amalie and Elias had three children at the time of the census: Morris was 7, Florence was 5, and Lionel was 2. A fourth child was born in June, 1880, shortly after the census, a son named Ira. Two more were born in the 1880s: Henrietta (1883) and Herbert (1885).

Amalie Schoenthal Wolfe and family 1880 census
Year: 1880; Census Place: Allegheny, Allegheny, Pennsylvania; Roll: 1086; Family History Film: 1255086; Page: 153C; Enumeration District: 006; Image: 0310

As noted in my earlier post, Felix Schoenthal was also still relatively close to Washington, Pennsylvania, living with his wife Maggie in West Newton, about 25 miles away, where Felix was working as a clerk at the paper mill. Felix and Maggie also had two children during the 1880s: Rachel (1881) and Yetta (1884).

The other siblings had moved further east. Julius was in Washington, DC, working as a shoemaker, as described in my last post. His brother Nathan was also now in DC, working as a clerk in a “fancy store.” Simon Schoenthal had also moved further east by 1880. Although he and his family were living in Pittsburgh in 1879, by 1880 he and Rose and their five children had moved to Philadelphia. Simon was still working as a bookbinder. In the 1880s they would have four more children: Martin (1881), Jacob (1883), Hettie (1886), and Estelle (1889). In 1891, one more child was added to the family, Sidney.

Simon Schoenthal and family 1880 census
Year: 1880; Census Place: Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Roll: 1179; Family History Film: 1255179; Page: 12D; Enumeration District: 382; Image: 0218

But other members of the extended Schoenthal clan still lived in western Pennsylvania. Fanny Schoenthal Goldsmith’s widower Simon Goldsmith was living in Pittsburgh with their daughter Hannah and her family. Hannah’s husband Joseph Benedict was a rag dealer, and in 1880 they had three sons: Jacob (10), Hershel (9), and Harry (3).[2]

Simon Goldsmith and Joseph Benedict families on 1880 census
Year: 1880; Census Place: Pittsburgh, Allegheny, Pennsylvania; Roll: 1092; Family History Film: 1255092; Page: 508D; Enumeration District: 122; Image: 0683

As described in an earlier post, Mina Schoenthal Rosenberg and her husband Marcus Rosenberg and their daughter Julia were living in Elk City, Pennsylvania, in 1880. Their daughter Hannah and her husband Herman Hirsh were living in Pittsburgh with their five children in 1880. Their daughter Mary and her husband Joseph Podolsky and children were living in Ohio. Mina’s other two children, Rachel and Harry, are missing from the 1880 census.

Thus, by 1880, there were still a large number of family members in western Pennsylvania; it was still home to most of the extended Schoenthal clan. It is not surprising that when my great-grandfather Isidore arrived with his mother and sister Rosalie, they ended up in western Pennsylvania as well.

My great-grandfather Isidore, his mother Henrietta Hamberg Schoenthal, and his younger sister Rosalie arrived in New York on September 3, 1881, upon the ship Rhein, which had sailed from Bremen. Isidore was 22, Rosalie was seventeen, and Henrietta was 64 years old. They settled in Washington, Pennsylvania, where Henry was living. Isidore worked as a clerk in Henry’s variety store.

Henrietta died just a year later in December, 1882; she was buried at Troy Hill cemetery in Pittsburgh. Washington did not yet have a Jewish cemetery. Although I could not find an American death certificate, Henrietta’s death was recorded back in Sielen even though she had died in the US.

Henrietta Hamberg Schoenthal death record from Sielen
HHStAW Abt. 365 Nr. 773, S. 10

Henrietta’s brother-in-law Simon Goldsmith died a few months later on March 17, 1883. He also was buried at Troy Hill.

Rosalie Schoenthal, the youngest child of Levi and Henrietta, returned to Germany where she married William or Willie Heymann in Geldern, Germany, on December 8, 1884. She and Willie would have four children born in Geldern: Lionel (1887, for Rosalie’s father Levi, presumably), Helen (1890), Max (1893), and Hilda (1898). I assume that either Helen or Hilda was named for Rosalie’s mother Henrietta. The two sons ended up immigrating to the United States; the two daughters and their families perished in the Holocaust. But more on that in a later post.

There would be one more Schoenthal sibling who would immigrate to the US: the oldest child, Hannah. Hannah had had a child out of wedlock in 1865, a daughter named Sarah whose father is unknown.

birth of Sarah Schoenthal, daughter of Hannah HHStAW fonds 365 No 772 p12

birth of Sarah Schoenthal, daughter of Hannah Schoenthal, in Sielen, 1865
HHStAW fonds 365 No 772 p12

[Translation: “Hannchen Schönthal (Tochter des Schuhmacher=Meister Levi Schönthal zu Sielen) uneheliche Mutter.”…..Hannchen Schönthal (daughter of the master shoemaker (cobbler) Levi Schönthal of Sielen) unmarried mother.]

Hannah later married Solomon Simon Stern in Sielen, Germany, on August 19, 1874, five months after her father Levi died. She was 29 years old at that time. Solomon was 57.

Marriage of Solomon Stern to Hannah Schoenthal HHStAW Abt. 365 Nr. 839, S. 22

Marriage of Solomon Stern to Hannah Schoenthal in Sielen
HHStAW Abt. 365 Nr. 839, S. 22

Together they would have three children: Jennie, born June 20, 1875; Edith, born September 7, 1877; and Louis, born May 17, 1879. Solomon Stern died February 20, 1888, and Hannah and their three children emigrated from Germany shortly thereafter. According to later census records, Hannah and the three children all emigrated in 1888.

Solomon Stern gravestone inscription
HHStAW Abt. 365 Nr. 842, S. 11

Hannah and her children settled in Pittsburgh, where her sister Amalie and her husband Elias Wolfe and their six children, named above, were still living. Elias continued to work as a drover. Hannah and Amalie’s brother Felix also was in Pittsburgh by that time, having relocated there from West Newton by 1882. He was working as a bookkeeper. In 1889 he opened his own store:

Pittsburgh Daily Post, 9 Apr 1889, Tue, Page 3

Also living in Pittsburgh in the 1880s was their Schoenthal cousin, Hannah Goldsmith Benedict, and her husband Joseph and three children, Jacob, Herschel, and Harry; Joseph was selling rags and paper stock. Joseph became entangled in a rather gruesome lawsuit involving the sale of rags to a paper mill. The purchaser had failed to pay the purchase price, and Joseph had sued for payment. The purchaser alleged that they were not liable for the purchase price because the rags had been infected with the smallpox virus, and several of the purchaser’s employees had taken ill, causing the shutdown of the purchaser’s mills. Thus, the purchaser claimed it had been damaged by loss of business in an amount exceeding what it allegedly owed Joseph Benedict.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 5 Sep 1882, Tue, Page 1

This would have been a fun case for me to teach in my days as a law professor teaching Contracts. It is similar to a famous case taught in most Contracts courses called Hadley v. Baxendale. Was the shutdown of the paper mill a foreseeable consequence of the seller’s defective product? Here there are also issues of negligence, breach of warranty, damages, and so on. It would have been a great exam question. Fortunately for Joseph Benedict, the court refused to set aside the judgment in his favor, and the paper mill was held liable for the purchase price of the rags.

Another Schoenthal cousin, Hannah Rosenberg Hirsh, and her husband Herman and their five children, Morris, Nathan, Carrie, Harry, and Sidney, were also living in Pittsburgh; Herman was in the varnish business, at first for the Michigan Furniture Company and then in his own business manufacturing varnish.

Hannah thus had many family members close by in Pittsburgh to provide support as she raised her three children alone in the new country.

My great-grandfather Isidore lived in Pittsburgh for some time also around 1887 through 1889, working as a floor walker in a retail store, at least according to the listings in the Pittsburgh city directories for those years. But sometime in early 1888 he married my great-grandmother Hilda Katzenstein in Philadelphia. Hilda was the daughter of Eva Goldschmidt and granddaughter of Seligmann Goldschmidt. As discussed in an earlier post, Seligmann Goldschmidt was the brother of Simon Goldschmidt, who became Simon Goldsmith and who had married Isidore’s aunt, Fanny Schoenthal. Thus, Hilda and Isidore were already related to each by marriage. In addition, Hilda’s brother S.J. Katzenstein was a merchant, living in Washington, Pennsylvania. I don’t know whether my great-grandparents met through S.J. in Washington, Pennsylvania, or through their mutual cousins, the Goldsmiths, or perhaps even through Isidore’s brother Simon, who lived in Philadelphia, where Hilda had been born and raised.

But I did find this important clue:

The Daily Republican
(Monongahela, Pennsylvania)
11 Aug 1887, Thu • Page 4

Was this when Isidore and Hilda met—at a gathering at the house of a man named Henry Florsheim who lived in Finleyville? And who was he? A little research revealed that Henry Florsheim was born in 1842 in Gudensberg, Germany, the same town where Helen and Charlotte Lilienfeld were born, the wives of Henry Schoenthal and Jacob Schoenthal, respectively.

Henry (Hienemann) Florsheim birth record HHStAW Abt. 365 Nr. 384, S. 35

Henry (Heinemann) Florsheim birth record from Gudensberg
HHStAW Abt. 365 Nr. 384, S. 35

In fact, according to research done by Hans-Peter Klein as reflected on his incredibly helpful website found here, Henry Florsheim’s sister married Helen Lilienfeld’s brother in Gudensberg in 1872, the same year that Helen Lilienfeld married Henry Schoenthal. According to the 1910 census, Henry Florsheim came to the US in 1876, so the two families were already related by marriage when he arrived. In 1880 Henry Florsheim was a merchant, living in Union Township in Washington County, Pennsylvania, about 20 miles from the city of Washington, PA. An article in the January 31, 1887, Pittsburgh Daily Post (p.4) , reported that he was the proprietor of the Union Valley coal mines and had been presented with a gold watch by the citizens of Finleyville, a town about 16 miles from Washington and two miles from Union Township. Thus, in just a decade, Henry Florsheim had made quite a mark on his community. Was this successful businessman the one who was responsible for bringing my great-grandparents together? If so, thank you, Mr. Florsheim![3]

Hilda Katzenstein Schoenthal

That was not the end of Henry Florsheim’s role in my great-grandparents’ lives. In 1889, he hired my great-grandfather to work in his store in Finleyville; this news article suggests that they were still living in Pittsburgh before that opportunity arose.

The Daily Republican
(Monongahela, Pennsylvania)
8 Nov 1889, Fri • Page 1

Isidore and Hilda’s first child, my great-uncle Lester Henry Schoenthal, was born on December 3, 1888. I assume that, like all the Lionels and Leo and Lee, he was named for Isidore’s father Levi. About three years later on January 20, 1892, Isidore and Hilda had a second son, Gerson Katzenstein Schoenthal, named for Hilda’s father. Their third child, Harold, and their fourth and youngest child, my grandmother Eva, would not arrive until after the 20th century had begun.

Thus, by 1890, the Schoenthal family had deep and wide connections to western Pennsylvania. My next post will catch up with those family members who were living elsewhere in the 1880s: Washington DC, Ohio, and Philadelphia.

[1] All I can find about Samuel’s background is that he appears to have been the son of Charles Hamberg, who was born in Germany and emigrated before 1850; in 1853, Charles married Mary E. Hanchey in New Hanover, North Carolina. She, however, was not Samuel’s mother because she was murdered on November 18, 1866. On the 1870 census, Charles was living with a 21 year old woman named Tenah Hamberg and two year old Samuel. Since the 1870 census did not report information about the relationships among those in a household, I don’t know for sure whether Tenah was Charles’ wife or Samuel’s mother. Charles died in 1879, and the administrix of his intestate estate was a woman named Amalia Hamberg. I don’t know who Amalia was or how she was related to Charles. But by 1880, twelve year old Samuel had moved to Washington, Pennsylvania, to live with Henry.

[2] There were also two young boys, Jacob and Benjamin Goldsmith, living with them and a 21 years old named Jacob Basch. They were labeled “grandsons,” but they had to be Simon’s grandsons, not Joseph and Hannah’s grandsons. Jacob Basch was the son of Simon’s daughter Lena from his first marriage, who had married Gustav Basch. I don’t know who the parents of Jacob and Benjamin Goldsmith were.

[3] That little article about Henry Florsheim’s party also led me to another question: who was the woman named Sarah Stern who also attended this gathering? I assumed she must have been a relative since everyone else at the Floersheim event was part of the Schoenthal or Katzenstein families, and I only knew of one Stern in the family—Solomon Stern who had married Hannah Schoenthal, the older sister of Henry, Isidore, and the other children of Levi Schoenthal. Hannah’s first child, born before she married Solomon Stern, was named Sarah. Was this Sarah Stern the same person, taking on her stepfather’s surname? Further investigation would support that conclusion, as I will describe in a later post.

Julius Schoenthal Mystery: Solved

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Amy

Last week in my post about my great-grandfather’s siblings and their immigration to the United States between 1866 and 1872, I wrote about one of his presumed brothers, Julius. Although Julius was mentioned in the Beers biography of Henry Schoenthal as one of the siblings, I could not find any other source to verify that the Julius Schoenthal whom I had located was the right one. The Beers biography gave no details about Julius other than that he was living in Washington, DC, at the time it was written (1893). The Julius Schoenthal I had found did live in DC, but aside from that one clue, there was nothing else that linked him to his presumed siblings in Pennsylvania.

What I did learn about that Julius, as described in my earlier post, was that he was born sometime between 1845 (1900 and 1910 census records) and 1847 (the 1880 census) that he had served in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-1871, that he had married a woman named Minnie Dahl in 1874, , that he was a shoemaker (like his presumed father, Levi Schoenthal), and that he had four children: Leo (1875), Rosalia (1876), Sylvester (1878), and Moretto (1879). I also was able to find his card in the Civil War pensions database, which indicated that he had served in the Signal Corps in the US Army; with the help of Lillian from Facebook, I also knew he had enlisted from Chicago in 1873 and been discharged in 1874 in Washington, DC. What I did not know for sure was whether or not he was in fact the son of Levi Schoenthal, my great-great-grandfather.

I also did not know when he’d arrived in the US. Then I found a reference to a Julius Schoenthal in an article entitled “History of the War in Europe” in the Washington, Pennsylvania Review and Examiner, dated July 12, 1871 (p.3); he was acting as an agent for a the National Publishing Company of Philadelphia, which had published a book about the Franco-Prussian War. After a review of the book, the article ends by saying, “It is for sale by subscription only, and Julius Schoenthal, who is the authorized agent for this section, is now canvassing for it.” Given the name, subject matter, and location, I have to believe that this is Julius, the brother of my great-grandfather, and thus that he was already in the US as of July 12, 1871. He also at least for some time had been in Washington, Pennsylvania, where his siblings and cousins were living.

I sent away for his full pension file. I was fortunate to find Deidre Erin of Twisted Twigs on Gnarled Branches who offers to obtain copies of pension records at the National Archives for a reasonable fee. Within a few days I had an excellent and complete copy of Julius Schoenthal’s pension file.

Although the file was 56 pages long, I found all the information I needed on page 6 where Julius reported both his birth date and birthplace: January 30, 1845, in Sielen, Germany. The fact that Julius was born in Sielen was certainly probative of the fact that he was the son of Levi Schoenthal and Henrietta Hamberg; the fact that he was born before 1846 explained why I had not been able to locate a birth record for him since the online records start in 1846 for Sielen.

As you can see, the page also lists his wife as Minnie Dahl and the names of his four children. For my purposes, those overlapping facts tie the Julius Schoenthal who served in the Signal Corps and lived in Washington, DC, was married to Minnie Dahl, and had four children, to the other Schoenthals living in Pennsylvania, including my great-grandfather Isidore. I still have no idea why he was in Chicago when he enlisted in the Signal Corps.

I also requested a copy of a letter he had reportedly written to President Ulysses S. Grant, according to the index for the archives in the Grant Presidential Collection at Mississippi State University. When I received the materials from Mississippi State University, there were two letters, one in German and in old German script that I could not read; the other in English and quite readable. After I received some help with the first letter from the Genealogy Translations group on Facebook, it was obvious that it was not written by my relative and had been misfiled in the archives. I was disappointed since this was a lengthy letter, and I had hoped for some useful insights.

Fortunately, the second letter was in fact from Julius, my great-grandfather’s brother, but it was not to President Grant, but rather a letter dated 1884 (when Grant was no longer even President) to the then Secretary of the Treasury asking for a job as a watchman or messenger. Julius wrote that he was 38 years old (he actually would have been 39 if born in 1845 as he had claimed in his pension files), a US citizen, a veteran of the Signal Corps, and married with four children. There is also a letter of support included with his letter from a friend who wrote that Julius was “a faithful soldier and would make a very judicious and faithful watchman….” Unfortunately, I do not think Julius was offered the position since all the later references in his pension file as well as DC city directories in the 1890s indicate that he remained a shoemaker.

In fact, I am quite certain he was not working for the government based on this newspaper article dated November 9, 1888, from the Washington, DC Evening Star (p. 8):

Apparently, Julius, still working as a shoemaker, had been accused of being an anarchist because of a red cloth hanging from a pole near his house and had gained some notoriety. His wife told the reporter that the accusation was false and made by someone out of spite. Why would someone be seeking to harm Julius, a shoemaker with four young children? I don’t know. But obviously Julius did not like these accusations and sued another local paper, the Sunday Herald, for libel:

All of this must have taken a toll on Julius. The remainder of the pension file deals with his numerous claims starting in the 1890s for an increase in his pension allowance based on various disabilities . Julius claimed that while serving in the Signal Corps as a driver of the market-wagon, he contracted various ailments that led to rheumatism, heart and lung disease, throat disease, hearing loss, and catarrh. Reading his file made me curious about the Signal Corps and also about his claimed ailments.

According to one source, the US Army Signal Corps “began in 1860, with the appointment of Dr. Albert J. Myer, a physician, as Chief Signal Officer. Under his command, the unit transformed sign language used to communicate with deaf persons into a semaphore system incorporating red and white “wigwag” flags. During the Civil War, the Signal Corps operated air balloons and telegraph machines.” After the Civil War and during the years that Julius Schoenthal served, the country was not at war, and the Signal Corps took on a different mission: weather forecasting. In her book about the history of the Signal Corps, Rebecca Robbins Raines described the recruitment, training, and responsibilities of those who served in the Signal Corps in its role as national weather forecaster:

The Signal Corps selectively recruited personnel for the weather service-only unmarried men between the ages of twenty-one and forty were eligible-and required them to pass both physical and educational examinations. Upon acceptance, the men enlisted as privates and received at least two months of instruction at Fort Whipple. After an additional six months of duty on station as assistants (later extended to one year), followed by further training at Fort Whipple and appearance before two boards of examination, the men qualified for promotion to “observer-sergeant.” After one year’s service, an observer could again be called before a board for yet another examination.

The work of the observer was often demanding. Three times daily he recorded the following data: temperature; relative humidity; barometric pressure; direction and velocity of the wind; and rain or snow fall. The Corps soon added to this list the daily measurement of river depths at stations along many major rivers. The observer also noted the cloud cover and the general state of the weather. Immediately upon completing his observations, the officer prepared the information for telegraphic transmission to the Signal Office in Washington. In a separate journal he recorded unusual phenomena, such as auroral and meteoric displays. In addition to the three telegraphic reports, he made another set of observations according to local time and mailed them weekly to Washington. The Corps also required a separate midday reading of the instruments, but the observer only forwarded the results if they differed greatly from the earlier readings. At sunset he recorded the appearance of the western sky to be used as an indication of the next day’s weather. In case of severe weather, an observer could be on duty around the clock, making hourly reports to Washington.

[Rebecca Robbins Raines, Getting the Message Through: A Branch History of the U.S. Army Signal Corps (Center of Military History, United States Army, Washington, D.C., 1996), p. 47 (footnotes omitted). Available online here.]

The Signal Corps Regimental Color (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From what I read in his pension file, Julius was a driver in the Signal Corps, presumably driving the observers to their posts for recording the weather. As described in one statement in his pension file made by a fellow Signal Corps member, Julius would often be exposed to inclement weather while driving the “market-wagon” and spent time in the military infirmary as a result of illnesses contracted while serving.

One of those illnesses, catarrh, was an illness I’d never heard of before. Back in 1865 it was described this way by the New York Times:

Catarrh is a disease of the mucous membrane of the nasal passages and those cavities of the head communicating with them. Insignifiacnt as it appears in its first stages, it is apt in its progress to become instrumental in causing the loss or impairment of smell, taste, hearing and sight, and of creating serious constitutional derangements, not unfrequently terminating in consumption.

According to the National Health Service in Great Britain, today catarrh is not considered a condition itself, but rather a symptom of colds, allergies, or nasal polyps. However, the NHS website does say that “[i]n some cases, people can experience chronic catarrh, which is not caused by an allergy or infection and lasts for a long time. The cause of chronic catarrh is unknown but it may be related to an abnormality in the lining of the throat.”



Embed from Getty Images

Julius filed numerous claims over many years beginning in the 1890s. From what I can tell, it appears that his claims were repeatedly denied. Whether his illnesses were as severe as he claimed I cannot judge; there were doctors who supported his claims as well as friends, but there were also doctors who concluded otherwise.

In 1899, Minnie Dahl Schoenthal, Julius’ wife, died at 53. In 1900, Julius was living in Washington, DC, with three of his four children, Leo, Rosalia (Rose), and Moretto, who were all in their early 20s. Julius was now working as a “collection publisher.” I am not sure what that means, unless Julius still had some relationship with the National Publishing Company of Philadelphia 30 years after that article in the Washington, Pennsylvania newspaper. His son Leo was a printer, and Moretto was a cabinet maker. Rose was not employed. I cannot locate Sylvester on the 1900 census.

All three of Julius Schoenthal’s sons married in 1901. Sylvester married Alice Butler in Virginia on April 1, 1901. (That marriage did not last, and on December 17, 1905, Sylvester married Bessie Rose.) Moretto, the youngest child, married in 1901 as well; on November 14, he married Annie M. Heath. Their son Arthur Schoenthal was born in 1903. Finally, the oldest brother, Leo, married Fannie Pach on December 18, 1901. They had a daughter named Minnie (presumably for Leo’s mother) on September 28, 1902, nine months after marrying. On March 12, 1905, Julius and Minnie’s only daughter, Rose, married Joseph Pach, younger brother of her sister-in-law Fannie, Leo’s wife.

By 1910, Julius had moved in with Leo and Fannie in Washington, DC; he was now working as a confections merchant. Leo was working as the assistant sealer of weights for the District of Columbia. Sylvester and his wife Bessie and daughter Minnie were also still living in DC, where Sylvester was working as a car builder for the Washington Railway Company. Moretto and his wife Annie and son Arthur were in DC as well where Moretto continued to work as a cabinet maker.

Although her father and three brothers were still living in DC in 1910, Rose Schoenthal and her husband Joseph Pach were living in Uniontown, Alabama, where Joseph owned a retail clothing and shoe business. I wondered what had taken them there. In 1910, the population of Uniontown was about 1,800, a 75% increase over its population in 1900, so something must have drawn all those new residents to the town. I found this insight in the Encyclopedia of Alabama website:

The area remained tied to the agricultural economy after the war. In 1897, the Uniontown Cotton Oil Company was established in the town, one of the first facilities of its kind in the state and one of the first industrial businesses in Perry County; it manufactured cotton seed oil and cotton seed meal. By 1900, the town had cotton gins, cotton warehouses, and a cotton mill. The city also had electricity and telephone services by this time. Less than two decades later, however, Uniontown began to lose population as more people moved off of plantations because of the boll weevil’s ruinous effect on the cotton crop, among other factors. The town remains largely dependent on agricultural activities, including livestock farming, in the surrounding area. –

I guess that Joseph Pach saw a town that was experiencing a population and economic boom and decided to start a business there. But it was over 800 miles from DC, and it must have been quite an adjustment for a young couple who were both born and raised in that larger city.

English: Co-Nita Manor within the Uniontown Historic District in Uniontown, Alabama. The district is on the National Register of Historic Places. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In 1911, Leo Schoenthal and his superior, Colonel W.C. Haskell made the news for their investigation of fraud by ice dealers in DC who were “short weighting” customers; when some customers filed complaints with the Department of Weights and Measures, the dealers thereafter refused to sell to them. There was some discussion of criminal prosecution of the dealers. Here is a headline from an article in the Washington Herald of July 19, 1911 (p. 12):

19 Jul 1911, Page 12 – at Newspapers.com

According to the 1914 directory for Washington, DC, Julius and his three sons were still living in that city that year. Julius was still living with Leo and was working as a driver. Leo was the assistant superintendent for weights and measures. Sylvester’s occupation was listed as “Mach,” which I assume means machinist. Moretto was now working as an assistant superintendent for the Life Insurance Company of Virginia. (There was also a Hilda Schoenthal working as a bookkeeper and living on the same block as Leo and Julius; I believe she was the daughter of Henry Schoenthal, brother of Julius. But more on that in a later post.)

Title : Washington, District of Columbia, City Directory, 1914
Source Information
Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1989 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

In the summer of 1914, Julius Schoenthal and his daughter Rose Schoenthal Pach traveled to Europe together; on the passenger manifest for their return trip in September, 1914, there is a notation on the entry for Julius, noting that he was naturalized in DC and had been discharged from the US Army. Was the carrier, or the US generally, suspicious of a foreign-born traveler, given that World War I had just started a few months before?

Passenger Manifest for Julius Schoethal and Rose Schoenthal Pach 1914
Year: 1914; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Microfilm Roll: Roll 2368; Line: 1; Page Number: 96

It was after this trip that Julius reported that Americans were being well treated by the Germans and that in Berlin the government was closing down hotels that overcharged Americans. I found it quite interesting that Julius, who had by that time lived in the US for over forty years, still seemed to feel some loyalty to his birth country. I wonder how he felt once the US went to war against Germany a few years later.

The family made the newspaper again in 1916 when Leo and his wife Fannie celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary:

When the US entered World War I, all three of Julius Schoenthal’s sons registered for the draft. Leo was now the chief inspector for the District of Columbia; Sylvester was a car repairmen for the Washington & Southern Railroad Company; and Moretto was still an insurance agent for the Insurance Company of Virginia. Their brother-in-law Joseph Pach registered in Uniontown, Alabama, describing himself as a merchant. It does not appear, however, that any of them served in the war.

Sylvester and his wife Bessie, who had married in 1905, had not had any children listed on the 1910 census, but by 1920 they had two daughters: Margaret, born in 1914, and Helen, born in 1918. Leo’s daughter Minnie and Moretto’s son Arthur were teenagers by then. Rose and Joseph did not have any children, as far as I can tell.

On March 2, 1919, Julius Schoenthal died in Uniontown, Alabama; he must have been visiting his daughter Rose when he died. He was 74 years old and was buried at Washington Hebrew Cemetery in DC, where his wife Minnie had been buried 20 years earlier.

Julius had lived an interesting life, serving in the Germany army and then the US army after immigrating, and then seeking a position in the US government after that service. He must have felt proud to be a US citizen and a veteran, yet he was accused of being an anarchist in 1888. That obviously hurt him enough that he sued for libel; also, I have to wonder how he felt after repeatedly having his requests for increased pension payments denied.

He lost his wife at a relatively young age and never remarried. He had four children, three sons who lived close by throughout his life and a daughter who moved over 800 miles away. But when he died, he was with his daughter in Alabama, not his sons in DC. He worked as a shoemaker, a book salesman, and a seller of confections. He had many family members living in Pennsylvania, but I can find no indication that he had much contact with them after moving to Washington, DC., except for his niece Hilda living down the street in 1910.

As for his children, the three sons were all still living in DC in 1920, all still working at the same occupations. Rose and her husband Joseph were still in Uniontown, Alabama. At the time he died, Julius had four grandchildren: Arthur, Minnie, Helen, and Margaret Schoenthal, all living in Washington, DC.

More about his descendants in a subsequent post.

Thanksgiving: More Gifts, More Gratitude

Posted on November 26, 2014 by Amy

It’s been a week or so of amazing gifts. First there was the package from Gau-Algesheim with the records and book relating to my Seligmann ancestors and the amazing help I received from Ralph Baer and Matthias Steinke with translation of these items.

Then a day or so after the Gau-Algesheim package arrived, I received a gift from my third cousin once removed Todd Graham. Todd is the great-great-great-grandson of Jacob Cohen, my great-great-grandfather. Todd wrote to tell me that he had been to the Federal Street cemetery in Philadelphia where many of our mutual Cohen ancestors are buried and that he had taken photographs. He asked if I wanted to see the photos, and I said of course. So here are the photographs I received from Todd.

First is a photograph of where our ancestor Hart Levy Cohen is buried. There is no stone visible, and the rabbi at the cemetery explained to Todd that they believed that the stone had sunk beneath the surface and was buried underground. I have written to the rabbi and asked whether there is anything we can do to uncover the stone or to mark the gravesite in some other way.

Burial Site of Hart Levy Cohen

This photo shows where Hart’s children Lewis and Elizabeth are buried. Again, the stones are not visible, but this is the location of their graves.

Burial sites for Elizabeth Cohen and Lewis Cohen (Hart’s children)

Todd also took photographs of the stone for Jacob and Sarah Cohen. Although I had a photo of this stone before from Rabbi Albert Gabbai, I am hoping that these will be easier to read so that I can learn what the Hebrew inscription says.

Todd also found the stones for three of Jacob’s children. First, a new photograph of the headstone for my great-grandparents Emanuel and Eva (Seligman) Cohen and my grandfather John Nusbaum Cohen, Sr.

Headstone for Emanuel, Eva and John Cohen

Next are photographs of the headstones for Emanuel’s brother Reuben and his wife Sallie Livingston Cohen and of their son Jacob Livingston Cohen.

Reuben and Sallie Livingston Cohen

Jacob Livingston Cohen

And finally, this is a photograph of the headstone for Todd’s great-great-grandparents Lewis and Carrie (Dannenbaum) Cohen and his grandparents William and Helen (Cohen) Bacharach. Lewis Cohen was also the brother of my great-grandfather Emanuel Cohen.

Bacharach and Cohen headstone

Thank you so much, Todd, for these photographs, and I hope that we can do something to honor the graves of Hart, Lewis, and Elizabeth Cohen.

There is one more gift I want to acknowledge, and it came totally unsolicited and from a total stranger. About two weeks ago I received a comment on the blog from someone who had found a set of matches on a website selling vintage items. The matches were for a business called Selinger Associates at an address in Washington, DC. Kimberly Crosson, the woman who commented on the blog, had purchased these matches and was now asking me whether this business was connected to the Selingers on my blog. I was skeptical at first, I must admit. I thought it was some kind of scam or spam. But I emailed Kim and found out that not only was she not looking to make money, she was incredibly kind-hearted and generous and just wanted to get the matches to someone in the family—for no charge.

I checked the address and found that this was Eliot Selinger’s business. Then I tracked down a descendant of Eliot Selinger and asked him if he was interested in the matches, and he was, so I put him in touch with Kim so that she could send him the matches. I asked only for some pictures of the matches, so here is what Kim sent to me. You can tell these are from a different era once you see the picture on the matches.

So once again, let me express my thanks to all these generous people, especially Todd and Kim for these photos, but to all who have helped and continue to help me with my research. I could never have done all this on my own.

And now I will be taking a short break from blogging for Thanksgiving. May you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and thank you all for supporting me and providing me with so much help as I continue to learn about the lives of my ancestors.

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.

Update: Adelyn Selinger’s Death Certificate

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Amy

Today I received the death certificate for Adelyn Selinger, the nine year old daughter of Monroe and Estelle Selinger, granddaughter of Frederick Selinger and Rachel Cohen. I have updated the appropriate post, but will include it here as well.

Adelyn Singer death certificate May 30, 1923

Adelyn died of meningitis and mastoiditis, a bacterial infection of the mastoid bone, which is located behind the ear. According to WebMD, these infections are usually caused by a middle ear infection that has not been successfully treated. Once again, I am grateful for modern medicine and all that pink amoxycillin my kids took for ear infections.

Notice also that the informant on the death certificate was Aaron Hartstall, Adelyn’s uncle, her father’s brother-in-law. I assume that her parents. grandparents, and aunt were too distraught to provide the details for the death certificate.

The Cohens: Questions Left to Answer

Posted on September 15, 2014 by Amy

Now that I have gone through all the lines descending from Hart Levy Cohen and Rachel Jacobs through their children and grandchildren up to current descendants, I have to look back and see what I missed. What are the big questions and small questions that remain unanswered? Otherwise, I may leave some things unsolved and accept gaps in my research. So this blog post is my attempt to outline those unanswered questions as a way to remind myself not to be too self-satisfied with what I have done.

Overall, I am quite amazed by how much I was able to find. It really helped that (1) there were generations in the US going back as far as 1848 because US records are much more accessible to me and (2) that most of my Cohen relatives lived in Pennsylvania, a state that has made many of its records available online. It also helped that both the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Washington Evening Star covered society happenings like parties, engagements, and weddings because it was through those resources that I was able to find a lot of the married names of the Cohen women.

So what is there left to research? First and foremost, I would love to be able to find the parents and grandparents and other ancestors of Hart Levy Cohen. I don’t know that I will ever be able to do this, given how little luck I had at the archives in Amsterdam and also given that surnames were not adopted by Jews until the early 1800s. But new records are uncovered all the time, so I will not give up hope yet. Related to that, of course, is finding the ancestors for my great-great-great grandmother Rachel Jacobs.

As for the next generation after Hart and Rachel, the big questions left unanswered relate to Hart and Rachel’s son Moses. Although I do not have DNA proof that the Moses who married Adeline Himmel was their son, I am confident that he was based on the weight of the circumstantial evidence. Maybe a descendant of Isadore Baer Cohen will come along, but even without that, I am convinced that this was the right Moses. Rather, the real unanswered question for me is when and where did Moses meet and marry Adeline Himmel? When did she come to the United States from Baden? I have no evidence yet relating to either of these questions.

The remaining questions are not as important to me in terms of the overall story of the family. They almost all relate to the absence of death records. Among those for whom I have no death records are: Joseph Cohen’s daughter Fannie; Abraham’s son Arthur; Harry Selinger, Augusta and Julius Selinger’s son; Rachel Cohen Selinger; Aaron Hartstall; Monroe Selinger; JM Cohen’s son Arthur; Hart DC’s son Jacob Cohen; Estelle Spater Cole, Sol’s wife; Gary Cole, Jacob G. Cole’s son; and Lewis Cohen, son of Reuben Cohen, Sr.

Then there are a number of people for whom I have a date of death from an index, but no death certificate, like Simon L.B Cohen—why did he die so young? There are also many for whom I have a marriage record from an index, but no marriage certificate. I am not sure how important it is to see the actual document where I am otherwise certain of the identity of the individuals who married or died, but eventually if those documents become available, I should obtain them.

And there are also a few cases where I could not determine whether a person had any children—such as Violet Cohen, daughter of Reuben Cohen, Sr.; Jonas Cohen, Jr.; and Morton and Kathryn Selinger. I was unable to find out whether Caroline Hamberg married Robert Daley or anyone else. Finally, there are the two children of Sallie R. Cohen who were orphaned after Sallie and her husband Ellis Abrams died; I do not know what happened to them.

Listing all those names makes me feel like there is so much more to do, but I also have to remind myself of how much I’ve already done. I realize that this is perhaps not the most exciting blog post for those reading it, but it will serve as an important post for me to return to when I need to remember the questions that I still have to answer.

My next post will be more reflective; I need to step back, look at the story of my Cohen relatives, and think about what I have learned about them and about history and about myself by doing this research.

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.

Rachel Cohen and her Descendants: The Last Chapter of the Family of Hart Levy Cohen

Posted on September 7, 2014 by Amy

Finally, I come to the youngest child of Moses Sr. and Adeline Cohen, Rachel Cohen. This line is the last line of the extended family tree of Hart Levy and Rachel Jacobs Cohen, my great-great-great grandparents. Although there are still quite a few unanswered questions in the Cohen saga, once I write about Rachel and her family, I will have covered all of the known descendants of Hart and Rachel, including both the Philadelphia branch and the Washington branch of the family, as best I can at this point. I will reflect on the DC branch and on the overall Cohen family once I’ve written about Rachel.

On January 10, 1880, Rachel, as I wrote earlier, had married Frederick Selinger of Hurben, Germany, the presumed older brother or cousin of both Julius and Alfred Selinger, who married Rachel’s nieces Augusta and Fannie Cohen, respectively.

When I last wrote about Frederick and Rachel, I thought that they had had only two children, Fannie and Monroe, but further research uncovered that there may have been another child. There is a record for a male child born in Washington, DC, on January 9, 1881, whose parents were “Rachael Cohen” and “Frederick Sclinger”—clearly an erroneous transcription of Selinger. There is also a death record for a three year old child named Reuben Sellinger dated December 12, 1884, so born in 1881. Although I do not have the death certificate for that child, it certainly seems that this must have been the same child born to Rachel and Frederick in 1881. I am going to see if I can obtain the death certificate to learn what happened to Reuben. Rachel and Frederick did have two children who lived to adulthood, Fannie, born in 1882, and Monroe, born in 1888.

As I researched more deeply into the story of Rachel and Frederick, I also learned that Frederick was not always in the furniture business. In fact, in 1880 when he married Rachel, he was listed only as working as a clerk in a store. The 1882 DC city directory gives more insight into what type of store; it says he was a pawnbroker. The 1886 directory adds to this by listing Rachel Selinger as a pawnbroker and Frederick as a clerk.

Tradition symbol of pawnbrokers–three connected balls (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Remembering that Moses and Adeline Cohen had at times been pawnbrokers, I now think that Frederick was working in what was at first his mother-in-law’s business (Adeline was living with the newly married couple in 1880) and then his wife’s business. The 1887 and 1888 directories also list Rachel as the pawnbroker and Frederick merely as a clerk. Rachel is one of the very rare married women I have found as working outside the home and listed separately in a directory. This is even more surprising given that Rachel had a child born in 1882 and in 1888 and had lost a child in 1884. On the other hand, I found numerous ads which refer only to Fred Selinger as the pawnbroker.

In 1890, Rachel, Frederick and their family were living in Sioux City where her brothers JM and Hart as well as her mother were then living. The 1890 Sioux City directory lists Rachel as the owner of a general store and Frederick as the manager. The 1892 directory does not list Rachel, but lists Frederick as working as clerk for JM Cohen, his brother-in-law. The 1892 directory lists JM as a broker, meaning a real estate broker, which is the occupation given for him on the 1890 Sioux City directory.

By 1895, Rachel, Frederick and family had returned to Washington, DC, residing at 1424 7^th Street, NW. Frederick was working in a clothing store, according to the 1895 directory. The 1896 directory has Rachel listed as in the clothing business with Frederick as a clerk. By 1898 they had moved to 1502 7^th Street, NW. Again, Rachel is listed as in the clothing business, and Frederick is listed as a clerk. On the 1900 census, Rachel is listed without an occupation, and Frederick is listed as a merchant of dry goods. The 1900 directory included him in the category of second hand clothing. There was no listing of Rachel in the 1900 directory or in the 1901 directory, which still had Frederick at 1502 7^th Street in the clothing business.

Then in 1904 there is a change; Frederick is now in the furniture business, but in 1905 Rachel appears again in the directory in the clothing business; Frederick has no occupation listed. They were still at the same address. In 1906, 1907, and 1908, Rachel’s business is given as men’s furnishings, and Frederick is listed as a clerk. Their two children Monroe and Fannie are also listed as clerks in some of these years.

Rachel and Frederick’s daughter, Fannie, married Aaron Hartstall in 1908; Aaron was a paperhanger. The Washington Star of March 24, 1908, included this report of the wedding

Although the erratic pattern of Rachel and Frederick’s occupations made me wonder about their financial situation, it would appear from this description of the wedding that they were able to afford a fairly expensive celebration for their daughter’s wedding.

Aaron and Fannie Hartstall’s son Morton was born on January 20, 1910. Aaron continued to work as a paperhanger throughout the next three decades.

In 1910, Frederick and Rachel were now living at 317 R Street NW, and Frederick was in the furniture business, according to the census. No occupation was given for Rachel. Their son, Monroe, who was 22 in 1910 and living at home, was working as a clerk for the government at that time. Given his occupation as described on later documents, I believe he was a clerk for the US Post Office, or what we now call the US Postal Service.

Frederick was no longer selling furniture in 1911; he was now, like his son, a clerk at the post office. Both were living at 317 R Street; I assume Rachel was as well.

In 1912, Monroe married Estelle Roth of Philadelphia in Philadelphia, as described in this article from the Washington Evening Star:

The young couple settled in Washington, DC. In the 1912 DC directory, Monroe is listed as a post office clerk and residing at 126 Randolph Place; his father is listed at the same address in the directory. Rachel’s name is not included in the listing.

In 1914, Monroe and Estelle had their first child Adelyn, and they were now living at 31, 1430 NW. Three years later their son Eliot was born. Monroe was working for the US Post Office, according to both his World War I draft registration and the 1917 directory, which gave his address now as 1440 Oak Street NW, the same address listed for his father Frederick. Monroe was also at the same address and still working for the post office on the 1920 census. By 1921, however, he had left the post office and was working as a clerk for the O’Donnell Drug Company.

I could not find Rachel on the 1920 census, but I did find Frederick living as a lodger at 103 Maryland Avenue right near the US Capitol and working as a clerk at the post office like his son Monroe. Rachel was not listed with him. In the DC directory for 1921, Frederick was listed as a clerk for Sanitary Grocery and residing at 103 Maryland Avenue. I do not know where Rachel was or for how long she and Frederick may have been living apart.

Then tragedy struck on May 30, 1923, when Monroe and Estelle’s daughter Adelyn died; she would have been only nine years old. I have ordered her death certificate and will report on her cause of death once I receive it.

UPDATE: I’ve received Adelyn’s death certificate. She died of meningitis and mastoiditis, a bacterial infection of the mastoid bone, which is located behind the ear. According to WebMD, these infections are usually caused by a middle ear infection that has not been successfully treated. Once again, I am grateful for modern medicine and all that pink amoxycillin my kids took for ear infections.

Notice also that the informant on the death certificate was Aaron Hartstall, Adelyn’s uncle, her father’s brother-in-law. I assume that her parents. grandparents and aunt were too distraught to provide the details for the death certificate.

Adelyn Singer death certificate May 30, 1923

Rachel still did not appear in the 1924 directory, but Frederick did. He is listed as “bg mgr” of Washington Salvage Company and residing at 1913 14^th Street NW. I also could not find Monroe in the 1924 directory.

By 1928, Monroe had switched to the clothing business, and he, Estelle, and Eliot, their remaining child, had moved to 1465 Girard Avenue, NW.

Frederick is listed in that 1928 directory as the manager of North Capital Salvage, residing at 733 North Capital Street, NE, and then, in 1929, both he and Rachel are listed at that address, both working for North Capital Service. On the 1930 census, they are still at that address, and Frederick is listed as the owner of a general store. Perhaps North Capital Service was the name of that store. Rachel and Frederick were by this time almost eighty years old, living together and working together. Three years later in 1933, they were listed as living together at 1438 Meridian Place, NW, without any occupations.

That was the last listing I found that includes Rachel. In 1934, only Frederick is listed at that address, and on the 1940 census, Frederick is listed as a widower, living with his daughter Fannie Hartstall. Although I have not yet found a death record, Rachel must have died in either 1933 or 1934. She would have been 79 or 80 years old.

The extended family lost two other members during that time period. Aaron Hartstall, Fannie Selinger Hartstall’s husband, who had continued to work as a paperhanger throughout this entire time, is listed on the 1938 Washington Directory, but must have died between 1938 and 1940 because Fannie is listed as a widow on the 1940 census. Aaron would have been about 62 years old. Fannie continued to live at 705 Allison Street, NW, where she and Aaron had lived for many years; in 1940, her father Frederick and her brother-in-law Isaac Hartstall were living with her.

Fannie not only lost her husband and her mother during this period; she also lost her brother Monroe. Although Monroe is listed on the 1935 DC directory as a salesman for the People’s Army and Navy, he does not appear again. I cannot find him or his family on the 1940 census. The November 29, 1949 announcement in the Washington Post of his son Eliot’s engagement referred to him as “the late Monroe Selinger,” so Monroe must have passed away sometime between 1935 and 1949. In fact, Eliot and his mother Estelle were living in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1945, after Eliot completed his military service, so it would appear that his father had died before 1945. He would have been only 61 years old. Unfortunately I have not been able to find a death record or an obituary for Monroe Selinger or Aaron Hartstall or Rachel Cohen Selinger.

Meanwhile, the next generation had become adults by 1930. Morton Hartstall, the son of Aaron and Fannie, was twenty years old in 1930, and he was then working as a clerk for the Chamber of Commerce. In 1931 he was still working for the Chamber of Commerce and still living at home. By 1934 he had changed jobs again and was working as a salesman for a store called Goldenberg’s. He was still at home on Allison Street with his parents.

On January 20, 1935, Morton married Kathryn Wolfe, who was also a Washington, DC, native. I was fortunate to find an article online about this history of a building located at 1330 Pennsylvania Avenue, NE, that mentions Morton and his livelihood and the restaurant he owned at that location for a few years in the 1930s:

http://chrs.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/13-04_CHRSnews-REV2.pdf at page 13

(The article goes on to describe the rest of the history of the building, which is still being used as a restaurant today.) In 1940 Morton and Kathryn were living with her parents in Washington, DC; Morton was now the owner of a “cleaning shop,” and Kathryn was a stenographer for Social Security.

Morton Hartstall 1940 census

As for Eliot Selinger, the only other grandchild of Rachel and Frederick Selinger to survive to adulthood, one record says that he served in the US military from March 16, 1943, until May 7, 1943. I wonder whether his release in May was related to his father’s death. As stated above, he and his mother were living in Hartford in 1945, but returned to Washington in 1946. He was engaged to Jane Ruth Simon in 1949, and they had two children. Eliot was the owner of Selinger Associates, a hardware manufacturer’s representative, a business he established in Washington after the war.

I do not know when Frederick Selinger died. He was 83 in 1940, the date of the last record I have for him. His daughter Fannie died in January, 1967. She was 84. Both lived far longer than their spouses.

Unfortunately, Fannie’s son Morton did not live as long as his mother did, but rather like his father, he died before he turned seventy. He died in April, 1977, when he was 67 years old. His wife Kathryn was still alive in 1995; I have no later record for her. I do not know whether Morton and Kathryn had any children.

Morton’s first cousin Eliot also was not blessed with longevity, but sadly like his father Monroe, he died before he turned 70. He died on September 1, 1982, and was only 64 years old. His wife Jane died June 13, 2008. They are buried at Washington Hebrew cemetery and were members of Washington Hebrew Congregation.

Looking back over the life of Rachel Cohen Selinger and her children, I see a life that seems to have had some ups and downs. Frederick changed jobs fairly often, they moved fairly often, and they may have even lived separately for some period of time. They lost a child early in their marriage. On the other hand, they worked together and lived together for many years, ending up together until Rachel died in 1934.

Their two children who survived to adulthood, Fannie and Monroe, seem to have had more consistent patterns in their lives. Fannie was married to Aaron for many years, and he worked at the same location as a paperhanger for all of that time. Their son Morton owned a couple of businesses of his own.

Monroe worked as a postal clerk for several years and then became involved in clothing sales. He and his wife Estelle lost a young child, as his parents had many years earlier, but their surviving child, Eliot, owned a successful business in Washington for many years and had two children who survive him.

With that, I have now tracked as best I can all of the descendants of Hart Levy Cohen and Rachel Jacobs, my great-great-great grandparents. It has been quite a journey, and before I move on to my next line, the Seligmans, I need to spend some time looking back and thinking about the bigger picture and the lessons I’ve learned from studying my father’s father’s father’s family.

The Twentieth Century for the Descendants of Moses and Adeline Cohen 1900-1910

Brotmanblog: A Family Journey

Adventures in Genealogy

Category Archives: DC

Henry Schoenthal: His Final Years and His Legacy

Those Who Left Western Pennsylvania: The Schoenthals 1880-1900

My Great-grandfather Comes to America: The Schoenthals in Western Pennsylvania 1880-1890

Julius Schoenthal Mystery: Solved

Thanksgiving: More Gifts, More Gratitude

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

Update: Adelyn Selinger’s Death Certificate

The Cohens: Questions Left to Answer

A wonderful email from a Selinger cousin

Rachel Cohen and her Descendants: The Last Chapter of the Family of Hart Levy Cohen

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