JM Cohen and Family: The Pioneering Spirit Lives On

Posted on September 4, 2014 by Amy

The third child of Moses, Sr., and Adeline Cohen was Jacob M. Cohen, known as JM. He was the one who had led many other members of the family at least temporarily to Sioux City, Iowa, where he was one of the leaders of the new and growing Jewish community and a pawnbroker and then became involved in the real estate business. He and his wife Belle Lehman Cohen had lost one child, Seba Maude, as a young child, and presumably a son Arthur, who just seemed to disappear, but I assume had died very young.

JM and Belle and their younger daughter Ruth had left Sioux City sometime before 1910 after their older daughter Fannie Sybil had moved to Kansas City, Missouri, with her husband Sigmund Stern. Sybil, as she was known, had graduated from Wellesley College in 1901. She and Sigmund had a daughter Judith born December 25, 1905 and a son Richard, born September 26, 1913. Ruth, Sybil’s younger sister, had attended Smith College. Ruth married Henry Stern, her brother-in-law Sigmund Stern’s younger brother, on January 30, 1911, when she was 27.

Sigmund Stern and his brothers Morris and Henry were very successful businessmen. As described earlier, the three Stern brothers had originally settled in Sioux City after emigrating from Germany, and presumably that is where Sybil met Sigmund and Ruth met Henry. The Stern brothers were smart investors, and in 1917 they founded an investment banking company that still exists today, now called Stern Brothers Valuation Advisers. Here is what the company website has to say about the history of the firm and the Stern brothers who founded it:

“Our company traces its roots to the immigration of Morris, Henry and Sigmund Stern to the United States from Germany at the end of the 19th century. The brothers had a vision for their lives that included the desire to succeed in business and create a better life for their families. Morris and Sigmund settled in Sioux City, Iowa and went to work at a local department store. They were ambitious and hoped to start their own business as soon as possible. The brothers were able to raise enough money to buy inexpensive plots of land which they divided into small parcels and sold to farmers. By 1917, they had accumulated approximately $300,000 from their land sales. This became the seed money to found their investment banking firm – Stern Brothers & Co.”

http://www.sternbv.com/

Although on the 1910 census JM said he was retired, he listed his occupation as “investments” on the 1919 city directory for Kansas City. On the 1920 census, his occupation was real estate agent. Perhaps he was involved in his sons-in-law’s business.

JM’s wife Belle died on September 17, 1923, and JM died just six months later on March 28, 1924. The informant on JM’s death certificate was his son-in-law Sigmund Stern, who did not know either of JM’s parents’ names, but did know that his father had been born in England.

Belle Lehman Cohen death certificate

JM Cohen death certificate

Both Belle and JM were buried back in Sioux City, Iowa, at Mt. Sinai cemetery, the cemetery they had worked to create only forty years earlier and where their daughter Seba Maude was also buried.

Unfortunately, the marriage between Ruth Cohen and Henry Stern was not successful, and by 1920 Henry listed his marital status as single on the census. He never remarried and was living with his brother Morris, who apparently never married, on the 1930 and 1940 census reports. Although I could find Henry on these census reports, I could not find Ruth at all after the 1911 marriage record, whether I searched for her as Ruth Cohen or Ruth Stern. I searched for all Ruths born in Iowa within a decade of her birth year and could not find a likely candidate on any census, nor could I find another marriage record or a death record or an obituary. Like her brother Arthur, she just seemed to have disappeared.

Then by pure luck, while searching for information about one of Sybil’s descendants, I stumbled upon a news article about the will of Sigmund Stern in which his specific bequests to his family members were listed, including one to a Ruth Shaw of Hollywood, California, described as his sister-in-law. I assumed that this was Ruth, Sybil’s sister, and started to search for her as Ruth Shaw in California.

At first I thought I had found her with her second husband, a man named Tracy N. Shaw who lived in Caspar, Wyoming, and then moved to California. But after looking more closely at the records, it was clear that this was not my Ruth Shaw—wrong middle initial, wrong age, and wrong birth places for her parents. I still have not found any records for the correct Ruth Shaw, except for two. One was an entry in the California death index for Ruth J. Shaw, born June 8, 1883 (Ruth’s birthdate) in Iowa, died October 3, 1970, in Los Angeles.

I asked for help on the Tracing the Tribe Facebook group about how to obtain a copy of the death certificate, and one very generous member volunteered to go to the local county clerk’s office in Norwalk, California, to look at the certificate. She reported back to me the following information:

“Ruth Josephine Shaw born Jun 8, 1883, Iowa died Oct 3, 1970 8:30am usual residence & place of death: 3846 Aloha, LA Yrs. in CA & LA co: 25 yrs. housewife, 50 yrs., own home widow – no spouse name given father: J.M. Cohen, born Washington DC mother: Arabelle Lehman, Iowa name & address of informant: Richard Jay Stern 3600 Bellview Kansas City MO cremated: 10-7-1970 Chapel of Pines Funeral director: Pierce Bros., Hollywood cause of death: cerebral vascular accident – 10 days general athereosclerosis – 15 yrs.”

This is obviously the correct Ruth Shaw, but unfortunately Richard Stern, Ruth’s nephew, did not know Ruth’s second husband’s name.

I also found an entry in the 1940 census for a Ruth Shaw, born in Iowa, 57 years old (so the right age), divorced, living in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, without an occupation and with income from “another source.” I have to believe that this is the right Ruth Shaw also. The census indicated that she was living in New York City in 1935. I’ve searched for a Ruth Shaw who fits these criteria in New York City, but have not found any records or references.

Ruth Shaw 1940 census

I have since also been fortunate to be in touch with a descendant of JM and Belle Cohen, and she told me that Ruth had once written for Cosmopolitan Magazine before moving out to California. She thought that Ruth’s second husband was named Brian Shaw, so I will continue looking for more information to fill in these gaps.

As for Ruth’s older sister Sybil, she and Sigmund were much easier to track. They had a long marriage and seemed to have a very successful life. They sent their children to elite private colleges, Judith to Wellesley College and Richard to Yale, where he was Phi Beta Kappa. Both of their children returned to Kansas City after college. Judith married Jules Coulter Rosenberger, Jr., on May 11, 1928, shortly after graduating from Wellesley, and they traveled to Europe in June for what I assume was a honeymoon trip. Jules, like his brother-in-law Richard, was a graduate of Yale, class of 1926. He then went on to Harvard Law School, where he graduated in 1929.

Jules was the son and only child of an important leader in the Kansas City legal and business community, Jules C. Rosenberger, Sr. According to one source, his father was one of the “men who made Kansas City.” Another source had this to say about Judith Stern’s father-in-law: “Jules C. Rosenberger is one of the leading and most successful members of the Kansas City bar.” Carrie Westlake Whitney, Kansas City, Missouri: Its History and Its People 1808-1908, Volume 2 (Chicago; The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1908), pp. 603-604.

Despite the fact that Judith was the daughter of a very wealthy banker and Jules the son of a very successful lawyer, for a long time I could not find one newspaper article, one record, one reference anywhere that revealed what happened to them after their marriage. As a last act of desperation, I decided to enter “Jules Rosenberger Judith Wellesley Yale” into Google to see what came up, expecting nothing relevant. But I lucked out—the first search result was for a Yale alumni publication reporting on the deaths of university graduates in the years 1943-1944. Sadly, Jules was one of those alumni; he died on March 6, 1944, of a heart attack.

From the Yale Bulletin Obituary Record 1943-1944
http://mssa.library.yale.edu/obituary_record/1925_1952/1943-44.pdf

He was listed as Jules Coulter Randal, however, not as Jules Rosenberger. The only reason Google picked this document up at all in its search was the fact that the obituary provided his parents’ names, and thus Rosenberger was included in the text. So now I knew why I had not been able to find Judith and Jules—they had changed their surname to Randal. Using the facts in the obituary and the name Randal instead of Rosenberger, I was then able to learn a lot more about Jules, Judith and their family.

After Jules graduated from Harvard Law, Jules and Judith moved to Buffalo, where Jules worked with a law firm then known as Donovan, Raichle, and Randal. I found it interesting that Jules chose Buffalo as a place to live and practice law. Both he and Judith were from Kansas City and from very successful families. Maybe they did not want to live in the shadow of their families but instead wanted to strike out on their own.

By 1942, however, Jules and Judith and their two children had left Buffalo and moved to New York City, where Jules joined the Wall Street law firm, Guggenheimer and Untermeyer. Within two years after moving from Buffalo, he died of a heart attack. He was only forty years old and left behind two young children and his 38-year old widow Judith. He was buried back in Kansas City.

Judith and the children continued, however, to live in New York City. In 1949 she married Nicolai Berezowsky, the renowned Russian born composer and violinust. Together they wrote an opera for children based on the character and story of Babar the Elephant.

Unfortunately, Nicolai died four years after they married in 1953 when he was only 53 years old. In an article in the Kansas City Star on February 5, 1959, p. 16, Judith talked about her marriage to Berezowsky on the occasion of a performance of his Fourth Symphony in her hometown. She said that they had met through a mutual friend in 1947 and married two years later. She said, “The four years that followed, before his death, were extremely interesting years for me. I wasn’t a musician at all, but I soon learned about composers and their music.” The Babar opera was Berezowsky’s last musical work.

Twice Judith had lost a husband to a too-early death. Somehow she soldiered on and became very involved in society and charitable activities. I was able to find several articles naming her as the organizer of charitable events, including these two from the New York Times.

Judith Stern Randal
New York Times, April 8, 1962

Judith Stern Randal New York Times March 21, 1970

In 1986, she established the Judith S. Randal Foundation to provide funding to educational, arts, and environmental activities. The Foundation continues to exist and to provide funding to various organizations today.

Judith lived a good long life after her two husbands died. She died in New York City on May 27, 2001, when she was 95 years old. She was survived by her two children.

Judith’s brother, Richard, was even easier to track. After graduating from Yale, he received an M.B.A from Harvard and then returned to Kansas City. In 1940 when he was 27, he was living with his parents, Sybil and Sigmund, and like his father, he was working as an investment broker at the family business, Stern Brothers.

Sigmund Stern died December 31, 1955, from a heart attack; he was 77 years old. His wife, Sybil Cohen Stern, died five years later on November 7, 1961, her 82^nd birthday. She died of kidney disease. Richard was the informant on both his father’s and his mother’s death certificates.

After his father died in 1955, Richard became president of the Stern Brothers investment banking firm. He served as President and CEO from 1956 until 1986. According to the company website:

“Richard J. Stern, son of Sigmund, was instrumental in building a company that became the eighth largest regional investment bank in the United States with total capital exceeding $60,000,000. Stern Brothers has provided financing and financial services to institutions that gave Kansas City its identity. Individual security offerings the firm helped launch reads like a who’s who of Kansas City business history: Russell Stover Candies; Frank Paxton Lumber; the Employers Reinsurance Corporation; Rival Manufacturing; Cook Paint & Varnish Co.; and Gas Service Co. As time passed Richard transitioned the firm ultimately to its employees, which led to the creation of Stern Brothers Valuation Advisors.”

http://www.sternbv.com/

Richard J. Stern died like his father did on New Year’s Eve. He died December 31, 2001, just six months after his sister Judith. As far as I can tell, he never married or had children. According to the company website, “Richard was very supportive of the Kansas City Art Institute, the Kansas City Symphony and the Lyric Opera. So upon his death on December 31, 2001, a significant portion of his net worth was placed in the Richard J. Stern Foundation for the Arts. The Foundation has total assets exceeding $40,000,000, which are used to support the Arts.” http://www.sternbv.com/ If you Google Richard J. Stern and Kansas City, you will find a long list of arts institutions that are receiving funds from this foundation.

Richard J. Stern http://www.sternbv.com/Heritage

The story of JM Cohen and Belle is quite an extraordinary one. As a young couple, they struck out on their own, moving to Iowa. They lost one and probably two young children. JM and Belle then relocated to Kansas City, where both their daughters married Stern brothers, who were successful investment bankers. Their two grandchildren, Judith and Richard Stern, also lived long and productive lives. Although Judith was widowed twice by the premature deaths of both her first and second husband, she not only survived—she seems to have led a good and active life and to have raised two children on her own in New York City. Richard took over his father and uncles’ business and ran it successfully for many years. Both Judith and Richard created foundations to support the arts and other causes. Obviously their grandparents’ independent spirit and community-mindedness was passed on to them both.

This was a family of people who were challenging to research because of the name changes and multiple marriages, but it made all the discoveries that much more exciting and surprising. No wonder I am never bored when doing genealogy research.

Hart Cohen of DC: The Rest of the Story

Posted on September 1, 2014 by Amy

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

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

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

Isadore Baer Cohen World War I draft registration

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

Jacob M. Cohen World War I registration (first)

Jacob M. Cohen World War I registration (second)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Isadore Baer Cohen and family 1930 census

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

Isadore Baer Cohen and family 1940 census

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

Isadore Baer Cohen World War II draft registration

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

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

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

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

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

820 F Street: Follow Up

Posted on August 30, 2014 by Amy

The 800 block of F Street, NW, Washington, DC
Photo by AgnosticPreachersKid at en.wikipedia

In my post yesterday about Selinger’s jewelry store at 820 F Street in Washington, DC, I had asked about that location and what might have been reflected in the windows of the store. My ever-reliable medical consultant/cemetery photographer is now also my Washington architectural researcher. He sent me this link that provided this information about the history of one of the buildings on that block, the Adam House, that may have housed the Selinger store:

“The building, built in 1878, was originally leased to J. Bradley Adams, its namesake. Adams, a book salesman and stationer, later owned the building. The building housed an impressive amount of retail establishments and offices throughout the years. The building is done in a High Victorian Italianate style, with friezes and ornate moldings, as well as a gable with the year the structure was built (either 1876 or 1878, it’s unclear).”

http://dcist.com/2011/01/looking_back_adams_buildinginternat.php#photo-1

My brother also found this website, which includes the same photograph of Selinger’s jewelry store and dates it as taken in 1920[1], after World War I, when there was suddenly a surplus of military watches available for sale to the public. On this page, I also found an ad for Selinger’s from the Washington Post in May, 1920, reinforcing the conclusion that the photo was taken in 1920. Neither of these pages indicates who took the photograph or for what purpose. (I had originally thought that the photograph was a family photograph, but it appears not to have been.)

UPDATE: My cousin and fellow genealogist Jean Cohen found this information about the Selinger photograph from the Library of Congress at http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/npc2008009720/

Title: Selinger front, 820 F, N.W., [Washington, D.C.]
Date Created/Published: [ca. 1920]
Medium: 1 negative : glass ; 8 x 6 in.
Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-npcc-29219 (digital file from original)
Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on publication.
Call Number: LC-F82- 4412 [P&P]
Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
Notes:
Title from unverified data provided by the National Photo Company on the negative or negative

The Library of Congress page also states that the photograph was a gift from Herbert A. French in 1947. Herbert French was a photographer as well as the owner of the National Photo Company; he donated his entire collection to the Library of Congress, including the photograph of Selinger’s.

1920_selinger_watch

The ad says that the store was located at the corner of 9^th and F Street, so it might have been in the Warder Building, which was built in 1892 near the Adams House.

969 NORTH ELEVATION (FRONT)

Both buildings are today used to house the International Spy Museum.

The building across the street, seen in the reflection of the Selinger’s window, is the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, part of the Smithsonian. It was originally the building for the US Patent Office.

Old Patent Office Building, Washington D.C. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

F Street NW, view from Patent Office – Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Thank you to my brother Ira for finding most of these sources.

[1] For those who may wonder, a photograph taken in 1920 would no longer have a valid US copyright and is thus in the public domain. Shorpy’s may be selling copies of it, but that does not include or suggest a copyright still exists on the photo.

Wonderful Surprises and Gifts

Posted on August 29, 2014 by Amy

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

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

Bessie and Stanley Cohen with their daughter Marjorie at her graduation

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

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

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

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

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

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

My Cousin, the Musical Star

Posted on August 14, 2014 by Amy

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

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

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

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

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

Selma Selinger New York Times 1919

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cover of The 2000 Year Old Man

Roses of Picardy

Keep the Home Fires Burning

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Amy

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

Jacob G. Cohen and Ida Siegel marriage certificate

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

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

Jacob and Ida Cohen and family 1915 NY census

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

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

Gerson Siegel Cohen military record

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

Alfred E. Smith, Governor of New York

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gary Cole 1930 census

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here is what the Princeton Alumni Weekly wrote about him:

(Princeton Alumni Weekly, Volume 57 (1956) )

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on August 9, 2014 by Amy

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

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

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

Hyams Auerbach and Ellen Selinger marriage certificate

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

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

Hyams Auerbach and family 1881 English census

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

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

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

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

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

Ella Cohen Greenberg death certificate 1904

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

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

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

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

Myer and Helen Wolf Cohen and their Children: The American Dream

Posted on August 7, 2014 by Amy

Myer Cohen, Sr., was the second child of Moses, Jr. and Henrietta Cohen. As described earlier, he was a lawyer, perhaps the first in the extended Cohen family. He had married Helen Wolf, daughter of the esteemed Simon Wolf, and they had five children between the years 1891 and 1907. In 1910, all five children were still living at home, and Myer was engaged in the general practice of law.

As reported earlier, their daughter Marjorie died in 1920 as a young woman. According to the town clerk in Saranac Lake where Marjorie died in 1920, she died from tuberculosis; the clerk also confirmed that there were several hospitals in the area where TB patients went for treatment.

In 1921, Myer, Sr., was written up in Who’s Who in the Nation’s Capital (Consolidated Publishing Company, 1921) as follows:

Who’s Who in the Nation’s Capital (1921) found on Google Books

Myer died in 1930, and Helen died in 1949. They are buried at the Washington Hebrew Congregation cemetery.

Myer Cohen, Sr. headstone

Ruth, their oldest daughter, married Harold B. Chase, the son of Plimpton B. Chase and Anna Bird of Ohio, on October 29, 1913. Ruth and Harold were the couple who traveled with Harold’s recently widowed sister Ethel Chase Keith to England and probably also introduced her to Ruth’s cousin Jerome Selinger, whom she later married. In following up on my research of Ruth and Harold, I found this New York Times article about their wedding and that of Ethel Chase and B.F. Keith:

I wonder how Harold and Ruth felt about B.F. Keith and Ethel Chase stealing their thunder on their wedding day!

Harold had graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1911 and from Georgetown Law School in 1914, bringing another lawyer into Myer’s family, although it does not appear that Harold ever practiced law. ( See Abraham J. Baughman, Robert Franklin Bartlett, History of Morrow County, Ohio: A Narrative Account of Its Historical Progress, Its People, and Its Principal Interests, Volume 2 (1911) (Google eBook), p. 744)

Harold B Chase U Penn alumni directory 1917 Ancestry.com. U.S., School Catalogs, 1765-1935 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012. Original data: Educational Institutions. American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts

In December 1915, Ruth and Harold had a daughter, Ann Beverly Chase. In 1917 they were living in Toledo, Ohio, where Harold was then secretary and treasurer of Standard Steel Tube Company, a company owned in part by Harold’s father, who had acquired it in 1915.

In January, 1919, their three year old daughter Ann died of meningitis while the family was visiting Harold’s parents in St. Augustine, Florida, according to an obituary published in the St. Augustine Record of January 31, 1919.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=82910976&ref=acom

Although the family was still living in Ohio in 1920, when their son Harold, Jr., was born, by 1922 Harold and Ruth had moved to Worcester, Massachusetts, where they were to live for the rest of their lives. Harold was the owner and president of Chase Motor Cars, a car dealership, for many years, and both Harold and Ruth seem to have been quite active in a number of community organizations and clubs, according to various newspaper reports and documents. Harold wrote an autobiography entitled Auto-biography: Recollections of a Pioneer Motorist, 1896 to 1911 (Pageant Press, 1955); unfortunately, it seems to be out of print and not available.

Harold, Sr., died in January, 1964, and Ruth, the daughter of Myer, Sr. and Helen Cohen, died in October, 1984. Ruth returned to the Washington area after Harold died. Despite living for so many years in Worcester, both Harold and Ruth were buried in Ohio at Bloomfield Cemetery with their little daughter, Ann, as well as many members of Harold’s extended family.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=67962327&ref=acom

Their son Harold, Jr., served in the US Air Force for many years in Colorado Springs, Colorado and then lived in Alexandria, Virginia; he died in 2006 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Myer and Helen’s second child, Edith, married Alexander Ceal Robeson on December 27, 1919. Alexander, who was known as Zanny according to family members, was a lawyer in a general practice in Washington, DC, like his father-in-law Myer, according to the 1930 census and several city directories. He was a 1916 graduate of George Washington Law School. Edith and Zanny had one child, a son, Alexander C. Robeson, Jr., who was born April 13, 1923. Zanny died July 26, 1972, in Washington, DC., and Edith died at age 90 in September, 1983. Their son, who was intellectually challenged, lived as an adult in Innisfree Village in Crozet, Virginia, for some time; when Edith died, the family asked that donations be made to that institution in her memory. Alexander, Jr., died December 15, 1996. His death notice said he was a retired weaver. (Richmond Times-Dispatch (VA) – Wednesday, December 4, 1996)

Edith Cohen Robeson death notice 1983 Ancestry.com. Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, & Death Announcements, 1851-2003 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006.

Edith Cohen Robeson courtesy of Jane and Scott Cohen

Edith Cohen Robeson, photo courtesy of Jane and Scott Cohen

Roger Stahel Cohen was the fourth child and first son of Myer and Helen Cohen.

Roger Stahel Cohen as a young man, photo courtesy of Jane and Scott Cohen

Unlike his father and brothers-in-law, he did not become a lawyer but instead became a doctor. Roger went to Princeton University, graduating in 1919. The family said that he also served in World War I, but I have been unable to find a military record. Since he was born in 1898, was already at age 19 at Princeton when the US entered the war in 1917, and was still at Princeton to graduate at age 21 in 1919, I had assumed he had been in school throughout the war. His tombstone in Arlington National Cemetery says that he served in World War I and World War II, achieving the rank of Commander (the family indicated the tombstone is incorrect and he achieved the rank of lieutenant commander), so somehow Roger must have taken time off from Princeton to serve and still manage to graduate when he was only 21 years old.

Roger was living at home with his parents in 1920 and working as a law clerk, according to the 1920 census, but then went to George Washington University for medical school, graduating in 1924, according to his family. After graduating from medical school, Roger married Lee Lenthal Towers on December 17, 1924. In 1926, he was a junior medical officer at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, according to the Washington city directory for that year. The family has a graduation certificate for Roger Sr. from the University of Vienna showing that he studied there from October 3, 1927 to September 29, 1928. According to family sources, Roger, Sr., said he studied under Sigmund Freud at the University of Vienna. By 1930 he was back in Washington, practicing psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, according to the 1930 census.

Meanwhile, Roger and Lee were also having children. They had four children born between 1925 and 1931, and after a time in Baltimore, returned to the Washington, DC, area, where they settled and raised their family. Roger was stationed for some time in San Francisco with the Navy during World War II, and the family has a 1959 letter from Dwight D. Eisenhower, appointing him to serve on the Board of Veterans Appeals. The family also told me that Roger and the family enjoyed vacationing in Point Lookout, Maryland, and at 13^th Lake in upstate New York. He loved photography and his grandchildren and combined the two loves, taking many pictures of his grandchildren. Sadly, Roger died of a brain tumor on December 14, 1963, when he was only 65 years old. His widow Lee continued to live in the DC area until she died in May, 1980.

Roger Stahel Cohen, Sr., photo courtesy of Jane and Scott Cohen

Lee Towers Cohen
photo courtesy of Jane and Scott Cohen

The youngest child of Myer and Helen Cohen was Myer Cohen, Jr., born in 1907, almost ten years after Roger, the sibling closest to him in age.

Roger and Myer, Jr., c. 1909, photo courtesy of Jane and Scott Cohen

Myer, Jr., was still living at home in 1920 and in 1930. Myer went to Swarthmore College, where he was an honors student, a member of the Wharton Club, the Philosophy Club, and the Men’s Debate Club as well as on the staff of the yearbook, the Halcyon. This is how he was described in that yearbook:

1929 Swarthmore College yearbook The Halcyon
https://archive.org/stream/halcyon1929unse#page/84

After college, Myer made trips across the Atlantic in 1928, 1929, and 1930. In 1932, he again traveled overseas, giving his residence as New Haven, Connecticut, where he was a graduate student at Yale. I would think that these trips were related to his graduate work. Myer’s study of German must have been useful in his graduate studies. Myer received his Ph.D. from Yale in 1935 based on his dissertation, “Austria: An International Problem.” I tried to locate a copy of it online, but could not find it. It would be interesting to know what Myer’s thoughts were on what was happening in Europe at the time.

On August 21, 1933, Myer, Jr., married Elizabeth Elson, who was Russian born, but had immigrated to the United States in 1906 when she was two years old and had settled with her family in Chicago. Myer and Elizabeth were married in Chicago, and according to the 1940 census, in 1935 Myer and Elizabeth were residing in New Haven. After receiving his degree, Myer and Elizabeth relocated to San Francisco, where their two children were born, one born in 1937, the other in 1938. According to the 1940 census, Myer was working as a private school teacher in San Francisco.

Although I cannot locate any military records for Myer, after World War II he definitely had a change of careers. In 1945 he made the first of many trips to England; his residence was now Silver Spring, MD. In 1946 he made at least two trips, one in June and one in October. According to the airline manifest for the June trip, Myer was working for the UN BRA headquarters in Washington as the director of repatriation and (I think) relief division.

Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.
Original data: Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1820-1897. Microfilm Publication M237,

Although I could not find an explanation for UN BRA, I found that acronym in several places with reference to the UNRRA, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, an organization involved in providing relief to refugees in Europe after the war. I assume that Myer’s work was related to this endeavor. The October trip in 1946 was on a flight from Berlin to Frankfurt to New York, and Myer’s address was now Chevy Chase, Maryland, and he was flying on a military permit. Once again, his German studies must have come in handy.

In 1950, Myer again traveled to Europe, and the manifest for his flight from Zurich to New York has his address as “c/o I.R.O. Washington, DC,” and states that he was an O.I.R. director. He was traveling with two other people involved with the same agency. I could not find one definitive meaning for O.I.R or I.R.O, but given Myer’s work in 1946, this might be Office of International Relief and International Relief or Relations Organization. I need to check further. A later trip with Elizabeth to Europe in 1954 also lists their residence as Washington, DC.

Eventually, Myer rose to a fairly high level post within the United Nations. In 1962 he was the Director of Operations for the UN Special Fund, a fund created in 1958 by the UN General Assembly “in order to enlarge the scope of the UN programme of technical assistance in certain basic fields.”

UNDP Approves $1.5 Million Agreement to Expand Training Activities at International Institute of Seismology in Japan Ambassador Senjin Tsuruoka, Permanent Representative of Japan, is seen signing the agreement. At left is Mr. Myer Cohen, UNDP Assistant Administrator and Director of the Operations and Planning Bureau. At right is Mr. Tadayuki Monoyama, Second Secretary, Mission of Japan to the UN 27 March 1969 United Nations, New York http://www.unmultimedia.org/photo/detail.jsp?id=124/124433&key=89&query=undp&so=0&sf=date

In 1969 Myer, Jr., was the Assistant Administrator and Director of Operations and Planning for the UNDP, the United Nations Development Programme, an agency involved in assisting developing nations.

Special Fund to Aid in Land and Water Surveys in Northern Rhodesia An agreement laying down conditions for the surveying of the land and water resources of the Kafue River Basin in Northern Rhodesia was signed this morning at United Nations Headquarters by representatives of the UN Special Fund and the United Kingdom Government on behalf of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Signing the agreement are Mr. Paul G. Hoffman (left), Managing Director of the Special Fund, and Sir Patrick Dean, Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations. Looking on are (1eft to right) Mr. Roberto M. Heurtematte, Associate Managing Director of the Special Fund; Mr. Myer Cohen, Director of Operations, Special Fund; and Sri Ram Vasudev, Special Fund project officer. 23 February 1962 http://www.unmultimedia.org/photo/detail.jsp?id=167/167583&key=73&query=acess%20water&so=0&sf=date

Myer, Jr., and Elizabeth ultimately retired to Newtown, Pennsylvania, where Myer died on January 8, 2003, at the age of 95, and Elizabeth died on July 25, 2004. She was a hundred years old.

Myer, Sr., and Helen Wolf Cohen must have been very proud of their children. Although the family suffered some heartbreaks with the deaths of Marjorie and little Ann Chase and the challenges presented to Alexander Robeson, Jr., overall it was a family that prospered. There were several lawyers and a psychiatrist in the family as well as a Ph.D and UN official. The family moved around a bit, but overall stayed close to their roots in the Washington, DC, area. The family seems to have moved away from the strong Jewish involvement of Helen’s father Simon Wolf and Myer, Sr.’s father Moses Cohen, Jr., as they moved into mainstream America and achieved success in fields that seem quite distant from the family’s beginnings as peddlers and merchants and pawnbrokers. In just two generations, the family had gone from struggling Jewish immigrants to full-fledged participants in the American dream.

The Children of Augusta Cohen and Julius Selinger

Posted on August 5, 2014 by Amy

Julius and Augusta Cohen Selinger passport photos 1922

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

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

Sydney and Grace Selinger marriage announcement 1917

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maurice Selinger and family 1930 census

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

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

Washington Star, January 16, 1916

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on August 3, 2014 by Amy

The years between 1910 and 1918 saw three major losses for the children of Moses, Jr. and Henrietta Cohen. First, on March 20, 1918, Henrietta Loeb Cohen, Moses, Jr.,’s widow, died. The Washington Evening Star ran this obituary:

Henrietta Loeb Cohen obituary March 21, 1918

(Thursday, March 21, 1918, Evening Star (Washington (DC), DC) Page: 4)

It’s interesting that the obituary mentions only seven of Henrietta’s eight children, neglecting to mention Mabel. Once again, there was an error in the number of children, as in Moses Jr.’s obituary, but this time it is more obvious who was omitted, the youngest child, the one with Down’s syndrome. Was this something that was kept a secret, or was it just another error by the newspaper?

It certainly does not seem that Henrietta had forgotten her daughter Mabel. She made a special provision for her in her will, ensuring that Mabel would be taken care of for the rest of her life:

Will of Henrietta Loeb Cohen

(Tuesday, March 26, 1918 Paper: Evening Star (Washington (DC), DC) Page: 19) [Note the error in the headline—she was Mrs. Moses Cohen, not Mrs. Myer Cohen.]

Sadly, Mabel did not survive her mother for very long. She died on September 25, 1918, just six months after her mother. Mabel was only 35 years old. Like her mother, she was buried in the Washington Hebrew Congregation cemetery.

The family suffered another terrible loss when Marjorie Cohen, the daughter of Myer Cohen, Sr., died on July 6, 1920, when she was only 23 years old. I have not yet found a record or document that explains her death.

Although these losses must have been very painful for the family of Moses, Jr., and Henrietta, in many other ways those years were good to the family. They did not lose one member to World War I, although three of Henrietta’s grandsons served in that war. Three of the grandsons became doctors. In the next series of posts, I will focus on each of the children and their offspring and the lives they lived, starting with the children of Augusta Cohen and her husband Julius Selinger, the jeweler.

Moses Cohen, Jr. and Henrietta Loeb Cohen headstone Photo courtesy of Ira Todd Cohen

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

Brotmanblog: A Family Journey

Adventures in Genealogy

Category Archives: DC

JM Cohen and Family: The Pioneering Spirit Lives On

Hart Cohen of DC: The Rest of the Story

820 F Street: Follow Up

Wonderful Surprises and Gifts

My Cousin, the Musical Star

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

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

Myer and Helen Wolf Cohen and their Children: The American Dream

The Children of Augusta Cohen and Julius Selinger

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

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