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!

Grandsons and Memories

Posted on August 28, 2014 by Amy

The last five days were spent with my grandsons Nate and, for two of those days, Remy. Nate came back to our house for three days, and I just had the best time with him, doing not much of anything special, but just enjoying him and seeing life through his eyes. Being with my grandsons makes me think about how important those first few years of life are—how they form us, teach us about the world, and introduce us to relationships, love, trust, friendship, and family.

I was fortunate to get a box of old photographs from my cousin Jody a few weeks ago, and I spent one day last week scanning those photos, many of which will eventually get posted on the blog. But for today, as I think about being with Nate and Remy, I want to recognize those people I spent most of my time with during the early years of my own life—my parents, my grandparents, my aunt and uncle, and my older cousin Jeff. We all lived within a few minutes of each other in Parkchester, a large apartment complex in the Bronx, and I probably saw them every day or almost every day during those years. We also spent summers together near Lake Mahopac, New York, on Long Pond. They called me Kugel, or Amy Kugel, or sometimes just Kug–the only people who ever did. (My mother still occasionally does.)

They made me feel loved, and they gave me a sense of family that has stayed with me all my life. I can only hope that we are doing the same for Nate and Remy, even though we don’t live close enough to be with them as much as I was able to be with my grandparents at their ages. Although I don’t have many specific concrete memories of those years, these photographs capture those magical years of my early life.

My mother

My father

My Grandparents

My Aunt Elaine

My cousin Jeff

Jeff

Jeff, my grandmother, and me

Ray and Leah: Two Beautiful Portraits

Posted on August 26, 2014 by Amy

When I published the photograph of Ray Strolowitz Adler several days ago, my cousin Jean emailed me to say that she was struck by the similarity between that photograph and one she had sent me months ago of her grandmother Leah Strolowitz Adler, Ray’s younger sister. Looking at both photographs more carefully, you can see that they were taken at the same studio with Leah and Ray standing in similar poses. You can definitely see the family resemblance between the two sisters.

Leah Strolowitz Adler

Ray Strolowitz Adler

In rescanning the photo of Leah, Jean took it out of the frame and found this inscription on the back.

If both photos were in fact taken at the same time in 1918, this would have been after Ray was married and a few years before Leah married.

I wonder if all the siblings had these portraits done. Unfortunately, the others may have been lost forever. It always surprises me when I see studio portraits of the recent immigrants who could not have had a lot of extra money to spend on luxuries, yet so many of them did have these photographs done. I am so glad they did, and I am so lucky that their descendants were willing to share these two with me.

The Flat: A film by Arnon Goldfinger

Posted on August 24, 2014 by Amy

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

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

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

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

Solomon Monroe Cohen/Cole: Post Script

Posted on August 22, 2014 by Amy

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

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

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

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

How Genealogy Research Works: Solomon Monroe Cohen as A Sample Case

Posted on August 20, 2014 by Amy

English: City seal of Detroit, Michigan. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve had remarkable luck tracking most of the descendants of Moses Cohen, Jr., even with the women who are usually so much harder to track because of the change in their names when they marry. But when it came to the youngest son of Moses, Jr., and Henrietta Cohen, Solomon Monroe Cohen, I hit a few obstacles. There are a few things that remain unresolved, but I’ve made a lot of progress. I thought this would be a good example of just how much luck, persistence, and serendipity it takes to find records about a family member.

As reported in an earlier post, as of 1910, Solomon had married Estelle Spater of Detroit and settled in that city, working as the manager of a mail order business. They had had two sons, Ralph born in 1907 and Theodore born in 1910. Theodore had died in 1912 of complications from cerebral palsy.

In 1911 according to a Detroit city directory, Solomon was the general manager of Peoples Outfitting Company, where he was still employed in 1917 according to his World War I draft registration; he described his position as manager of the advertising staff and married to “Stella S. Cohen.”

Sol M Cohen World War I draft registration

The 1920 census has him living with Estelle and Ralph, working at a furniture business. So far my research was moving along easily, just using ancestry.com to find the census report and the Detroit directories.

Solomon Cohen and family 1920 census

Then things got more complicated. I could not (and still cannot find) Solomon or Estelle or Ralph on the 1930 census despite using wildcard search techniques, different databases, with and without date restrictions for births, with and without geographic restrictions.

I decided to focus my search on Ralph, figuring that there might be more recent records. I lucked out and found a marriage license application on familysearch.org for a Ralph Cole to marry Lois Hollander in 1938, and it was indexed with Ralph’s parents’ names, Sol M. Cole and Estelle Spater.

Ralph Cole and Lois Hollander marriage license

It also indicated that Ralph was born in Detroit in 1907 and that he was in the furniture business, so I knew I had the correct Ralph. From that application I learned that Sol had changed his name from Cohen to Cole, as had Ralph. I also learned that Estelle had already died by the time of the application, January 3, 1938. Finally, I learned that Sol was then living in New York City, not Detroit. By finding just that one document, I’d gained a lot more information about the family.

Armed with all this new information, I went back and searched again for Solomon and Estelle and Ralph in 1930, but again I could not find any of them. But as I was searching, I decided to broaden the search beyond the US on the long shot that perhaps they had left the country in 1930. I did not find them, but on familysearch.org I found a Robert Cole, born in Detroit, Michigan in 1917, whose parents were Solomon Monroe Cole and Estelle Spater. I actually found four documents for him, all Brazilian immigration documents for different years for his business travel. Here are two:

Robert Cole Brazilian immigration documents

I went back to the 1920 census again to see if I had missed a child named Robert in the household of Solomon and Estelle, but he was not there. Just Ralph. I checked the next page; no Robert Cole. If he was born in 1917, where was he? I could not find him with or without his family in 1930 nor could I find him on the 1940 census, again using many different possible locations and variations on his name. I even searched for all Roberts born in Detroit in 1917, but came up empty.

Then two days ago I went back once again to the 1920 census and decided to look at each page in the enumeration district where Sol, Estelle and Ralph Cohen were listed. They were listed at the very bottom of page 4; Robert was not on page 5. But this time I went on to page 6, and there he was at the top of that page, listed as part of the Newcombe household, but the name and age were Robert Cohen, three years old. Obviously the census reporter had skipped a page and put Robert two pages after the rest of his family and then the indexer had treated him as the son of the family at the bottom of page 5, instead of the Cohen family on page 4. I can’t tell you how much time I spent on that wild goose chase caused by one simple mistake in the census.

By using the city directory database on ancestry.com, I found all four members of the now-Cole family living in Columbus, Ohio, at the same address in a 1935 directory for that city. I’d been searching for them in Detroit and was surprised when they turned up in Columbus instead. I never would have thought to look at Columbus, Ohio, without some reason to think they had moved there. Ralph was listed as a salesman; he would have been 28; Robert was listed as a student; he would have been eighteen. Sol was listed as a manager, his spouse listed as Stella.

Coles on the 1935 Columbus, Ohio directory

But were they still in Detroit in 1930? Or were they already in Columbus by then? When had they left Detroit? I found Robert Cole on the Social Security Death Index and saw that he had died in Jupiter, Florida, so I searched for and found his obituary. According to Robert’s obituary, he attended Grosse Point Academy outside Detroit before attending Brown University. Since he probably graduated from high school in 1934 or 1935, the family probably had not been in Columbus for very long as of the time of that directory. Also, I had found several yearbook entries for Ralph Cole at the University of Michigan and knew that he had graduated in 1928, so I assumed that the Coles were still residents of Michigan during that time period.

1928 University of Michigan yearbook
Ancestry.com. U.S. School Yearbooks [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.

Then yesterday I decided once more to try the 1930 census, figuring that if I could find an address where they had lived in Detroit close to 1930, it would turn up. I had already searched for Sol Cohen and Sol Cole in Detroit directories between 1920 and 1935 and had had no luck. So this time I figured I’d search for any Cole in Detroit in the city directory database. I found that there were in fact Detroit directories in the ancestry.com database for the years 1930 and 1931. Since no Sol Cole or Cohen had come up when I searched those, I searched for any Cole, found the directory pages that included anyone named Cole, downloaded those pages for 1930 and 1931, zoomed in, and sure enough Sol was in both. Ancestry.com must have used an optical character reader to create the index of those directories, and looking at the indices for those two reveals the inadequacy of that method. It’s mostly gibberish. Obviously the small typeface and blurry image is too much of a challenge for an OCR.

Anyway, I was now very excited because I had evidence that Sol was still in Detroit in 1930 and 1931, and I had his address and his place of employment. He was the vice president and general manager of Weil and Company. Further research revealed that Weil and Company was a home furnishing store, selling furniture and home appliances.

Now armed with the home address for Sol, 5440 Cass Avenue in Detroit, I turned to stevemorse.org to find the right enumeration district in the 1930 census for that address in Detroit. I found the right district, I even found the right pages with the listing of residents at that address. It was the Belcrest Hotel, a large residential hotel that catered to wealthy residents, according to Wikipedia. There were many residents, but not one was named Sol Cole or Sol Cohen. The closest were Max and Sadie Cohn. So where were the Coles? I’ve concluded that they either moved there after the census was taken in 1930 or that for some reason they just were missed by the census taker.

“BelcrestDetroit” by Andrew Jameson – Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BelcrestDetroit.jpg#mediaviewer/File:BelcrestDetroit.jpg

So as of 1931 the family was still in Detroit, but by 1935 they were in Columbus. Perhaps the family moved to Columbus in the 1930s for economic reasons. It was the Depression, and Sol may have had to move to earn a living. Maybe Weil and Company went out of business or Sol lost favor with its owner, Mrs. M.C. Weil. Or maybe they sent him to Columbus to expand the business. I noticed that many members of Estelle’s Detroit family—her Spater brothers—also left their home town before 1940. Maybe things were particularly bad in Detroit.

Knowing that Sol was living in New York City in 1938, as seen on Ralph’s marriage license application, I was able to locate a death record for him in New York City on June 11, 1938, only six months after the date on that application. I have not found a death record for Estelle, but I know she died between 1935 and January, 1938. I have ordered Sol’s death certificate so perhaps that will tell me where he, and possibly Estelle, are buried.

I have not found Robert on the 1940 census, but Ralph did show up on the 1940 census, living in Indianapolis with his wife Lois and working as the head buyer in a department store.

According to his obituary in the July 22, 1998 issue of the Indianapolis Jewish Post, he worked for 32 years for William H. Block and Company and retired in 1971. He then was active as a volunteer for several organizations in the Indianapolis community as well as assistant business manager of Indianapolis Business Development Board for ten years after retiring. His wife Lois died in April 14, 1997; according to her obituary in the April 23, 1997 issue of the Indianapolis Jewish Post, she had graduated from Wellesley College and had worked as a journalist for four years and had also been active in many community organizations. Ralph Cole died the following year on July 17, 1998 at age 91. Ralph and Lois had two children.

Robert Cole died ten years later on February 28, 2008. He also was 91. He had retired to Jupiter, Florida. His obituary in the Palm Beach Post of March 4, 2008, reported that he had been Executive Vice President at McCann Erickson, the global advertising agency, where he worked for 28 years and been in charge of Latin American operations. After he retired, he volunteered for the International Executive Services Corp. Robert also had two children.

I am left with just a few more questions.

Why did the Cole family move to Columbus in the 1930s?

Why was Solomon in New York City in 1938, as stated on Ralph’s marriage application? How long had he lived there?

When did Estelle die, and where are Sol and Estelle buried?

Fortunately, I am in touch with a couple of Sol and Estelle’s descendants and am hoping that perhaps together we can find the answers to those remaining questions.

As you can see, it took a lot of false starts, dead ends, jumps and turns, and a lot of different sources to learn the story of Solomon Monroe Cohen/Cole and his family. That’s what makes this both so much fun and so challenging.

Skyline along the Detroit International Riverfront (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Was the Census Taker Incompetent? Lewis Cohen 1862-1924

A Photo Essay: The Strolowitz Adler Family, Joe Louis, and The Resilience of the Human Spirit

Posted on August 18, 2014 by Amy

It’s been a long time since I’ve written about the Strolowitz Adler line in my family tree since I have been focused on my father’s Cohen line, but I have now completed my research on one other member of the Strolowitz Adler family so am taking a short break from the Cohens in order to report on that research.

Tillie Rosenzweig Strolowitz Adler was my great-grandmother Ghitla Rosenzweig Goldschlager’s sister. Tillie was the aunt who provided a home for my grandfather Isadore Goldschlager and his sister Betty when their father died in 1909. Tillie had been recently widowed herself after her husband Jacob had died shortly after arriving in NYC from Iasi. Tillie also outlived two of her sons, Pincus and Isidor, both of whom had died from serious illnesses as young adults. Her other five children lived to adulthood, but many of them also faced some personal struggles and in some cases tragic deaths. Only Leah, the youngest child, seemed to lead a long and happy life with a long and happy marriage to Ben Schwartz.

The only one of Tillie’s children I had not yet written about was Rebecca, the fifth child born in 1892 in Iasi. She was fifteen when she immigrated to the US with her parents and younger brother and sister in December, 1907, and in 1910 and 1915 she was working in a sweatshop as a dressmaker.

I am very fortunate to have this beautiful photograph of Rebecca Strolowitz Adler. All the photos included in this post were provided by members of the extended family.

Rebecca Strolowitz/Ray Adler (undated)

On April 7, 1917, Rebecca, now using the name Ray, married Ben Seamon.

Ray Adler and Ben Seamon marriage certificate

Ben was born in Chicago in 1893. He enlisted in the US Army in November, 1917, and served during World War I until he was honorably discharged in January, 1919. Ray and Ben’s first child Jerome was born in June 1919, and as of 1920, Ben was working as a foreman in a dressmaking shop (perhaps this is where he had met Ray?). By 1925, Ray and Ben had two sons, Jerome born in 1919, and Paul, born in December, 1920, and the family had moved to the Bronx. Ben was now working as a chauffeur. Their third son, Harold, was born in October, 1924, and Ben and Ray’s youngest child Thelma was born in 1926.

By 1930, however, Ray was living with her children in the home of her brother David Adler along with his wife Bertha and their daughter Tessie in Manhattan. Ben, on the other hand, was living in the Bronx with his mother and his brothers Samuel and Mannie Seamon.

Mannie Seamon ran a gym where he trained boxers, and according to the 1930 census, both Manny and Ben were working as managers at the gym at that time. According to Mannie’s obituary in the NYTimes dated March 26, 1983, in 1937, Mannie was hired as the assistant to the trainer for Joe Louis, the world heavyweight boxing champion from 1937 until 1949, and in 1942 when that trainer died, Mannie became Joe Louis’ trainer, working in that position until 1951.

Manny Seamon and Joe Louis

Mannie also had trained many other boxers, including Benny Leonard, the World Lightweight Boxing Champion. According to Ben Seamon’s obituary in the July 25, 1971 NY Times, Ben also had been a boxer and a boxing trainer.

During the Depression, Ray became a patient at the Central Islip State Hospital. I was not able to find any records for Ray after 1942. Her two youngest children, Thelma and Harold, were admitted to the Hebrew Orphan Asylum (HOA) in Manhattan on June 28, 1935. Thelma resided there from ages 9 through 15. Harold was discharged to return to live with his father on February 25, 1940; Ben was then working as an announcer for boxing and wrestling bouts. Thelma was discharged from the HOA on July 20, 1941, two months before the HOA closed in Sept. 1941.

Thelma Seamon visited by her cousin Teddy Schwartz

Teddy Schwartz, daughter of Leah Adler Schwartz, visiting her cousin Thelma Seamon around 1944

But it all seemed to work out well for Thelma. While at the orphanage, she met her future husband, Nathan Letnick, who was also a resident there. Thelma graduated from high school in 1942.

Thelma Seamon graduation photograph 1942

Jerome Seamon married Lillian Wolf on September 22, 1940:

Wedding of Jerome Seamon and Lillian Wolf September 22, 1940

Pictured here are Mannie Seamon (top row, second from left), Harry Seamon (right of Mannie), Paul Seamon (right of Harry). Thelma is second from the left in the middle row. In the front row, Ben Seamon is second from the left, then the groom Jerome Seamon, Ben’s mother, and the bride Lillian Wolf Seamon. The others are relatives and cousins from the Seamon side of the family.

All three of Ben and Ray’s sons and their son-in-law Nathan served overseas during World War II, and Paul received a Purple Heart for his service. Thelma worked at Western Electric in Manhattan during World War II.

Thelma working at Western Electric during World War II

Nathan Letnick and Thelma Seamon were married after the war on November 10, 1946. Here is their wedding photograph with the extended family.

Nathan Letnick and Thelma Seamon’s wedding 1946

Among those pictured above are the following people, most of whom are referred to in this post:

Back row, far left: Paul Seamon; Middle row, far left: Jerry Seamon; Front row: Lillian Wolf Seamon (Jerry’s wife); Ben Seamon’s sister, Ida; Nathan Letnick; Thelma Seamon Letnick; Ben Seamon; Ben’s sister Bertha.

Nathan graduated from NYU with degrees in business, thanks to the GI Bill. The four Seamon children, Jerome, Paul, Harold, and Thelma, eventually moved to Long Island after the war, where all except Harold married and raised families.

Here is a photograph from the wedding of Paul Seamon and Marilyn Tobetsky on August 6, 1949, showing all of Ray and Ben’s children and their spouses as well as Ben:

Wedding of Paul Seamon and Marilyn Tobetsky 1949

From left to right: Nathan Letnick, Thelma Seamon Letnick, Ben Seamon, Mae, Paul Seamon, Marilyn Seamon, Jerome Seamon, Lillian Seamon, and Harold Seamon

As for Ben, I found a World War II draft registration dated 1942 that indicates that he was employed by the Town Pump in Tullahoma, Tennessee, but was residing with Jerome in the Bronx. Ben moved to Florida sometime after 1952 and worked at a dog racing track now known as the Mardi Gras Casino. He died in July, 1971, and is buried at Long Island National Cemetery.

After retirement Nat and Thelma moved to Florida. They were still married in 2000 when tragically Thelma was killed by an elderly driver who had Alzheimer’s. Nat died six years later. Thelma’s daughter told me that one of Thelma’s passions was knitting: “All her adult life, everyone knew my mother to be knitting something for everyone and anyone having a baby.”

Finally, a more recently dated photograph of Thelma and her brother Paul in 2000.

The story of Tillie Strolowitz Adler and her children is a story filled with lots of heartbreak and hardship but ultimately survival. They all came as immigrants from Romania to New York City and sought happiness and success, which did not come easily to them. Although they may have struggled, the generations who followed them found a home here in the US, served their country, and ultimately not only survived but thrived. These photographs reflect the resilience of the human spirit better than I can ever capture it in words.

Brotmanblog: A Family Journey

Adventures in Genealogy

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

Grandsons and Memories

Ray and Leah: Two Beautiful Portraits

The Flat: A film by Arnon Goldfinger

Solomon Monroe Cohen/Cole: Post Script

How Genealogy Research Works: Solomon Monroe Cohen as A Sample Case

A Photo Essay: The Strolowitz Adler Family, Joe Louis, and The Resilience of the Human Spirit

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Related articles

Share this:

Share this:

Related articles

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Related articles

Share this:

Related articles

Share this: