The Gift of Photography: Bringing Faces to the Names

Posted on February 16, 2016 by Amy

I know I just posted yesterday, but I am so excited by the photographs I received last night that I can’t wait to share them. I have been very fortunate to connect with the family of one of Simon and Rose (Mansbach) Schoenthal’s children, the descendants of their daughter Hettie, whose life story I’ve yet to tell. The family very generously shared with me a multitude of photographs, and I will share many of them on the blog in upcoming posts.

But some of these photographs are of family members about whom I have already posted. I’ve added those photographs to the appropriate posts, but since I know it’s unlikely that people will go back to find those photographs, I wanted to share some of them here. All of the photographs here are courtesy of the family of Ezra Parvin Lippincott, Jr., Hettie Schoenthal Stein’s grandson.

First, here are photographs of Simon Schoenthal and Rose Mansbach, the patriarch and matriarch of this large family:

Rose Mansbach Schoenthal

Simon Schoenthal, my great-great-uncle

Simon and Rose had ten children; their first two were twins, Harry and Ida. Ida died when she was a young teenager, so I was very touched to see this photograph of Simon with the twins, taken in 1875 when they were two years old.

Simon Schoenthal with twins Harry and Ida 1875
Courtesy of the family of Hettie Schoenthal Stein

And here is a collage of photographs of the nine surviving children: Harry, Gertrude, Louis, Maurice, Martin, Jacob, Hettie, Estelle, and Sidney. They were my grandmother Eva Schoenthal Cohen’s first cousins.

The nine surviving children of Simon and Rose (Mansbach) Schoenthal
Photo courtesy of the family of Hettie Schoenthal Stein

Looking at all those faces, I cannot help but admire their mother Rose, especially knowing now how close these siblings were to each other. Here are some additional photographs of Rose Mansbach Schoenthal:

Rose Mansbach Schoenthal
courtesy of the family of Hettie Schoenthal Stein

Rose Mansbach Schoenthal 1916

Harry, the oldest surviving child, had a liquor business in Philadelphia for some time before returning to Atlantic City and working in the hotel business there. I believe this photograph must be related to his Philadelphia business:

Uncle Harry's Beer Business Courtesy of the family of Hettie Schoenthal Stein

Uncle Harry’s Beer Businesss
Courtesy of the family of Hettie Schoenthal Stein

I am not sure, but perhaps one of those men is Harry himself.

I loved this photograph of Arthur H. Ferrin, who married Juliet Miller, the daughter of Jacob J. and Gertrude (Schoenthal) Miller. You can tell that Arthur was a Tucson native:

Arthur H. Ferrin 1905
courtesy of the family of Hettie Schoenthal Stein

There are many more to come, but I didn’t want these to get lost in the shuffle.

Two Brothers in Chicago: One Stayed, One Left

Posted on February 15, 2016 by Amy

It’s been a while since I left off with my discussion of my Schoenthal relatives, in particular the ten children of my great-grandfather Isidore’s brother, Simon Schoenthal, and his wife Rose Mansbach. Of their nine children who survived to adulthood, I have discussed Harry, who made his life in Atlantic City where his parents had moved in the 1890s and remained; Gertrude, who married Jacob J. Miller and settled for many years in Arizona; and Louis, who moved to Los Angeles and San Francisco and may have spent part of his career working as a showman in the carnival industry. Now I will write about the next two sons: Maurice and Martin, both of whom ended up together for at least some years in the midwest---in Chicago.

Maurice Schoenthal Courtesy of the family of Hettie Schoenthal Stein

Maurice Schoenthal, born in 1879, had been working with his brothers in 1904 in Atlantic City as a manager of their pool hall, but by 1910 he had relocated to Saint Louis, Missouri. I’ve no idea what drew him to St. Louis, but he is listed as residing there on the 1910 census, lodging with the family of Ferdinand Bach.

Maurice Schoenthal 1910 US census
Year: 1910; Census Place: St Louis Ward 25, Saint Louis City, Missouri; Roll: T624_822; Page: 6B; Enumeration District: 0393; FHL microfilm: 1374835

But there is something odd about the census entry. It says that Maurice was a Missouri-born lawyer in private practice, which made me think this was not the right Maurice Schoenthal. But the entry underneath is for a Louis Mayer, described as a Pennsylvania-born bookkeeper for an automobile store. Could the two lines have been accidentally switched by the enumerator? A search for Louis Mayer in the St. Louis directories confirmed my hunch. Louis Mayer was a lawyer, my cousin Maurice must have been the Pennsylvania-born bookkeeper.

I don’t know when Maurice arrived in St. Louis nor, as I said, what brought him there, but I know what kept him in the midwest. On September 8, 1910, he married Blanche Woolf, as seen in this news item:

Blanche was born in 1881 in St. Louis, the daughter of George Woolf, who was born in New York, and Leah Morris, who was born in England. George Woolf had died in 1908, and in 1910 Blanche was living with her mother and siblings. Her oldest sibling, Morris, was already married and the owner of a silk business, Morris Woolf Silk. Although Maurice and Blanche were still living in St. Louis in 1913, by 1914 they were living in Chicago, where Maurice was working as a credit manager. As reflected on his World War I draft registration, he was the credit manager for Morris Woolf Silk, his brother-in-law’s business.

Maurice Schoenthal World War I draft registration

Maurice and Blanche had two children born in 1913 and 1918. In 1920 they were all still living in Chicago, and Maurice was still working as a credit manager for the silk company. Morris Woolf Silk at one time must have been a very successful business; a search on newspapers.com brought up many ads from papers in many states: Texas, Kansas, Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois, for example.

In the spring of 1920, Maurice represented the company on a trip across the country with over forty other “prominent” or “notable” businessmen (yes, just men) from Chicago that included stops in several cities, including El Paso, Texas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Bernardino, California, Portland Oregon, and Phoenix, Arizona. See, e.g., “Chicago Party to Visit Phoenix Next Wednesday,” The Arizona Republican, May 3, 1920, p. 8; “Chicagoans Are to See Valley This Morning,” San Bernardino Daily Sun, May 6, 1920, p. 7; “Chicago Business Men Guest of City,” Portland Oregonian, May 18, 1920, p. 11.

Martin Schoenthal courtesy of the family of Hettie Schoenthal Stein

During these years, Maurice’s younger brother Martin was also living in Chicago. In 1910, Martin had been living with his mother and younger siblings, working in the family laundry business, but by 1914, he is listed as a salesman in the Chicago directory. His World War I draft registration is more specific; Martin was working as a car salesman.

Martin Schoenthal World War I draft registration
Registration State: Illinois; Registration County: Cook; Roll: 1439759; Draft Board: 13

(Interestingly, he listed as the person who would always know his address a Mrs. R. Schoenthal of Tucson, Arizona. When I saw that, I assumed it was his mother, Rose Mansbach Schoenthal, who must have been living her with her daughter Gertrude Schoenthal Miller at that time, but who was back in Atlantic City by 1920. I checked the 1917 Tucson directory to confirm that Rose was in fact living at the same address in Tucson as Gertrude that year.)

In 1920, Martin was still living in Chicago, according to the 1920 census. He was living as a lodger, and he reported his occupation as a manufacturer, Federal Bakery. But after that I cannot find any document or other source that indicates that Martin was in Chicago after 1920.

Martin Schoenthal 1920 US census
Year: 1920; Census Place: Chicago Ward 2, Cook (Chicago), Illinois; Roll: T625_306; Page: 8A; Enumeration District: 85; Image: 1134

From what I can gather from various newspaper articles and advertisements as well as some court decisions, Federal System of Bakeries of America was a supplier of baking equipment to associated bakeries all over the United States. This news article from 1920 described them as a $25,000,000 enterprise with over 600 stores all over the country. “Missouri Fair Price Commission Asks Department of Justice to Investigate Why Price of Bread Was Raised,” Rockford (Illinois) Republic, February 27, 1920, p. 9. This ad conveys something about the business model of the Federal System of Bakeries.

Martin may have run into trouble with his own store because on July 23, 1920, the Chicago Daily Tribune ran a classified ad on p. 24:

At any rate, I cannot find a listing for Martin in Chicago in the 1920s. The directories that are available on Ancestry.com for Chicago during those years do not include alphabetical listings of residents, only directories by business category or address, so Martin might have been there, but I did not find him under Bakeries nor by the address I have for him from the 1920 census.

I was able to locate Maurice in the 1920s, however, because he and Blanche had moved to the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, by 1925. He was still working in the silk business as a credit manager, according to these directories (1925, 1927) and according to the 1930 census.

Meanwhile, Martin had returned to Atlantic City by 1931. I cannot find him at all on the 1930 census, but he is listed in the 1931 Atlantic City directory, working as a distributor and living at 141 St. James, the address of the Lockhart Hotel where many members of his family had lived in prior years. In 1938 he was living at 161 St. Charles Place and working as a clerk. According to the 1940 census, he was working as a hotel clerk and still residing at 161 St. Charles Place, where his sister Estelle and her family were living and running the Klein-Haven Hotel.

Estelle and Martin Schoenthal 1940 census

Martin Schoenthal in household of Estelle Schoenthal Klein 1940 US census Year: 1940; Census Place: Atlantic City, Atlantic, New Jersey; Roll: T627_2300; Page: 83A; Enumeration District: 1-2

In 1941 the directory lists him working as a clerk at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, located at 3850 Atlantic Avenue. According to his World War II draft registration the following year, his employer at the Cosmopolitan Hotel was J.J. Miller, that is, Jacob J. Miller, his brother-in-law, married to his sister Gertrude. His residence was still 161 St. Charles Place.

Martin Schoenthal World War II draft registration
The National Archives at St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; World War II Draft Cards (Fourth Registration) for the State of New Jersey; State Headquarters: New Jersey; Microfilm Series: M1986

As for Maurice, according to the 1940 census, he had had a career change and was no longer working for Morris Woolf Silk; he was now working as a broker in the commercial real estate field. It appears that Morris Woolf Silk had liquidated its stock in the summer of 1929 (although Maurice had still listed his occupation as credit manager for a silk company on the 1930 census.)

Maurice and Blanche and their son, now 21, were still living in Chicago in 1940, and their son was working as a messenger for the railroad. Their daughter had married by then and was living with her husband in Chicago. On his draft registration for World War II in 1942, Maurice reported no employment; he and Blanche were still living in Chicago.

Maurice Schoenthal World War 2 draft registration
The National Archives at St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; World War II Draft Cards (Fourth Registration), for The State of Illinois; State Headquarters: Illinois; Microfilm Series: M2097; Microfilm Roll: 258

Martin Schoenthal died in Atlantic City on September 22, 1946. He was 67 years old and was buried with his parents at Mt. Sinai cemetery in Philadelphia. As far as I can tell, he had never married or had children.

His brother Maurice was living in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1952, but that is the only year for which I can find a listing for him in that location, nor can I find him in any other directories or sources after 1942. I cannot find a record for Maurice’s death, but I did find Blanche’s death certificate. When she died on July 1, 1965, she was already a widow, so Maurice must have died sometime before that date.

Blanche Woolf Schoenthal death certificate

Maurice and Martin Schoenthal: two brothers, two years apart in age, who had started their adult years in business together. After Maurice married and settled in Chicago, his younger brother Martin followed him there and lived nearby for several years. But whereas Maurice seemed to have both personal and business success in Chicago, Martin returned to his former home in Atlantic City to work, as so many in Simon Schoenthal’s family did, in the hotel business.

Part II: The Benefits of Teamwork

Posted on February 11, 2016 by Amy

So who was Frederick Selinger, and how did he fit into the family? And who was Fanny Selinger’s mother?

In Part I, I described the research I had done first with Val Collinson in 2014 and then separately with Shirley Allen during the summer and fall of 2015 to try and find the connections between all our various Selinger relatives. Through that research we had established with a fair degree of certainty that Julius and Alfred Selinger, who married two of my Cohen cousins, sisters Augusta and Fanny, were themselves brothers, the sons of Seligmann Selinger and Breinle Hofstadter. We had also established that Helena Selinger Auerbach, who had been Val’s great-grandmother, was a first cousin to Julius and Alfred and the daughter of Abraham Selinger and Rosalia Wilhelmsdorfer.

We also had established that Fanny Selinger Rosenthal, Shirley’s grandmother, was also a daughter of Abraham Selinger, but Shirley and I had not found any document that revealed whether her grandmother Fanny was a full or half sister to Helena and the other children of Abraham Selinger; we had not found her mother’s name or where she was born.

And I still didn’t know how Frederick Selinger fit into the question.

We also knew that Abraham Selinger had immigrated to England by 1871 because he appeared on the 1871 UK census with a second wife, Gali, along with several children: Sigfried, Helena, Cornelia, and Oscar. By 1881, Abraham had died, and his widow Gali was living with some different children: Morris, Flora, and Sidney, plus Oscar. Aside from Helena, who were all these children, and where were they born? I had no birth records for Cornelia, Morris, Flora, Sidney, or Oscar.

So by late November, we had many answers, but many questions remained.

Fast forward again to January 13, when I again heard from Shirley. She had received a copy of the marriage authorization for Fanny Selinger and Jacob Rosenthal from the Chief Rabbi in London. It confirmed that Fanny was the daughter of Abraham and that she was born in Hurben, but did not reveal her mother’s name. Although we did not have any new information, the new communication inspired us to try again to get answers to our primary questions: Who was Fanny Selinger’s mother? And how did Frederick Selinger fit into the family, if at all?

Fanny Selinger Rosenthal and her husband Jacob Rosenthal and children Gladys, Daniel, and Alfred
Courtesy of Shirley Allen

After reviewing everything we had, I decided to post on the German Genealogy group on Facebook for information about records in Ansbach , where Oskar Selinger had claimed to be born on his UK naturalization record. Although I was unable to find Ansbach birth records for the appropriate years, my friend Matthias did find two websites with information about Abraham Selinger in Ansbach: one, a website listing past and present tobacco businesses in Germany; Abraham Selinger was listed as the manager of Equity and cigar-tobacco factory in Ansbach from 1862 until 1871. Thus, it made sense that Oscar Selinger was born in Ansbach.

The second website was even more revealing. It was an Ansbach police report from 1870 reporting the arrest on May 31, 1870 of Abraham Selinger from Hurben, manager of a cigar factory, for fraud. Perhaps that is why 1871 was both the last date he had the cigar business in Ansbach as well as the first year he appeared on UK records.

http://des.genealogy.net/search/show/9889703

But it also meant that the children I believed had been born to Abraham in the 1850s—Frederick, Fanny, Morris, Flora, and Sidney—were probably not born in Ansbach if Abraham’s business there didn’t start until 1862. So where were they born? Shirley continued to contact various offices in Germany, and I tried to think of new paths for research.

And then I had the best idea I’d had yet. While doing all this work with Shirley in 2015, I had somehow forgotten about my correspondence with Val Collinson back in 2014. Maybe Val had made some new discoveries or would have some new ideas. I wrote to Val on January 22, 2016, and now we had three heads working on the mysterious Selingers.

Filament Productions (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The emails started flying back and forth among the three of us, and it became clear fairly quickly that Val and Shirley had some relatives in common, that is, relatives they both had met or at least had heard of. I just sat back, enjoying the fact that I had brought these two cousins together. They both were descendants of Abraham Selinger: Shirley through his daughter Fanny, Val through his daughter Helena. We weren’t yet sure whether Helena and Fanny were full or half-sisters, but in any event Shirley and Val, who’d never heard of each other before and who live about 60-100 miles apart in the UK, are third cousins. I was thrilled that I’d brought these two wonderful family researchers and cousins together.

Shirley and Val both had lots of information about the marriages and descendants of some of the other Selinger siblings and also some wonderful photographs, but neither had any information about Frederick and neither was sure as to the identity of the mother or birthplaces of Fanny, Cornelia, Morris, Flora, or Sidney.

And then on January 29, 2016, the walls started tumbling down. Val found this on Ancestry:

Ludwigshafen?? Where was that? It’s a town very close to Mannheim. Could be this OUR Fanny? Val asked me to follow up because I have the broadest Ancestry subscription (All Access), and I was able to pull up a scan of the actual record. And not only did I find birth records for Fanny, I found them for three other children, all born to Abraham Selinger and Rosalia Wilhelmsdorfer, his first wife.

The four children born in Ludwigshafen were: Babetta, born in 1853, died in 1854; Flora, born in 1855 (later Flora Wallach); Fanny, born December 5, 1856; and Sigmund (later Sidney) born in 1858. We finally had a birth record for Fanny, and we knew now that she was in fact a full sister to Helena as they were both the daughters of Abraham Selinger and Rosalia Wilhelmsdoerfer. Val and Shirley were officially third cousins.

Fanny Selinger birth record from Ludwigshafen
Ancestry.com. Ludwigshafen, Germany, Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 1798-1875 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015.
Original data: Ludwigshafen Zivilstandsregister, 1798-1875. Stadtarchiv Ludwigshafen, Ludwigshafen, Deutschland.

So that left three children whose birthplaces were still unknown: Morris, Cornelia, and, of course, Frederick. Since Morris and Cornelia were both born before 1862 when the Selinger family arrived in Ansbach and after 1848 when the family had moved to Mannheim, I assumed that they were probably born in Mannheim. The 1881 census recorded Cornelia’s age as 18, two years younger than Helena, whom they reported as twenty. But even English census records are unreliable. Helena would have been turning 22 that year; maybe Cornelia was really 19 or 20 and thus born in 1850 or 1851. The 1881 census said Morris was 28; he was probably born in 1852 since Babetta, the child who died in 1854, was born in 1853, in Ansbach. Cornelia and Morris would also probably have been the children of Abraham and Rosalia since there were four children born to that couple even after Cornelia and Morris were born.

So I went back to the Mannheim records because my initial search had been only for the years between 1853 to 1859; now I searched the set of records before it, dating from 1842 to 1852. And there they were, birth records for Cornelia (1850) and Morris (1852). And Helena (1849). All three were the children of Abraham Selinger and Rosalia Wilhelmdoerfer.

landesarchiv_baden-wuerttemberg_generallandesarchiv_karlsruhe_390_nr-_2862_bild_147_4-1229196-147 Birth record for Helena Selinger from Hurben

landesarchiv_baden-wuerttemberg_generallandesarchiv_karlsruhe_390_nr-_2862_bild_147_4-1229196-147
Birth record for Helena Selinger from Mannheim (center, left page)

So there are two birth records for Helena, one in Hurben, one in Mannheim. Go figure.

Meanwhile, Val found yet another document:

(I cannot understand why neither the Ludwigshafen nor the Ansbach registers showed up for me when I searched. Val has a magic touch with the search engine logic that I don’t have.)

I then retrieved the image of the actual document:

Abraham Selinger family in Ansbach
Ancestry.com. Ansbach, Germany, Lutheran Parish Register Extracts, 1550-1920 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015.
Original data: Ansbach Lutheran Parish Register Extracts. Digital images Tobias Brenner Collection.

This document revealed two more things: that Gali’s birth name was Kohn and that she and Abraham had had another child before Oskar, Isidor, who died when he was an infant. So now I had a record confirming that Oscar was born in Ansbach and that his mother was Gali Kohn, not Rosalia Wilhelmsdoerfer.

Shirley, Val, and I had pretty much closed the circle on the children of Abraham Selinger. But despite all our efforts, we still had not found one record for Frederick Selinger. If he was born in 1856 as his passport application and his death certificate indicated, he should have been included with those children born in Ansbach. He would have been born around the time of Flora or Fanny, maybe even a twin of one of them. But he wasn’t there. And he wasn’t in the Mannheim records or the Hurben records.

So something did not make sense. Frederick was not the child of Abraham Selinger with either of his wives. I was convinced of it now. So who was he? What was I missing?

P question (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is the part of the story where I just want to kick myself. I went back once again to the Hurben birth records and looked more closely at the children born to Seligman Selinger. There were nineteen of them. NINETEEN. Nine were born to Seligman and his first wife between 1835 and 1844. They all were born too early to be Frederick. Ten children were born to Seligman Selinger and his second wife, Breinle Hofstadter, between 1849 and 1866. There were five girls and five boys from that second marriage. The five boys were Heinrich (1852), Julius (1853), Sigfried (1855), Hugo (1860), and Alfred (1866). Julius and Alfred were the two who had married my Cohen cousins Augusta and Fanny. That left Heinrich, Sigfried, and Hugo. Could any of them be Frederick?

Sigfried. Hmm, I thought. That could have become Frederick, maybe?? But he was born December 29, 1855, and Frederick was born in December 1856, according to his US death certificate and his US passport application. So what, I thought? People lie! He made himself a year younger. The more I thought about it, the more I thought that Sigfried was Frederick. The disparity in the dates in December for his birthday (the death certificate said December 27, the passport application December 21) didn’t bother me either. Jews in Europe might not have known their birthday on a Gregorian calendar, only a Jewish calendar. Frederick might have just known that his birthday was close to Hanukkah and nothing more precise than that.

I went back to Ancestry to look at the records I had for Frederick. The earliest two—his 1880 marriage record and the 1880 census—list him as Fred, not Frederick. Fred could be a shortened version of Sigfried, couldn’t it? So I decided to search for Sigfried Selinger.

Marriage record for Frederick Selinger and Rachel Cohen 1880

And I found this ship manifest from 1872:

Siegfried Selinger ship manifest 1872 to Baltimore
The National Archives at Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; Records of the US Customs Service, RG36; NAI Number: 2655153; Record Group Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004; Record Group Number: 85

Siegfried Selinger, sixteen years old, arrived in Baltimore in June 1872, when Sigfried Selinger of Hurben would in fact have been still sixteen years old. I thought that this could very well be the man who became Frederick Selinger. Supporting this assumption was the fact that his marriage record states that he was from Baltimore and that he ended up marrying a woman from Washington, DC, so it would make sense that he would have entered the US through Baltimore, as his naturalization papers indicated. (They also say he entered the country in June 1871. People lie! People forget!)

Frederick Selinger passport application
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C.; NARA Series: Passport Applications, 1795-1905; Roll #: 378; Volume #: Roll 378 – 14 Jul 1891-31 Jul 1891
Description
Volume : Roll 378 – 14 Jul 1891-31 Jul 1891

And when I searched for Fred Selinger in Baltimore, I found two listings in Baltimore directories, one in 1875, one in 1878. I am quite certain I have found Frederick and now know that he was Sigfried Selinger, the son of Selinger Seligmann and Breinle Hofstadter. He was the middle brother to his brothers, Julius and Alfred, who followed him to the US in the following decade and married respectively the aunt (Augusta) and the sister (Fanny) of Frederick’s wife Rachel.

So why do I want to kick myself? Not only because I should have seen this much, much earlier, but because Ralph Bloch in fact told me he thought Sigfried could be Frederick way back in August, 2015. I’d forgotten that until I reviewed all the old emails to write this blog post. I probably saw his comment and forgot it or thought that I needed more proof. And I got caught up in searching for Fanny and the other Selingers and for some reason assumed Frederick had to be the child of Abraham. I could have so easily searched back then for Sigfried in the US and found what I found just this past week.

But actually I am so glad that I didn’t. Because if I had done that in August, I might never have continued searching and working with Shirley and Val. I might never have brought Shirley and Val together, third cousins who’d never known each other before. I would have missed out on all the fun Val and Shirley and I have had as we worked together to solve this mystery. That makes this all very worthwhile.

All this, you might say, for people who aren’t even my blood relatives? For people who happened to marry my distant cousins Rachel, Augusta, and Fanny?

It’s moments like this that I want to say, “We are all cousins. Our families are all entangled. And every person’s life, every person’s story is worth remembering and is worth memorializing.”

The Benefits of Teamwork: Part I

Posted on February 8, 2016 by Amy

In my recent post, I mentioned that I had been working with two other researchers on the mystery of the three Selinger men who married my Cohen cousins. Frederick Selinger had married my cousin Rachel Cohen in 1880 in Washington, DC. Rachel was the daughter of Moses Cohen, my three times great-uncle (brother of my great-great-grandfather Jacob). Julius Selinger had married Augusta Cohen in 1884 in Washington, DC; Augusta was the daughter of Moses Cohen, Jr. and niece of Rachel Cohen. Finally, Alfred Selinger had married Fannie Cohen in Washington, DC, in 1893. Fannie was also a daughter of Moses Cohen, Jr., also a niece of Rachel Cohen, and a sister of Augusta Cohen.

Julius and Augusta Cohen Selinger passport photos 1922

Way back on July 22, 2014, when I first posted about the three Selinger men, I had speculated that they all had to be related. Both Julius and Frederick had documents indicating that they had been born in Hurben, Germany. Alfred and Julius had lived together in DC before they’d married, and Alfred had traveled with Julius and Augusta to Europe before he married Augusta’s sister Fannie. But I had nothing to support that speculation besides that circumstantial evidence.

Then a month later on August 5, 2014, I wrote about the marriage of Eleanor Selinger to Henry Abbot. Eleanor was the daughter of Julius Selinger and Augusta Cohen; Henry was the son of Hyams Auerbach (Abbot) and Helena Selinger (some records say Ellen or Helen). I was curious as to whether Helena Selinger was somehow related to Julius and the other Selinger men, Alfred and Frederick. I thought that she might be since how else would an American woman have met an Englishman? And the shared name seemed too uncommon to be pure coincidence.

Eleanor Selinger Abbot and Abbot family-page-001

Eleanor Selinger Abbot (center) with the Abbot family Courtesy of Val Collinson

As I wrote then, I had contacted the owner of an Ancestry family tree who turned out to be Eleanor Selinger and Henry Abbot’s great-niece: Val Collinson. Val and I exchanged a lot of information, but we could not at that time find any definitive evidence linking Helena Selinger, her great-grandmother, to Frederick or Julius or Alfred. All were born in Germany, but it seemed from the records in different locations. Helena’s marriage record indicated that her father’s name was Abraham Selinger, whereas Julius had indicated on his passport application that his father was Sigmund Selinger. We were stumped. And that was that. Or so I thought.

Fast forward a full year to August, 2015, when I received a comment on my earlier blog post about Eleanor Selinger and Henry Abbot from someone named Shirley Allen, whose grandparents were Jacob Rosenthal and Fanny Selinger:

Fanny Selinger Rosenthal and her husband Jacob Rosenthal and their children Gladys, Daniel, and Alfred
Courtesy of Shirley Allen

I’ve been delving into my paternal (Rosenthal) family history. I’ve found that my grandfather Jacob Rosenthal was married to Fanny Selinger. Unfortunately I haven’t found anything further about Fanny other than she was born in Germany, probably in 1857. However, I’ve recently come upon a wonderful paper lace invitation to the 1873 wedding of Hyams Auerbach and Helena Selinger that you referred to. What I don’t know is why Fanny would have been invited. Clearly she and Helena were related – but how ?

Needless to say, I was intrigued. Maybe Fanny Selinger was related to Helena and/or maybe she was related to Julius, Frederick, and Alfred. Shirley and I communicated by email, and we both started digging.

Invitation to the wedding of Helena Selinger and Hyms Auerbach
Courtesy of Shirley Allen

I found a website called Jewish Genealogy of Bavarian Swabia (JGBS) that had records for Hurben and located 25 Selingers in their database, including those for Alfred and for Julius, who were the sons of Seligman Selinger and Breinle Hofstadter and thus were brothers, as I had suspected. Shirley and I both thought that Seligman Selinger had been Americanized to Sigmund by Julius on his passport application and that the birth records for Julius and Alfred confirmed that they were in fact brothers.

I also found a birth record for Helena Selinger, whose father was Abraham Selinger, not Seligman Selinger. Abraham and his wife Rosalia Wilhelmsdoerfer had six children listed: Seligman (1842), Raphael (1843), Pauline (1845), Karolina (1847), Heinrich (1848), and Helena (1849). Pauline, Karolina, and Heinrich had all died as young children, leaving Seligman, Raphael, and Helena as the surviving children of Abraham. Here is Helena’s birth record from Hurben in August 1849.

Helena Selinger birth record from Hurben http://jgbs.org/SuperSearch.php?Sp=3&Book=birth&Com=11

Helena Selinger birth record from Hurben (third from bottom)
http://jgbs.org/SuperSearch.php?Sp=3&Book=birth&Com=11

But what about Frederick? And Fanny? And was there a connection between Helena’s father Abraham and the father of Julius and Alfred, Seligman Selinger?

A little more digging on the JGBS site revealed that both Abraham Selinger and Seligman Selinger were the sons of Joachim Selinger, thus confirming that they were brothers and thus that Helena was a first cousin to Julius and Alfred.

Marriage record from Hurben for Abraham Selinger, son of Joachim, and Rosalia Wilhelmsdoerfer http://jgbs.org/detail.php?book=marriage&id=%206671&mode=

Marriage record from Hurben for Abraham Selinger, son of Joachim, and Rosalia Wilhelmsdoerfer (second in page)
http://jgbs.org/detail.php?book=marriage&id=%206671&mode=

Seligmann Selinger, son of Joachim, marriage to Breinle Hoftsadter (second from bottom) 1848 http://jgbs.org/detail.php?book=marriage&id=%206695&mode=

That meant that Eleanor Selinger, daughter of Julius Selinger, had married her second cousin, Henry Abbot, son of Helena Selinger.

But that still left us wondering about Frederick Selinger and Shirley’s great-grandmother Fanny Selinger. How did they fit into this picture?

I contacted Ralph Bloch, the webmaster for the JGBS website, and he was extremely helpful. More helpful than I realized at the time, but more on that later. Ralph also could not find any evidence that Fanny was born in Hurben, and he reassured me that the birth records for Hurben were quite complete. He even searched through the original pages to be sure that Fanny hadn’t somehow been missed when the records were indexed. (There was a Fany Selinger born in the 1830s, but that would have been far too early for Shirley’s ancestor.) Ralph also sent a photograph of Seligman Selinger’s headstone, which confirmed that his father’s name was Joachim or Chaim, his Hebrew name.

So once again we hit the brick wall. We still had not found either Frederick or Fanny. Shirley said she would pursue it on her end, and I turned back to the other research I’d been doing when I received Shirley’s comment.

Not much happened again until late November when I heard again from Shirley, telling me that she had received a copy of Fanny Selinger’s marriage certificate, which revealed that Fanny was the daughter of Abraham Selinger. Now we could link Fanny to Helena, also the daughter of Abraham, as well as to Julius and Alfred, Abraham’s nephews. But we didn’t know if Fanny and Helena were both the daughters of Rosalia Wilhelmsdoerfer.

Shirley’s research of UK records showed that by 1871 Abraham was married to a woman named Gali, and we assumed that Abraham had left Hurben at some point, that his first wife Rosalia had died, and that he had had several children with Gali. That is what the UK census records from 1871 seemed to reflect. Abraham and Gali were living with Sigfried (28), Helena (20), Cornelia (18), and Oskar (4). But there was neither a Fanny nor a Frederick.

Abraham Selinger and family 1881 UK census
Class: RG10; Piece: 555; Folio: 86; Page: 3; GSU roll: 823397
Description
Enumeration District : 10
Source Information
Ancestry.com. 1871 England Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004.
Original data: Census Returns of England and Wales, 1871. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1871.

Abraham died in 1880, and in 1881, Gali was living with four children, but aside from Oskar (13), they were all different from those on the 1871 census: Morris (28), Flora (surname Wallach) (25), and Sidney (23). Now I was really confused. Who were these people, and where had they been in 1871? Flora was presumably married to someone named Wallach and now a widow, but Morris would have been eighteen in 1871 and Sidney only thirteen. Where were they living? Who were they? None of those children were listed on the Hurben birth register on the JGBS site; in fact, there were no children listed for Abraham Selinger and any wife in Hurben after Helena’s birth in 1849.

Gali Selinger and family 1881 UK census
Class: RG11; Piece: 472; Folio: 118; Page: 55; GSU roll: 1341103
Description
Enumeration District : 9 Original data: Census Returns of England and Wales, 1881. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1881

I assumed that Morris, Flora, Sidney, and Oscar, all born after 1850, were born in a different place and perhaps to a different mother. Certainly Oskar had to be Gali’s child since he was so much younger than all the rest and only four on the 1871 census.

Searching again on Ancestry, I found a new record: an entry for Abraham, Rosalia, Seligman, and Raphael Selinger on the Mannheim, Germany, family register dated November 26, 1848. What were they doing in Mannheim? By that time the three younger children, Pauline, Karolina, and Heinrich, had died. Perhaps they needed a change of scenery. But what about Helena? She was born in Hurben in 1849.

Then I found a second Mannheim family register that included Helena, the final entry on the page:

Abraham Selinger and family, Mannheim register
Ancestry.com. Mannheim, Germany, Family Registers, 1760-1900 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.
Original data: Polizeipräsidium Mannheim Familienbögen, 1800-1900. Digital images. Stadtarchiv Mannheim — Institut für Stadtgeschichte, Mannheim, Germany.

My friends in the German Genealogy group, Heike Keohane, Matthias Steinke, and Bradley Hernlem, came to my rescue and translated it to read, “Helene, his daughter, here born the 22 August 1849.” So Helena’s birth is entered on the Hurben birth records (on the same date) and on the Mannheim records. I’ve no idea which is the correct birthplace; maybe Rosalia went home to Hurben to give birth and returned to Mannheim afterwards where the family was living.

But perhaps now I could find out where Frederick was born, not to mention Morris, Flora, Sidney, and Oscar. Maybe they were born in Mannheim. I checked the Mannheim birth records from 1853 through 1866 and found not one person named Selinger. I checked over and over, looking at each page until my eyes were blurry. There were no Selingers born in Mannheim during that period that I could find.

Then I discovered that Oskar Selinger had listed Ansbach as his birth place on his UK naturalization papers and thought that perhaps the family had moved from Mannheim to Ansbach.

Oscar Selinger UK naturalization papers
The National Archives; Kew, Surrey, England; Duplicate Certificates of Naturalisation, Declarations of British Nationality, and Declarations of Alienage; Class: HO 334; Piece: 54
Description
Description : Piece 054: Certificate Numbers A20701 – A21000

I had no luck locating Ansbach birth records for that period, and by then it was Thanksgiving, and other matters distracted me, and I put the Selinger mystery on the back burner.

To be continued…..

Two More Generations Back! The Amazing Seligmanns

Posted on February 4, 2016 by Amy

Get ready for a real brain twister here.

As I mentioned in my last post, my cousin Wolfgang sent me several new documents relating to our mutual Seligmann ancestors. Wolfgang and his mother received these from Beate Goetz, who had also sent me several important documents over a year ago. I continue to be amazed by how much information is available about my Seligmann forebears.

The first document is a death certificate for Jakob Seligmann, my four-times great-grandfather, father of Moritz Seligmann and grandfather of Bernard Seligman. Until now Jakob was the earliest relative I had found in the Seligmann line; he was born in Gaulsheim, Germany in 1773 and died there in 1851. His wife, my four-times great-grandmother, was Martha Mayer.

Jakob Seligmann death record

With help from Wolfgang, his mother, and my friend Matthias Steinke, I learned that this document says that Jakob Seligmann died on December 21, 1851, when he was 78 years old. He was born in Gaulsheim, the son of Seligmann Hirsch, deceased, a merchant in Gaulsheim, and Mina nee Mayer. The informants were his son Leopold Seligmann and Konrad Vollmer, not related. What was most exciting about this document was that it revealed the names of Jakob’s parents: Seligmann Hirsch and Mina Mayer.

Seligmann Hirsch and Mina Mayer were thus my five-times great-grandparents. I now had another generation back to add to my family tree. And then something occurred to me. When I saw that Mina’s birth name had been Mayer, I was puzzled. Was she related to her daughter-in-law Martha Mayer? Of course, it could be. But when I thought about it a bit more, I realized that when Mina was born in the mid-18^th century, Jews were not using surnames. Instead, they were using patronymics—Mina was probably the daughter of a man whose first name was Mayer, not whose surname was Mayer. She was Mina bat (daughter of) Mayer.

So if Jakob Seligmann’s father was Seligmann Hirsch, it meant that he was probably Seligmann ben (son of) Hirsch. That meant that the Seligmann surname really came from Jakob’s father’s first name. When Jakob had to adopt a surname in Napoleonic times, he must have taken his patronymic of Jakob ben (son of) Seligmann and compressed it into a first name and surname, creating Jakob Seligmann. Seligmann ben Hirsch was thus the original source for the Seligmann surname that survives to this day in my family with Wolfgang himself.

And that meant that Seligmann ben Hirsch was the son of a man named Hirsch, who was my six-times great-grandfather.

That hunch was corroborated by another bit of evidence that Wolfgang brought to my attention. Back in July 2015, I posted about Moritz Seligmann’s sister, Martha Seligmann, who had married a man named Benjamin Seligmann, son of Isaac Seligmann and Felicitas Goetzel. Martha and Benjamin’s son Siegfried had married Moritz and Eva Seligmann’s daughter Caroline. Caroline and Siegfried were the parents of Emil Seligmann, who created that very long and detailed family tree I wrote about here. That is, Emil was the grandson of both Moritz Seligmann AND his sister Martha Seligmann. He was his own second cousin.

Here’s the chart I posted last time. I know this is all confusing, but if I don’t write it down, I will never remember my own thought processes.

Pedigree Chart for Emil Seligmann

Or as I wrote then, “Emil’s father Siegfried was the son of Martha Seligmann; his mother Karoline was the daughter of Moritz Seligmann. Moritz and Martha were siblings, so Siegfried and Karoline were first cousins. Thus, Emil’s paternal grandmother Martha and his maternal grandfather Moritz were sister and brother. Now if in fact Benjamin Seligmann, Martha’s husband, was also a cousin, there is truly a remarkable amount of inbreeding there.”

And I think that’s in fact the case: Benjamin and Martha were also first cousins. Back in July I had thought that perhaps Benjamin Seligmann and his wife Martha Seligmann were cousins since both had the surname Seligmann. I thought that their fathers, Isaac and Jakob, respectively, could have been brothers, but I had no way of proving it. But now I know from Jakob’s death certificate that his father’s name was Seligmann ben Hirsch. Was that also the name of Isaac’s father?

A look at Isaac’s gravestone from the Steinheim Institute website revealed this, one of the most beautiful grave inscriptions I’ve ever seen:


האיש החשוב משכיל וטהור		Here lies the respected man wise and pure,
החבר ר’הירש בן כ”ה זעליגמאן		the Torah Scholar Mr. Hirsch, son of the honored Mr. Seligmann of
גוילסהיים: למלאכתו מלאכת		Gaulsheim. For his work was Heaven’s work. As swift as
שמים כצבי מהיר אור תורתו	5	a deer was the light of his Torah. Like a sapphire.
כספיר תאיר צדק קדמו פעמיו:		righteousness was before him. A wholly righteous man, great in deeds, doing
איש תמים ורב פעלי’ גומל חסדים		many acts of lovingkindness for the
רבים: לרעבים וצמאים		hungry and thirsty.
אורו נגנז יום וי”ו ך”ה ובא		He died on six, 25 Iyar, and he came
למנוחתו כבוד יו’ א’ך”ו אייר	10	to his honored resting place Day 1, 27 Iyar.
לפרט יקר בעיני ד’המות’ לחסידי’		Especially dear in the eyes of the Lord is the death of the pious.
תנצב”ה		May his soul be bound up in the bonds of eternal life.

(Thank you to Neil, Bracha, and Gerald from Tracing the Tribe on Facebook for help in translating the Hebrew; the original German translation on the Steinheim site did not translate well into English using Google Translate, so I decided it would be better to get a translation of the Hebrew directly rather than getting a translation of the translation. If the lines of the translation do not line up exactly with the Hebrew text, that is my error, not that of my translators.)

And thank you to my friend Dorothee who told me about the link to the photograph of the headstone.

Hirsch “Isaac” ben Seligmann headstone
Found at http://www.steinheim-institut.de/daten/picsbng/xl/0358_bng.jpg

“Isaac’s” Hebrew name was Hirsch, son of Seligmann. His father was thus named Seligmann, as was Jakob’s father. Furthermore, Jewish naming patterns suggest that Isaac’s father could have been Seligmann son of Hirsch, the man who was also Jakob’s father. Hirsch/”Isaac” was older than Jakob; when Seligmann son of Hirsch had his first son, he named him for his own deceased father, Hirsch. Jakob and Hirsch/“Isaac” were most likely brothers, both sons of Seligmann ben Hirsch.

Why then is Isaac referred to as Isaac, not Hirsch as his gravestone indicates? I don’t know. The Steinheim Institute site notes that “Hirsch from Gaulsheim called Isaac Seligmann. He was a schoolteacher in Bingen,” without further explanation. On the page for Hirsch/Isaac’s son Benjamin, the Steinheim site comments that “Benjamin Seligmann was in Gaulsheim (today district of Bingen), the son of school teacher Hirsch (later: Isaac) 1798 Seligmann and his wife Felicity born.” [Translation by Google Translate] Hirsch must have changed his name to Isaac.

So that means that Benjamin Seligmann, son of Hirsch/Isaac, and Martha Seligmann, daughter of Jakob, were first cousins. Their son Siegfried was thus not only their son but also a first cousin removed from each of his parents. Oy vey. Siegfried then married his first cousin Caroline, daughter of his mother’s brother Moritz. ENDOGAMY, anyone?? No wonder Emil’s tree was so convoluted!

Here is an updated pedigree chart for Emil Seligmann. Notice that Seligmann ben Hirsch and Mina Mayer appear as his great-grandparents in three different places:

Extended Pedigree Chart for Emil Seligmann

Where am I? Oh, right. I now know that my six-times great-grandfather was named Hirsch and that he had a son named Seligmann, who had at least two children, Hirsch (who became Isaac) and Jakob.

But what about Jakob Seligmann’s wife Martha, daughter of Mayer, my four-times great-grandmother? The second document Wolfgang sent to me was her death certificate. Martha died on December 17, 1849 in Gaulsheim when she was 76 years old. She was born in Oberingelheim and was the daughter of Jakob Mayer, deceased, a merchant in Oberingelheim, and Odilia, nee Simon. The informants were her husband, Jakob Seligmann, and Konrad Vollmer, who was not related to her.

Martha Seligmann nee Mayer death record

Thus, I now know another set of five-times great-grandparents, Martha’s parents: Jakob Mayer (probably Jakob ben Mayer) and Odilia Simon (probably Odilia daughter of Simon). And I know where to search for them: Oberlingelheim. And if I am right about the patronymics, then I know two more of my sixth-great-grandfathers, Mayer, father of Jakob, and Simon, father of Odilia.

All that from two pieces of paper dating from the mid-nineteenth century.

Thank you, Beate Goetz, Wolfgang Seligmann and his mother Annlis, Matthias Steinke, and the members of Tracing the Tribe, for all your help.

Why I Love the Internet: The World Wide Web

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Amy

Internet (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Internet continues to provide me with so much more than access to information. Through my blog, Ancestry, Facebook, Google, and ordinary old email, I continue to find and be found by cousins all over the world. In the last two weeks, I have seen my network of cousins expand and greatly enrich my knowledge and understanding of my family history. So a few updates.

First, I heard from a relative of Margaret Swem, the wife of Felix Schoenthal, my Boston relative, and she filled me in on the background and family of Margaret. Quite interesting information that I will add to the post about Felix and his family. Once again, having a blog proved useful because Margaret’s relative found my blog by Googling Margaret Swem’s name.

Second, an Israeli second cousin, once removed, of my husband found me through my tree on Ancestry. I haven’t even done very much yet on my husband’s family, but through this new cousin we’ve learned a great deal about the Shrage family in Zabarazh, a town once in Galicia but now part of Ukraine. It’s been very exciting learning from our new Israeli cousin.

Third, I’ve heard from a descendant of Hettie Schoenthal, one of Simon Schoenthal’s younger children about whom I’ve yet to blog. This new cousin has shared some of Hettie’s own remembrances of her life as well as other stories. I am looking forward to incorporating some of those into the blog as well as some photographs.

Fourth, I’ve been in touch with two British relatives of the UK Selinger cousins, relatives of Julius, Alfred, and Frederick Selinger, all of whom married my Cohen relatives. I then put the two of them in touch as they had not previously known each other despite being cousins. That gave me great satisfaction, and now all three of us are hunting for answers about the connections among some of the Selingers.

Fifth, I am in touch with a Goldfarb cousin and hoping to learn more about this recently discovered branch of my Brotman family line. I just received a huge package of information that I need to go through, enter into my tree, and research.

Sixth, another Hamberg cousin just contacted me this morning.

And last but definitely not least, my cousin Wolfgang in Germany sent me new information about our Seligmann family line. He and his mother received four new documents about our ancestors. The first reveals two more generations back in the line of Jacob Seligmann, my four-times great-grandfather from Gaulsheim, Germany. I will be blogging separately about these documents and what they revealed in the next few days before I return again to the children of Simon Schoenthal.

English: internet Español: internet (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Turning on my computer in the morning has become a real treat, waiting to see who has found me, who has responded to my inquiries, and which cousin has new information to share. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by my good fortune. Sure, there are still many people who don’t reply to my emails or Facebook messages, but for every person I have found or who has found me, I am so deeply grateful. The family tree keeps growing, and with it so does the world-wide web of fascinating and generous people whom I can call my cousins.

Two New Leaves for the Brotman Family Tree

Posted on January 28, 2016 by Amy

I love seeing the family trees grow with new babies, and Naomi Dombey Ratner, great-granddaughter of Max Brotman and my second cousin, once removed, was blessed with two new grandchildren over the last several months.

First, Ada Helene Ratner was born on July 8, 2015, to Naomi’s son Justin Ratner and his wife Tara Hawk.

Then, Elijah Eric Judy was born on December 8, 2015, to Naomi’s daughter Kara Ratner and Brian Judy.

Here is a photograph of the two new cousins taken in late December when Elijah was just a few weeks old and a more recent one of Elijah.

Elijah and Ada
Courtesy of Naomi Ratner

Elijah
Courtesy of Naomi Ratner

Ada and Elijah are the great-great-great-great-grandchildren of Joseph Brotman and his first wife Chaye Fortgang, the great-great-great-grandchildren of Max Brotman and Sophie Schmigrud, the great-great-grandchildren of Renee Brotman and Charles Haber, the great-grandchildren of Rosalind Haber and Daniel Dombey, and the grandchildren of Naomi Dombey and Eric Ratner. Ada and Elijah are my second cousins, three times removed.

Mazel tov to Naomi and her children on the births of Ada and Elijah! Welcome to the extended Brotman family!

Louis Mansbach Schoenthal: The Elusive Showman

Posted on January 25, 2016 by Amy



Embed from Getty Images

The third surviving child of Simon and Rose (Mansbach) Schoenthal was their son Louis.

Louis Mansbach Schoenthal
Courtesy of the family of Hettie Schoenthal Stein

Louis, born in 1878, was working as a cigar salesman on the 1900 census, living with his parents in Atlantic City. In 1904, he was working with his younger brothers Maurice, Martin, and Jacob in a cigar, stationery, laundry, sporting goods, and pool hall business in Atlantic City. I have a hard time imagining how they pulled off so many diverse businesses, but that’s what the 1904 directory reflects:

Atlantic City directory 1904 Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

Louis married Mary Pomroy Dumbleton on October 27, 1906, in the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Camden, New Jersey. Mary, who was fourteen years older than Louis, was a Pennsylvania native whose parents were Andrew J. Pomeroy, a Pennsylvania native and a Civil War veteran who had once worked as a painter, and Adelaide Mann. Mary’s father had been disabled after the war and was living in a soldier’s home in Wisconsin from 1877 until he died on March 10, 1912. Her mother, also a Pennsylvania native, died in 1875 when Mary was only eleven years old. Although her two younger sisters were living with their grandparents in 1880, Mary, who was sixteen, was working in a hosiery mill in Philadelphia, living as a boarder in someone’s household.

Mary married William Dumbleton on December 21, 1882, when she was nineteen. She was still married to him in 1900, living in Camden, New Jersey, but on December 18, 1900, her husband William died at age 38.

What a sad life Mary had lived to that point. It sounds like something out of a novel by Charles Dickens. Her mother died, and her father lived in a soldier’s home in Wisconsin, and Mary ended up boarding with another family, working in a mill. She married at nineteen, only to become a widow when she was only 36 years old. She and William do not appear to have had any children.

It was six years later that Mary married Louis Schoenthal.

Marriage record of Louis schoenthal and Mary Pomroy Dumbleton
Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Collection Name: Historic Pennsylvania Church and Town Records; Reel: 1093

In 1908, Louis ran into some trouble when caught gambling:

Eight policemen early this morning captured ten poker players in a gambling place on Atlantic avenue, near Delaware avenue, conducted, it is alleged, by Louis Schoenthal. He was held for the grand jury by Justice Williams. The players were so intent with the cards, a twenty-five cent limit game, that the officers had entered the room before they were seen. The players were held under nominal bail, as all were well known, although they registered under fictitious names.

If he’d waited another seventy years or so, he’d have been able to play as much poker as he wanted in the casinos that now line the Boardwalk in Atlantic City. Or maybe even owned a casino.

In 1909, Mary Schoenthal is listed without her husband in the Atlantic City directory for that year. Where was Louis? By 1910, Louis was far from Atlantic City and was one of the few children of Simon and Rose never to live again in the World’s Playground. Instead, he and Mary moved to California and were living in Los Angeles in 1910. Although the census indexer listed his name as Morris and it certainly looks like it says Morris, I am quite certain that this was Louis and Mary Schoenthal, given the places of birth given for themselves and their parents as well as the occupation given for Louis/Morris. He was the proprietor of a stationery store, continuing in the business in which he’d been engaged in Atlantic City.

“Morris” and Mary Schoenthal 1910 US census
Year: 1910; Census Place: Los Angeles Assembly District 72, Los Angeles, California; Roll: T624_82; Page: 6B; Enumeration District: 0168; FHL microfilm: 1374095

What had driven them to California? Was it his arrest for gambling? Or the lure of California itself, which drew so many people in the early 20^th century? Had he changed his name to Morris to hide from the Atlantic City police? After all, his poker players had played under fictitious names so this was a practice with which Louis was familiar. Is that why Mary was listed alone in 1909 in Atlantic City?

Searching for Louis and Mary in the Los Angeles directories proved extremely puzzling. There are no listings for Louis or Mary (or Morris) until 1912, when there is a listing for Mrs. Mary Schoenthal, living at 930 ½ Santee Street. In 1913, Louis finally shows up as Louis Schoenthal, also living at 930 ½ Santee, in the cigar business. (His cousin Meyer L. Schoenthal is also now appearing in the Los Angeles directory; he was the son of Henry Schoenthal, as discussed here.)

Things got very confusing in 1914. Now there are listings for Louis N. Schoenthal, Morris L. Schoenthal, and Sidney R. Schoenthal, all residing at 930 ½ Santee. Morris is listed as the proprietor of Lou’s Place cigars, and both Louis and Sidney were working in that business as well, it would appear. So who were Morris and Sidney? Sidney is easy; he was the youngest child of Simon and Rose Schoenthal and the youngest brother of Louis. But Morris?

My first thought was that Morris was Maurice Schoenthal, another younger brother, but Maurice (as well as the next brother, Martin) are both listed in the Chicago city directory for 1914, Maurice as a credit manager and Martin as a salesman, so Maurice could not have been the “Morris” listed in the Los Angeles directory for that.

In 1915 there is no listing for Louis Schoenthal at all, but there are listings for Meyer L. Schoenthal, Morris Schoenthal, and Sidney Schoenthal (residing at 930 Santee). I am speculating that Morris was the same person as Louis; his listing is for a cigar, billiards, and barber shop. Then, in 1916, the Los Angeles city directory has two listings for Louis Schoenthal, one, simply as Lou, who was a barber and cigar salesman, and one listed as Louis M, who was a clerk. I don’t know whether Louis had two listings and two jobs or whether there happened to be another Louis M. Schoenthal in Los Angeles. Seems unlikely. The 1917 directory also has two Louis Schoenthals, both living on the same street, South Hill, but at different numbers and with different occupations:

1917 directory for Los Angeles Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

What happened to Morris? (Sidney is gone also.) The 1918 directory has no listings for Morris or for Louis, but does have one for Sidney. What was going on?

Louis’ World War I draft registration answers this in part:

Louis Schoenthal World War I draft registration
Registration State: California; Registration County: San Francisco; Roll: 1544266; Draft Board: 13

Here Louis is Louis Maurice Schoenthal, not Louis Mansbach Schoenthal, so he does seem to have altered his name a bit. He is listed as married to Mary D. Schoenthal, residing at 480 Pine Street in San Francisco, working as a self-employed salesman in San Francisco. So as of 1918, Louis and Mary had left Los Angeles for San Francisco. On the 1920 census, Louis is listed as Lou living as a lodger in San Francisco, working as a clerk in a dry goods store. Listed below him is Adel Schoenthal. Was this Mary? Or a new wife? Mary’s mother was Adelaide, and she had a younger sister by the same name. Was Mary now using an alias of some sort? Sheesh, these people are confusing!

The 1923 San Francisco directory has a listing for Louie M. Schoenthal, a salesman, at 480 Pine Street. By 1928 he had moved to 1124 O’Farrell Street and was a salesman for the Superfine Candy Company. In 1929, living at the same address, his occupation was abbreviated as “confr mfr.” Confectioner manufacturer?

Unfortunately, Louis is not listed in the 1930, 1931, 1932, or the 1933 San Francisco directory, nor can I find him on the 1930 US census. I have no idea where he might have disappeared to during those years. In 1934, he resurfaces in San Francisco, however, living with Mary at 954 Eddy Street and working as a laborer. In 1935 he is listed as Louis Schoental, living at 844 California, with no mention of Mary in the listing. On the 1940 census, Louis was living in a hotel, alone, giving his marital status as single and his work status as retired. He was 62 years old. I cannot find any records for Mary after the 1934 directory listing. I don’t know if they had divorced or she had died between 1934 and 1940. He did not list himself as either divorced or widowed, so I cannot tell.

When Louis registered for the “old man’s draft” in 1942, he gave his name as Louis Mansbach Schoenthal this time. He was still living in San Francisco, working at Sammy’s Fur Shop. He provided Sammy’s name and address as the person who would always know his address.

Louis Schoenthal World War I draft registration World War II Draft Cards (4th Registration) for the State of California; State Headquarters: California; Microfilm Roll: 603155

Louis Schoenthal World War II draft registration
World War II Draft Cards (4th Registration) for the State of California; State Headquarters: California; Microfilm Roll: 603155

The only other information I found about Louis only added more confusion. It seems that in the summer of 1946, Louis had a stroke that landed him in the hospital (Laguna Honda) for an extended time. I only know this because of three mentions of his hospital stay in Billboard under the caption Showfolks of America. Apparently, Louis became or had been a showfolk or a showman. Billboard, August 24, 1946, p. 73; September 7, 1946, p. 74; September 21, 1946, p. 69 (all found through Google Books).

What, you might ask (as I did), does that mean? I can’t really find a definitive explanation, but from what I did find both in these articles and the sections of Billboard where they appeared (under “Carnivals”) as well as in other sources, I believe that showfolk or showmen were the people who set up booths as vendors at outdoor carnivals or who performed at those outdoor venues. Maybe when Louis was a candy salesman and/or manufacturer he had been working the carnival trade? Is that why he disappeared between 1929 and 1934—was he traveling with the carnival? I wish I knew.

English: Cotton candy Ελληνικά: Μαλλί της γριάς (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

According to the California Death Index, Louis Schoenthal died on June 26, 1956, in Napa, California. He was 78 years old. He died far away from all of his siblings; he was no longer married to Mary Dumbleton, and he had no children. I wish I could have found out more about Louis. There are so many questions left unanswered, and given that he has no direct descendants and lived so far from his family, I am not sure I will ever find the answers.

Jews in Arizona: Gertrude Schoenthal Miller and Her Family

Posted on January 21, 2016 by Amy

As we will see, Harry Schoenthal and his sons were not the only descendants of Simon and Rose (Mansbach) Schoenthal to spend much of their lives in Atlantic City; five of Harry’s siblings also spent most of their lives there. Harry’s younger sister Gertrude had left Atlantic City for Arizona after she married Jacob J. Miller in 1898, but she returned to Atlantic City, albeit a quarter century later.

Gertrude Schoenthal Miller
Courtesy of the family of Hettie Schoenthal Stein

As I wrote earlier, Jacob Miller was a German immigrant who had arrived in the US in the 1880s (records are in conflict as to whether it was 1880, 1882, or 1888, but 1882 is supported by three different records so may be the most accurate date). I don’t know how Jacob met Gertrude or where Jacob was living before he married Gertrude, but they must have moved to Arizona not long after they married because Jacob was listed in the Tucson directory in the cigar business in 1899. On the 1900 census, Jacob and Gertrude and their infant daughter Juliet (sometimes spelled Juliette) were living in Pima County, Arizona, where Jacob was a grocer. (Tucson is in Pima County, so I assume they were living in or near Tucson but the enumeration sheet does not identify the city, only the county.)

Map of Arizona highlighting Pima County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When I looked further down the enumeration sheet where Jacob and Gertrude and Juliet were listed, I noticed that there were two other Millers just a few entries below that of Jacob and Gertrude: Albert Miller and his brother Solomon. The census record reports that Albert and Solomon were also born in Germany and that Albert was also a grocer (Solomon a store clerk). A little further research into the backgrounds of Albert and Solomon confirmed my hunch that these were Jacob’s brothers. Albert had been in Arizona since at least 1896; he had married his wife Fanny Goldbaum in Pima County on January 19, 1896. Research into Fanny’s background revealed that she had been living in Pima County since at least 1880 when she was just four years old.

Jacob Miller and family and his brothers on 1900 census
Year: 1900; Census Place: Precinct 1, Pima, Arizona Territory; Roll: 47; Page: 18B; Enumeration District: 0049; FHL microfilm: 1240047

Based on these observations, my hunch is that Albert, the oldest brother, must have moved out west to Arizona sometime before 1896 and then lured his two younger brothers, Jacob and Solomon, to join him out there. It reminds me of the story of Bernard Seligman, my great-great-grandfather, who followed his older brother Sigmund to Santa Fe and was then followed by their younger brother Adolf to that city as well.

I am sure that like my Seligmann ancestors, the Miller brothers were among a very small number of Jewish settlers in Arizona during that time. According to the Arizona Jewish History Museum, there was no synagogue in the entire Arizona Territory until Eva Mansfield purchased land to build one in Tucson in 1900. The history of the Jewish community of Tucson is also discussed on the Jewish Virtual Library website:

The total Jewish population of Arizona in the 1880s was estimated at about 50 people, so the numbers in Tucson must have been fewer. ….

Almost none of the descendants of the pioneer families are counted among the Jews of Tucson today. Many of the original Jewish settlers fled to other parts of the West or the nation in the late 1880s and 1890s when an economic depression hit the Arizona territory. Moreover, those Jews who had already made money left the community because of the unbearable heat, often over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, which could last sometimes from May through October.

In the early 20^th century a number of Jews remained in Tucson as is evidenced by the presence of a Hebrew Ladies’ Benevolent Society and the building in 1910 of the first Jewish temple in Arizona: Temple Emanu-el (Reform).

Until World War II, and even among some of the pioneers, the Jews who arrived in Tucson came because someone in the family needed the dry air for his/her health.

So Jacob and his brothers appear to have settled in Arizona and stayed when many others, Jewish and non-Jewish, had left. Had they been drawn to the dry air for their health? Or did they see opportunities where others did not?

Stone Street Synagogue, first synagogue in Arizona
1914
Found at http://www.jmaw.org/temple-emanuel-tucson-synagogue/

Jacob and Gertrude had their second child, Harry, in Arizona in 1902. According to the 1910 census, however, their third son Sylvester was born in 1906 in New Jersey, so perhaps Jacob and Gertrude had returned to the east coast for some time in 1906, but they then had returned to Arizona by 1910. Jacob was the manager of the liquor department of a wholesale store in Tucson, Arizona, according to the 1910 census record.

Jacob Miller and family 1910 US census
Year: 1910; Census Place: Tucson Ward 2, Pima, Arizona; Roll: T624_41; Page: 7A; Enumeration District: 0104; FHL microfilm: 1374054

When he registered for the draft in 1918, Jacob was living in Ray, Pinal County, Arizona, and working for himself as a merchant. The 1920 census confused me because Jacob is listed twice: one enumeration page dated January 21, 1920, has him living with his brother Albert in Ray, Arizona, where Jacob was again working as a grocery store merchant and Albert as a dry goods store merchant. Both were still married according to that record. The other enumeration page from the 1920 census that includes Jacob , dated January 10-12, 1920, has him living in Tucson with Gertrude and his three children and working as the proprietor of a general merchandise store. Did Jacob move between January 12 and January 21? Or was he living in Ray while his family lived in Tucson? Tucson is 90 miles from Ray, so he was not commuting from home. Perhaps Jacob and Albert believed that there were better bisiness opportunities for merchants in Ray, but that there families would be better off in Tucson.

Jacob Miller with family 1920 census
Year: 1920; Census Place: Tucson Ward 1, Pima, Arizona; Roll: T625_50; Page: 12A; Enumeration District: 97; Image: 876

Jacob Miller and brother 1920 US census Year: 1920; Census Place: Ray, Pinal, Arizona; Roll: T625_51; Page: 14B; Enumeration District: 114; Image: 389

It does seem that Jacob stayed in Ray for too long. The 1922 Tucson, Arizona, city directory lists Jacob Miller as a grocer, living with Gertrude; there are also separate listings for their children Juliet and Harry, described as students, living at the same address as their parents. The 1923 directory for Tucson has the same entries. But the 1924 Tucson directory does not have any of them listed.

Like those who had left Arizona before them, as mentioned above, Jacob and Gertrude left Arizona and returned to the east. The family must have moved to Atlantic City sometime after 1923 and before 1926, because they appear in the 1926 directory for Atlantic City. The family was residing at 141 St. James Avenue, which was the address for the Hotel Lockhart. Jacob was working for the Hotel Lockhart as was his son Harry; Sylvester was working at the Rittenhouse Hotel. Gertrude’s mother, Rosa Mansbach Schoenthal, was also living at the Hotel Lockhart that year. The owner of the Hotel Lockhart in 1919-1920 was Mrs. J. Wirtschafter, the mother of Esther Wirtschafter, who was the wife of Harry Schoenthal, Gertrude’s brother. Thus, Jacob and Gertrude were living in a hotel owned by Harry’s mother-in-law. And it was at that same address, 141 St. James Avenue, that Harry and Esther Schoenthal had been living in 1920.

Hotel Lockhart
Found at http://www.westjerseyhistory.org/images/pcards/atlantic/index26.shtml

Thus, Gertrude’s brother Harry Schoenthal made it easier for his sister to return to Atlantic City by providing job opportunities for her husband Jacob and her sons Harry and Sylvester as well as providing a place for them all to live at the Hotel Lockhart.

In 1925, Gertrude and Jacob’s daughter Juliet married Arthur Ferrin in Philadelphia. Arthur was not from Philadelphia or from Atlantic City. He was born in 1881 in Tucson, Arizona, making him almost twenty years older than Juliet.

Arthur H. Ferrin 1905
courtesy of the family of Hettie Schoenthal Stein

He had been previously married to a woman named Jennie Della Owens, with whom he had had a son named Harold in 1915. Jennie had died in 1919. In 1920, Arthur was listed on the census in Graham, Arizona, married to a woman named Marie, who was only nineteen. Marie died in San Francisco, California, a year and half later on September 1, 1921, from typhoid fever. She was just 21 years old. From the death certificate, it appears that she had arrived in California just 14 days earlier.

Marie Jacobson Ferrin death record
Ancestry.com. California, San Francisco Area Funeral Home Records, 1895-1985 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.
Original data: San Francisco Area Funeral Home Records, 1895-1985. Microfilm publication, 1129 rolls. Researchity. San Francisco, California.

So Juliet’s husband Arthur had been twice widowed when he married her in 1925. Juliet and Arthur were living in Tucson in 1926, but by March 1929, they had also moved to Atlantic City as their first child, Helene, was born there that month. On the 1930 census, Juliet, her husband Arthur, his son Harold, and their daughter Helene were living with Juliet’s parents and her brother Harry at 141 St. James Avenue, the address of the Hotel Lockhart. Jacob Miller was now listed as the hotel proprietor; his son Harry was working as a clerk, and his son-in-law Arthur was working as a waiter, both at the hotel. (Arthur seemed to have shaved several years off his age; he was born in 1881, but later records say 1884, and on the 1930 census, when he should have been listed as 48 or 49, his age is reported as 42.)

Jacob Miller, Arthur Ferrin, and families
1930 US census
Year: 1930; Census Place: Atlantic City, Atlantic, New Jersey; Roll: 1308; Page: 16B; Enumeration District: 0017; Image: 744.0; FHL microfilm: 2341043

Thus, by 1930, yet another household of the Simon Schoenthal family was living and working in the Atlantic City hospitality business.

Meanwhile, Gertrude and Jacob’s youngest child Sylvester Miller was a student at the University of Pennsylvania in the late 1920s and became a licensed dentist in Pennsylvania on July 19, 1928. He married Isabella Lazarus in Philadelphia in 1933. She was a Philadelphia native, the daughter of Joseph Lazarus and Aimee Frechie. Joseph was a manufacturer of shirtwaists. Sylvester and Isabella would have two children during the 1930s. Isabella became an artist of some note. You can see one of her paintings here.

When I saw the name Frechie, I knew it was familiar and checked my tree. Harry Frechie, also born in Philadelphia about four years after Aimee, had married Minnie Cohen, my great-grandfather Emanuel Cohen’s niece. Could Harry and Aimee be related? Both had fathers from Antwerp, Belgium, and they both had settled in Philadelphia. Harry’s father Ephraim was an auctioneer. Aimee’s father Meyer Solomon was a cigar manufacturer. They were buried in different cemeteries, and I could not find the name of Meyer’s parents to compare to the parents of Ephraim. I’ve no idea how common a name Frechie is in Belgium, so perhaps it’s just a coincidence. But if Aimee and Harry were in fact cousins, it would be one more twisted branch of my ever-growing family tree.

Harry Miller also married in the 1930s. He married Mildred Pimes who was a Washington, DC, native, daughter of Max Pimes, a tailor born in England, and Ray or Rachel Frankfurther, a Virginia native. Harry and Mildred’s first child was born in August 1935 in Atlantic City so presumably they were married sometime in 1934 or before. They would have a second child a few years later.



http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/81773508

Thus, by 1940, all three of Gertrude (Schoenthal) and Jacob Miller’s children were married, and there were seven grandchildren, five living in the Atlantic City environs and two not too far away in Philadelphia. According to the 1940 census, Jacob was working at a restaurant; he was 66 years old, and Gertrude was 63. They were living at 4 Bartram Street in Atlantic City.

Both the 1938 and the 1941 Atlantic City directories list their daughter Juliet and her husband Arthur Ferrin living at 4 South Cambridge Street in Ventnor City; Juliet was the vice-president and Arthur was the secretary-treasurer of Atlantic Beverage Company, where his son Harold was also employed. (In the 1941 directory, Harold is listed with his wife Dorothy and residing at a different address.) The 1940 census is consistent with these listings.

Harry Miller and his family were living in Margate City, another community near Atlantic City, in 1940. Harry was a partner in a beverage company; the 1941 Atlantic City directory is more specific. Harry was the president of Atlantic Beverage Company.[1] The directory identified the company as a beer distributor.

Sylvester Miller was practicing dentistry and living with his family in Philadelphia.

Jacob Miller died on October 18, 1949, from coronary thrombosis and a heart attack; he was 76 years old and was buried at Mt. Sinai cemetery in Philadelphia. (There was a coroner’s inquest and thus two certificates.)

Jacob J. Miller death certificate before inquest
Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.
Original data: Pennsylvania (State). Death certificates, 1906–1963. Series 11.90 (1,905 cartons). Records of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Record Group 11. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Jacob J Miller death certificate after inquest
Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.
Original data: Pennsylvania (State). Death certificates, 1906–1963. Series 11.90 (1,905 cartons). Records of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Record Group 11. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

His wife, my first cousin twice removed Gertrude Schoenthal, died almost thirteen years later on January 4, 1962. She was 86 years old and was buried with Jacob at Mt. Sinai cemetery. (Gertrude must have died outside of Pennsylvania because there is no death certificate for her in the Pennsylvania death certificate database on Ancestry.)

Juliet Miller Ferrin lived to be 102; her husband Arthur Ferrin lived to 104. I could not find death records for Harry Miller or his wife Mildred, but another genealogy researcher claimed that Harry died in 1983 when he was 81 and that Sylvester Miller, the youngest child, died in 1980 when he was 74. I am still trying to confirm that information and have tried contacting a couple of presumed descendants, but have not heard back. Isabelle Lazarus Miller died on May 21, 1996.

I had no luck finding any newspaper articles about Gertrude and Jacob or any of their children. Maybe I will hear from a descendant and learn stories about Gertrude and her family that will go beyond the facts revealed in the census records, directories, and death certificates. There must be some good family stories about living in Tucson in the first part of the 20th century and about living in Atlantic City when it was the “World’s Playground.”

[1] I don’t know whether there is any connection between the Atlantic Beverage Company run by Harry Miller and his sister Juliet Ferrin and her husband Arthur Ferrin and the Atlantic Wine and Liquor Company with which Harry Schoenthal, Gertrude’s brother, had been associated in 1900.

Update on the Death of Norman Schoenthal and Why I Love Libraries and Librarians

Posted on January 18, 2016 by Amy

I never really realized all the things that librarians do until I starting doing genealogy research. I’ve loved libraries ever since my mother first took us to the local public library as small children on her first driving experience after she received her driver’s license. Those trips became a weekly adventure, and I remember the long, winding road that brought us to the library and the smell of the new books on display in the children’s room, which was on the lower level. And I remember how we each could pick a few books to check out and take home for the week to be returned the following week.

In my professional career, I also encountered amazing help from law libraries and librarians. They seemed able to find resources and books I’d never be able to find on my own. The librarians where I worked could find something in a few keystrokes that might take me hours to find, if I found it at all.

My latest experience with a librarian has reinforced my appreciation and gratitude for all that librarians do. In my last post, I wrote about the sad death of Norman Schoenthal at age 41 as recorded on his death certificate.

Delaware Death Records, 1855-1961,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KX3F-P3J : accessed 14 January 2016), Norman C Schoenthal, 15 Sep 1955; citing Wilmington, New Castle, Delaware, United States, Hall of Records, Dover; FHL microfilm .

I had wondered what Norman was doing in Delaware, why he was residing in Washington, DC, and whether or not his death was accidental, as originally reported, or a suicide, as the amended certificate indicates. I had written to the Wilmington Public Library to see if there was a news article about the incident, and a reference librarian there responded in less than 24 hours and sent me an article that addressed my question. For free! I am very grateful to Ben, that librarian, for helping me to solve the mystery of Norman Schoenthal.

Here is the article he sent, which is from the September 16, 1955, issue of the Wilmington Morning News (p.4):

Wilmington (DE) Morning News, September 16, 1955, p.4

Man Dies Under Truck Wheels

Norman C. Schoenthal, 41-year old Washington, D.C., hotel man, became Delaware’s 74^th highway fatality victim yesterday, when he was killed instantly by a truck on Fairview Avenue, just off the DuPont Highway at Farnhurst.

State troopers said the victim either slipped, fell or dived from the side of the road and was run over by the four tandem wheels of a 20-ton tractor trailer operated by George R. Lammy, 32, of near West Chester. The vehicle is owned by Trans Materials Company, Berwyn, Pa.

Troopers said Schoenthal was standing on the south side of Fairview Avenue near the Farnhurst Post Office, about 60 feet west of the DuPont Parkway. The driver told police he saw the man at the edge of the road as he drove past and declared the latter seemed to jump under the four wheels of the trailer.

Investigation showed that Schoenthal was engaged in the hotel business and had spent Wednesday night at the Twin Willows Tourist Home, just in the rear of the post office. His car was found at the tourist home. Police said he apparently was traveling alone.

Lammy was driving the gravel-filled truck into the Petrillo Brothers gravel pit, where hot mix asphaltic road surfacing material was being prepared.

The truck driver was arrested on a charge of manslaughter and held in $2000 bail by Magistrate Samuel J. Hatton of New Castle.

Troopers are continuing their investigation. [The remainder of the article is about an unrelated matter.]

The article answered some of my questions. It does not appear that Norman was a patient at the nearby state hospital. It does confirm that he was living in Washington, contrary to the burial card from Mt. Sinai cemetery where Norman was buried, which said he was residing in Atlantic City at the time of his death. The news article also suggests that Norman was still in the hotel business and was perhaps in Wilmington on business.

I also was able to find where the accident occurred, assuming that the post office is still in the same general location in Farnhurst. Du Pont Parkway still exists and runs north-south in Delaware (also known as Route 13), and the post office is located right off the parkway south of where the parkway now intersects with Interstate 295. Interestate 295 runs east-west and crosses into Delaware from New Jersey over the Delaware Memorial Bridge and runs west to connect with Interstate 95. According to Wikipedia, construction of the Farnhurst interchange on Interstate 295 was not completed until 1961; my guess is that the road that was Fairview Avenue in Farnhurst disappeared at some point after Norman’s death as part of the construction of this interchange. Probably the Two Willows Motel disappeared around that time as well.

https://www.google.com/maps/search/us+post+office+farnhurst+delaware/@39.6904184,-75.5890006,14z

But there are so many unanswered questions. Did Norman jump in front of the truck as the driver asserted and as the coroner apparently concluded? He had been recently divorced, had lost his father, and had sold his business in Florida. He could certainly have been depressed.

What happened to the driver, who had been arrested on manslaughter charges? Certainly if the death was ruled a suicide, the charges should have been dismissed, I would think. I asked Ben, the reference librarian in Wilmington, whether there were any follow-up stories about the investigation that had still been pending at the time this article was published, but he wrote back to say he’d been unable to find any. I guess the legal niceties were not as important to report as the gruesome death itself.

What a terribly sad way to die, whether it was accidental or intentional.

Thank you again, Ben and the Wilmington, Delaware, public library for your kind and generous assistance. And thank you to all librarians everywhere.

Brotmanblog: A Family Journey

Adventures in Genealogy

The Gift of Photography: Bringing Faces to the Names

Two Brothers in Chicago: One Stayed, One Left

Part II: The Benefits of Teamwork

The Benefits of Teamwork: Part I

Two More Generations Back! The Amazing Seligmanns

Why I Love the Internet: The World Wide Web

Two New Leaves for the Brotman Family Tree

Louis Mansbach Schoenthal: The Elusive Showman

Jews in Arizona: Gertrude Schoenthal Miller and Her Family

Update on the Death of Norman Schoenthal and Why I Love Libraries and Librarians

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