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

Posted on September 17, 2014 by Amy

Amsterdam coat of arms

T wo months ago I wrote a summary of my perspective on the descendants of Jacob and Sarah Jacobs Cohen and their thirteen children, including my great-grandfather Emanuel Cohen. I wrote about the way they managed to create a large network of pawnshops that provided support for the generations to come. Many of the Philadelphia Cohens stayed in the pawnshop business into the 20^th century. The generation that followed, those born in the 20^th century, began to move away from the pawn business and from Philadelphia. Descendants began to go to college and to become professionals. Today the great-great-grandchildren of Jacob and Sarah live all over the country and are engaged in many, many different fields. Few of us today can imagine living with twelve siblings over a pawnshop in South Philadelphia. We can’t fathom the idea of losing child after child to diseases that are now controlled by vaccinations and medicine. We take for granted the relative luxurious conditions in which we live today.

Philadelphia flag

The story of the Cohen family in Washington is much the same in some ways, different in other ways. Jacob’s brother Moses and his wife Adeline also started out as immigrants in the pawnshop business , first in Baltimore and then Washington. But unlike Jacob who lived to see his children become adults, Moses Cohen died at age 40 when his younger children were still under ten years old. Adeline was left to raise those young children on her own as she had likely raised her first born son, Moses Himmel Cohen, on her own until she married Moses Cohen, Sr. When I look at what those children accomplished and what their children then accomplished, I am in awe of what Adeline was able to do. For me, the story of the DC Cohens is primarily the story of Adeline Himmel Cohen for it was she, not Moses, who raised the five children who thrived here in the US. She somehow instilled in those children a drive to overcome the loss of their father, to take risks, to get an education, and to make a living.

Her son Moses, Jr., an immigrant himself, had nine children; his son, Myer, became a lawyer. To me it is quite remarkable that a first generation American, the son of a Jewish immigrant, was able to go to law school in the late 19^th century. Myer himself went on to raise a large family, including two sons who became doctors and one who became a high ranking official at the United Nations in its early years after World War II. Moses, Jr.’s other children also lived comfortable lives, working in their own businesses and raising families. These were first generation Americans who truly worked to find the American dream.

Adeline and Moses, Sr.’s other three children who survived to adulthood, Hart, JM, and Rachel Cohen, all took a big risk and moved, for varying periods of time, to Sioux City, Iowa. Even their mother Adeline lived out on the prairie for some years. JM stayed out west, eventually moving to Kansas City; he was able to send his two daughters to college, again something that struck me as remarkable for those times. His grandchildren were very successful professionally. Hart, who lost a son to an awful accident, had a more challenging life. His sister Rachel also had some heartbreak—losing one young child and a granddaughter Adelyn, but she had two grandsons who both appear to have been successful.

Three of the DC Cohen women married three Selinger brothers or cousins. Their children included doctors, a popular singer, and a daughter who returned to England several generations after her ancestors had left. The family tree gets quite convoluted when I try to sort out how their descendants are related, both as Cohens and as Selingers.

There were a number of heart-breaking stories to tell about the lives of some of these people, but overall like the Philadelphia Cohens, these were people who endured and survived and generally succeeded in having a good life, at least as far as I can tell. The DC Cohens, like the Philadelphia Cohens, have descendants living all over the United States and elsewhere and are working in many professions and careers of all types.

flag of Washington, DC

Looking back now at the story of all the Cohens, all the descendants of Hart Levy Cohen and Rachel Jacobs, I feel immense respect for my great-great-great grandparents. They left Amsterdam for England, presumably for better economic opportunities than Amsterdam offered at that time. In England Hart established himself as a merchant, but perhaps being a Dutch Jew in London was not easy, and so all five of Hart and Rachel’s children came to the US, Lewis, Moses, Jacob, Elizabeth, and Jonas, again presumably for even better opportunities than London had offered them. Eventually Hart himself came to the US, uprooting himself for a second time to cross the Atlantic as a man already in his seventies so that he could be with his children and his grandchildren. Rachel unfortunately did not survive to make that last move.

The flag of the City of London

Arriving in the US by 1850 in that early wave of Jewish immigration gave my Cohen ancestors a leg up over the Jewish immigrants who arrived thirty to sixty years later, like my Brotman, Goldschlager, and Rosenzweig ancestors. Of course, the Cohens had the advantage of already speaking English, unlike my Yiddish speaking relatives on my mother’s side. They also had the advantage of arriving at a time when there wre fewer overall immigrants, Jewish immigrants in particular and thus faced less general hostility than the masses of Jewish, Italian, and other immigrants who arrived in the 1890s and early 20^th century. Also, my Cohen relatives may not have been wealthy when they arrived, but Hart and his children already had experience as merchants and were able to establish their own businesses fairly quickly. Thus, by the time my mother’s ancestors started arriving and settling in the Lower East Side of NYC or in East Harlem, working in sweatshops and struggling to make ends meet, my father’s ancestors were solidly in the middle and upper classes in Philadelphia, Washington, Sioux City, Kansas City, Detroit, and Baltimore.

When I look at these stories together, I see the story of Jewish immigration in America. I see a first wave of Jews, speaking English, looking American, and living comfortably, facing a second wave who spoke Yiddish, looked old-fashioned, and lived in poverty. No wonder there was some tension between the two groups. No wonder they established different synagogues, different communities, different traditions.

A recent study suggests that all Ashkenazi Jews were descended from a small group of about 350 ancestors. We all must share some DNA to some extent. We are really all one family. But we have always divided ourselves and defined our subgroups differently—Orthodox, Conservative, Reform; Galitizianer or Litvak; Sephardic or Ashkenazi; Israeli or American; so on and so forth. We really cannot afford to do that in today’s world; we never really could. Today very few of us make distinctions based on whether our ancestors came in 1850 or 1900 because we are all a mix of both and because we have blurred the economic and cultural distinctions that once were so obvious. But we still have a long way to go to eradicate the divisions among us and to overcome the prejudices that continue to exist regarding those who are different, whether Jewish or non-Jewish.

Update: Adelyn Selinger’s Death Certificate

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Amy

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

Adelyn Singer death certificate May 30, 1923

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

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

The Cohens: Questions Left to Answer

Posted on September 15, 2014 by Amy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A wonderful email from a Selinger cousin

Posted on September 13, 2014 by Amy

Yesterday I received an email from Ann Griffin Selinger, whose husband was John Reynolds Selinger, Sr. John Selinger was the son of Maurice Selinger, Sr., and the grandson of Julius Selinger and Augusta Cohen, the oldest child of Moses, Jr, and Henrietta Cohen. I was so touched by the stories that Ann had to share about her husband John and his family that I asked her whether I could quote from her email on the blog and share these memories of her family. She graciously gave me permission to do so, and so here they are with just a few side comments by me. Ann’s language is italicized, whereas mine is in regular font.

My husband, was John Reynolds Selinger, 1933-2007, born in Washington, DC as was his brother, Maurice Arthur Selinger, Jr. For a time we lived in Chevy Chase, Maryland and one day we received a visit from Eliot Selinger who apparently lived around the corner from us with his family. We had exchanged mail a few times without meeting, but never looked into whether we were related. He told us at the time that he thought we were related and that his father and John’s grandfather were brothers – Frederick and Julius. We had been under the obviously false impression that Julius had no siblings.

Interestingly, Mildred Selinger, Dr. Maurice A. Selinger’s wife, having lived in Washington her whole adult life, lived with us just before she died in 1981. I see that Eliot died a year later. He must have knocked on our door just before he died.

The comment about Julius and Frederick Selinger being brothers was a very important revelation for me because it confirmed what I had suspected. I assume that Alfred Selinger was also, given that he lived with Julius and traveled with Julius and Augusta before marrying Augusta’s sister Fanny.

Here is a bittersweet story about Eleanor Selinger, the daughter of Julius and Augusta who married Henry Abbot and moved to England as discussed here.

Years earlier, John and I were in England and he said he would like to see if he could find his Aunt Eleanor.
We were successful and made arrangements to have tea with her in her apartment just before we left London. When she opened the door, John was astonished to notice she looked exactly like his Dad who had died over ten years before. We had a lovely visit. She shared that she loved to play cards, but had a hard time see the cards now. So the next day we had some “jumbo faced” cards sent over to her from Harrod’s – a fun idea. She called us to say she was so flustered when the delivery man said he was from Harrod’s that she had a hard time buzzing him in. Very sweet – a wonderful connection that pleased my husband very much. We flew home the next day and then received word a day later that she had died.

Ann also told me more about the accomplishments of Dr. Maurice Selinger, her husband’s father, who along with his brother Jerome were probably the first doctors in the extended Cohen family, as discussed here.

Dr. Maurice Selinger, my father-in-law, who died before John and I were married, served in World War I and World War II as a physician. He was a very dedicated doctor who gave his all to medicine and his patients. He was very highly regarded in the Washington medical world. He was instrumental in bringing three hospitals together (Garfield, Emergency, and one other – can’t remember) to form the new Washington Hospital Center. I remember just after we were married going to a diabetes center in Maryland that was dedicated to Dr. Selinger. I know nothing more about that. Amazing what you don’t pay attention to when you are young.
They lived in a lovely home on California Street, NW – should look up the number, that is now the Embassy of Venezuela.

Washington Hospital Center
“WHCExtGarden”. Via Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WHCExtGarden.JPG#mediaviewer/File:WHCExtGarden.JPG

And finally this story about John’s father Maurice and his grandfather Julius and the Selinger’s jewelry store on F Street discussed here.

John always told the story that when his father was a young boy he would earn his allowance by winding the clocks on F Street that were installed by his grandfather, Julius. They also put the clock in the tower of the old National Savings and Trust Building downtown. Years later, John became a banker and worked as a Vice President in that same bank.

National Savings and Trust Building, Washington, DC
“15th, New York, & Pennsylvania Avenue, NW” by AgnosticPreachersKid – Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:15th,_New_York,_%26_Pennsylvania_Avenue,_NW.jpg#mediaviewer/File:15th,_New_York,_%26_Pennsylvania_Avenue,_NW.jpg

There is nothing better than hearing and preserving these family stories. They take the facts and inferences I make from government documents come to life and fill them with the love and respect that these people deserve. Thank you so much, Ann, for sharing these with me. I can’t tell you how much it meant to me.

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

Posted on September 7, 2014 by Amy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Adelyn Singer death certificate May 30, 1923

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Morton Hartstall 1940 census

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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!

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

Florence and Grace Cohen: The Baltimore Sisters

Posted on August 16, 2014 by Amy

Baltimore City Hall (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Florence and Grace Cohen were the sixth and seventh of the nine children of Moses, Jr. and Henrietta Cohen. They were born just a year and a half apart, Florence in February, 1876, and Grace in September, 1877. They spent their entire lives living close to each other and following many parallel paths.

Florence married Harry Panitz, a salesman from Baltimore, in October, 1898, and Grace married William Katz, German born but living in Baltimore when they married in January, 1901. Florence moved to Baltimore after marrying Harry, and they had one child who died before she was a year old, Helen, and a second child, Aline, born in 1902. Grace and William also moved to Baltimore soon after marrying, and their first child Hilda was born there on December 10, 1901. On the 1910 census the two sisters and their families were living about six miles apart in Baltimore. Harry was a traveling clothing salesman, and William was the manager of a furniture business.

In 1920, Harry was now the owner of his own clothing manufacturing business. Aline was eighteen. William was now in the jewelry business with his father’s extended family, S. N. Katz Jewelers. (The business grew to many stores over the years and is still in existence today.)

S.N. Katz Jewelry advertisement 1921

He and Grace now had three children, Hilda (19), Morton (12), and Zerlina (6). The two families had both moved from where they’d lived in 1910 and were now just over a mile apart. I would imagine that the families were quite close, and that Hilda and Aline, being so close in age, might also have been close cousins.

Between 1920 and 1930, both Hilda and Aline would get married. Aline Panitz married Fred Katzner, a Baltimore native, on October 22, 1922, and Hilda Katz married Alfred Himmerich, a Baltimore native as well, around 1929. Both newlywed couples settled in Baltimore. Fred Katzner was the vice president and secretary of Stadium Underwear Company. Alfred Himmerich was the proprietor of an oil business.

By 1930 the two Cohen sisters, Florence and Grace, had moved even closer together. Both families were living in the same apartment building, 2601 Madison Avenue, as were Aline and Fred Katzner. Hilda and Alfred Himmerich, meanwhile, were less than a mile away at 2202 Park Avenue. Morton Katz, now 22, was still living at home and working at the Katz family jewelry business with his father and uncles, while Harry Panitz was still in the clothing business. Zerlina was only sixteen and living at home. So all but one of the immediate family members of the two Cohen sisters were living in one apartment building, and the other, Hilda, was only minutes away.

2601 Madison Avenue, Baltimore

In the next two decades, much would change. Although Aline and Fred Katzner did not have any children, Hilda and Alfred Himmerich had two children born in the 1930s. Grace Cohen Katz died on November 17, 1939, and her sister Florence Cohen Panitz died six years later on October 23, 1945. Once again, their lives paralleled, both dying before their husbands; Harry Panitz died on July 5, 1949, and William Katz died in May, 1963.

Aline Panitz Katzner and her sister-in-law Anna Katzner Robinson Courtesy of Ellen Leopold, Anna’s granddaughter

Aline Panitz Katzner became a widow at a young age when her husband Fred died on February 17, 1950. Aline traveled a great deal after Fred’s death—to Scotland, Italy, Puerto Rico, and other places, and she never remarried. She died October 27, 1982. There is a fund created in the names of Aline, her husband and her parents used to support various types of programming, Jewish and other, in the Baltimore area. If you Google “Aline & Fred Katzner and Florence & Harry Panitz program,” you will see the numerous programs supported by this fund.

Ad from the Baltimore JCC Program Guide Fall 2011

As for the children of Grace and William Katz, in addition to the family of Hilda and Alfred Himmelrich and their children and many grandchildren, Morton Katz married Hannah Needle sometime before 1937, and in 1940 he was working as a salesman, perhaps still in the family jewelry business. He and his wife Hannah had three children. Morton died in 1974, and Hannah died in 2009, according to the Social Security Death Index. Zerlina Katz married I. Morris Harris, who was in the wire and cable business in 1956. I am not sure where or when Zerlina married Morris, but they lived in southern California from at least 1956 until their deaths, Morris in 1980 and Zerlina in 1995.

Remarkably, although some family members did move away from the Baltimore area, most including many of the great-grandchildren of Grace Cohen Katz and Florence Cohen Panitz, stayed in Baltimore. The two Cohen sisters, born close in time, both married Baltimore businessmen, both moved to Baltimore to live, had daughters close in age, and lived near each other all their lives. They both died before reaching seventy, they both predeceased their husbands.[1] Their children all stayed in Baltimore as well. Their daughters both married Baltimore businessmen. Looking at it from the perspective of how we live our lives in 2014 where family members rarely live in the same state let alone the same city, it all seems quite remarkable.

Baltimore, Maryland Skyline from the Inner Harbor (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

[1] Interestingly, they are not buried at the same cemetery. Harry and Florence Panitz are buried at the Baltimore Hebrew Friendship cemetery where the extended Panitz family is buried, and Grace and William Katz are buried at Oheb Shalom cemetery where the extended Katz family is buried. The two cemeteries are only two miles apart, so even in death the family is fairly close together.

Brotmanblog: A Family Journey

Adventures in Genealogy

Tag Archives: Cohen

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

Update: Adelyn Selinger’s Death Certificate

The Cohens: Questions Left to Answer

A wonderful email from a Selinger cousin

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

Hart Cohen of DC: The Rest of the Story

Wonderful Surprises and Gifts

Solomon Monroe Cohen/Cole: Post Script

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

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