A Delightful Conversation: Cousin Marjorie

Posted on July 18, 2014 by Amy

There are so many joys that come with doing genealogy work: solving family mysteries, learning about your roots, reliving the lives of those who came before you, working with other researchers and learning and teaching each other, and many other benefits. But perhaps the greatest joy for me has been finding and meeting new cousins. My reunion with my Brotman cousins last April was more than I’d ever expected, and the phone conversations, email exchanges, and meetings I’ve had with other cousins have also all been so much fun and so rewarding.

But this cousin connection was particularly special to me. Cousin Marjorie is my father’s first cousin and close to him in age. They knew each other as children, but have not been in contact for over sixty years. In order to contact this cousin, I could not rely on email or Facebook. I had to do it the old-fashioned way, a handwritten letter. Fortunately, I was able to find her address on line and took a chance that she would still be able to respond and that she would want to respond.

When I did not hear back for nearly two weeks, I assumed that she either could not or did not want to respond, and I resigned myself to the fact that I would not hear from her. Then one day last week my cell phone rang, and a number came up that was not familiar. I answered the phone, and a woman who sounded like someone in her 20s said, “Amy? You will never guess who this is.” I said that I had no idea, and she said, “This is your cousin Marjorie.”

What then followed was an hour long conversation, followed up with another hour long conversation the other day. Marjorie’s memory is remarkable; she was able to confirm a number of dates and addresses and stories that I had found online through public documents, but she had them at her fingertips. She also had memories of my great-grandmother, my grandfather, my great-uncles and great-aunts, stories I had not known before. And she had wonderful stories about her own life and her parents’ lives as well. Our conversations ranged from the particular to the universal, discussing everything from Winston Churchill (from whom she has a signed letter), Queen Elizabeth (to whom she sends a birthday card every year and receives a thank you in return), and how she learned to drive, to current politics and social issues like legalizing drugs and sexual mores and her current day-to-day life with her cat Scarlett and her many friends.

Out of respect for her privacy, I do not want to discuss too many of the details of her own life on the blog, but suffice it to say that she is a very bright, articulate, and opinionated woman. She told me that she had graduated from Trinity College (D.C.) and that she had traveled the world as part of her career working for the American Automobile Association. She is still volunteering one day a week for the local historical society in her neighborhood.

As for some of the family memories, Marjorie did not remember her grandfather Emanuel well since she was only about three years old when he died, but she does remember her grandmother, Eva May Seligman Cohen, lovingly and clearly. She said Bebe, as the grandchildren called her, had been a brilliant woman. Her brother, Arthur Seligman, was the governor of New Mexico (more on that when I get to the Seligman line), and he had been invited to speak one year at Valley Forge. When he had to cancel his plans, my great-grandmother Eva May spoke as his replacement. Marjorie had not been able to attend, but wished that she had been there. Marjorie said that not only was Bebe brilliant, she was kind and giving and would do anything for her family. I shared with her the fact that Eva May and Emanuel had opened their home to Emanuel’s brother Isaac and his son when his wife died, and she was not surprised. Like my father, Marjorie remembers exactly when her beloved grandmother passed away in October, 1939.

I also asked Marjorie what she remembers of my grandfather, her Uncle John, and she said that she has no memory of him before he became disabled, but remembers driving with her parents to Coatesville, Pennsylvania, once a month to visit him at the VA hospital there. She described him as very good looking, thin, with black hair.

She also remembered going to occasional Sunday dinners at her grandmother’s house when my father and my aunt were living there and going to the movies with her cousins. She said that somewhere she has a street photograph of the three cousins—my father, my aunt, and Marjorie—walking in Philadelphia. Marjorie also told me that about 25 years ago she got a call out of the blue from her cousin Buddy, Maurice’s son, saying that he was back east from California and wanted to see her. He and his wife (whom she remembered as being Norwegian) came to visit, and she said she and Buddy stayed in touch until he died in 1995.

Marjorie also spoke adoringly of her parents, Stanley and Bessie Cohen. She said that although they were brought up in different faiths—her father a Reform Jew, her mother a High Episcopalian, they were an ideal match and had a wonderful marriage for well over 60 years. She quoted to me several sayings that her mother used to convey her values to her daughter—as Marjorie described them, common sense statements about the value of an education and the importance of good health. She said her mother was a sweet and kind person who always saw the good in other people. Her father, my great-uncle Stanley, she described as a broad-minded man who had a bit of a temper, but who adored his wife and daughter. He lived to be 98 years old and had good health all the way until the very end. Marjorie said her parents had a very large circle of friends and were very well-regarded in their community.

At the end of our conversation, I told Marjorie that I would stay in touch. She said that I had made her day, and I told her that she had made mine as well. And I meant it from the bottom of my heart.

Two of Marjorie’s heroes:

English: Sir Winston Churchill. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Queen Elizabeth II

Seeing the Forest: In Memory of Jacob and Sarah Cohen and All their Children

Posted on July 12, 2014 by Amy

When doing genealogy research, I often find I get very focused on one person or one couple or sometimes one nuclear family and forget to think about the bigger picture, the extended family and their history. This has been particularly true in researching my great-great grandparents Jacob and Sarah Cohen and their thirteen children. Each one of those children was a story unto itself; each of their nuclear units told a complete story. Doing the research for each of them brought me into their individual lives—their relationships, their careers, their children, their achievements, and their tragedies.

Leaf lamina. The leaf architecture probably arose multiple times in the plant lineage (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It was only when I got to child number eleven, my great-grandfather Emanuel, that I realized I had lost the bigger picture. His life was not only about his adulthood—his wife and his children and grandchildren, but was also shaped by and always affected by what was happening with his extended family—his parents, his siblings, his nieces and nephews. It was then that I looked at the overall timeline to see what was happening outside his nuclear family as well as within it.

Now looking back and trying to get that bigger picture overall, I can make some fairly general observations about these thirteen children and their extended family. First, they were all very interconnected in their work as well as their personal lives. Almost all the men, including many of the brothers-in-law and sons-in-law, were pawnbrokers. I don’t have a very good sense of how many separate stores there were in the Cohen pawnshop industry, but obviously there were enough to support more than a dozen families, including a family as large as that of Reuben Cohen, Sr., with his many children. Yes, there were some trouble spots and some disputes undoubtedly, but this was a family that worked together and lived together, often within blocks of each other. One project I have in mind at some point is creating a map to show where they all were living at a given point in time. This was a family where almost everyone stayed in Philadelphia or perhaps New Jersey for multiple generations at least until the 1930s or 1940s.

Every tragedy—the deaths of so many young children, the premature deaths of so many young adults, the horrible accidents—must have rippled through the entire family in some way. This was a family that suffered greatly over and over again—perhaps no more than any other of its time, but nevertheless, more than most of us can imagine today. Almost every one of them lost at least one young child; some lost several. Reuben and Sally lost ten children. Some, like my great-grandparents and Reuben, not only lost a young child, but also lost adult children who died too young.

Yet this was also a family that triumphed. Most of them lived fairly comfortably, if not luxuriously. They moved to the northern sections of Philadelphia away from the increasingly poor sections where Jacob and Sarah had settled at 136 South Street. Many had servants living with them, even when they had only a few or even no children. These were not college-educated people. Most did not even finish high school. But they were savvy business people who, as far as I can tell, for the most part operated their businesses honestly but successfully, as the profile of Reuben Cohen described. They saw themselves as money lenders, as the banks for those who could not borrow money from a traditional, established bank. Some were more successful than others, but overall this was a family that came to America in the 1840s and made a good life for themselves and their descendants.

Looking back on those times makes me wonder what happened. How did this large, interconnected family lose touch with each other? It’s not just my father’s immediate line that was disconnected; every Cohen descendant I’ve been able to locate says the same thing—that they had no idea about all these other cousins and Cohen relatives. My father said he had no idea that his father had cousins. I counted sixty-nine grandchildren born to Jacob and Sarah Cohen. Even if you subtract the many who did not survive childhood, there were probably fifty—meaning that my grandfather had fifty living first cousins, mostly living in Philadelphia, yet my father did not know of any of them.

I suppose that that is how it is as families grow, children marry, grandchildren are born. You no longer can fit everyone around the table even for special occasions. Other families also need attention—the in-laws and all their relatives. Especially back then, before the telephone and the automobile and certainly before the internet, Facebook, Google, email, and cellphones, it was just too hard and too expensive to stay in touch if someone was not in your immediate neighborhood and your day-to-day life. We all know how hard it is to stay in touch even with all those modern means of communication.

So people moved away, grew apart, and lost touch. At least now we can all benefit from knowing the bigger picture, from looking at our shared history, and knowing that even if we do not know each other, we are all part of the same tree.

Thanks to Rabbi Albert Gabbai of Mikveh Israel Congregation in Philadelphia, I now have photos of the headstones for Jacob and Sarah.

Headstone for Jacob and Sarah Cohen

They are not very legible, but you can clearly see Jacob’s name in English, and with the help of others, I’ve been told that the Hebrew includes Jacob’s name, Yaakov ben Naftali ha Cohen, and his date of death, 13 Iyar 5648, or April 24, 1888. It also apparently has a reference to London as his birthplace.

The side for Sarah (the second one above) is almost completely eroded, so no one could decipher it. Rabbi Gabbai also found the stone for Hart Levy Cohen, but he said it was nothing but a plain stone as all the engraving had eroded so he did not take a picture. I wish that he had, but did not have the heart to ask him to go back to the cemetery.

All that is left is for us to remember them and their children and their grandchildren.

Filling in a Few Gaps, but Leaving Several to be Filled

Posted on July 10, 2014 by Amy

Before I move on from the children and grandchildren and other descendants of my great-great-grandparents Jacob and Sarah Cohen, I need to go back and fill in a few gaps. When I wrote about their first two children Fannie and Joseph, I did not research the children of those two family members completely. I figured I would go through the lifespan of each of the children of Jacob and Sarah and pick up what happened to their grandchildren at some later point. As I moved on to Fannie and Joseph’s siblings, however, I changed my approach and traced the children and even the grandchildren as far forward as I could. Now I need to go back to Fannie’s children and Joseph’s children to complete my research and my recording of their stories.

First, Fannie. Fannie or Frances and her husband Ansel Hamberg had five daughters. One, Rachel, had died of typhoid fever as a toddler, as I previously reported. The others all lived to adulthood. The oldest, Sarah or Sallie, married Harry Speare and moved to Atlantic City. As far as I can tell, they did not have any children. Sarah died March 7, 1918, when she was 51 years old, according to her death certificate. She was buried with her parents at Mt Sinai Cemetery in Philadelphia. Her husband Harry lived to be 98 years old and died in 1970; he is buried with Sallie at Mt Sinai.

Sarah Hamberg Speare death certificate

The next sister, Hannah, married Walter Durfor in 1907. Walter was a meat inspector for the government in 1910, and they were living in Philadelphia with Walter’s brother, Howard, who was a chemical engineer. Hannah and Walter also seem not to have had children as there are none appearing on either the 1910 or the 1930 census. (I have not yet found them on the 1920 census.) Walter continued to work as a meat inspector. Hannah died from heart disease and kidney disease on December 12, 1935. She was 64 years old. Walter died on January 8, 1951. They are buried at Fernwood Cemetery outside Philadelphia.

Hannah Hamberg Durfor death certificate

Bertha Hamberg never married or had children. She was living with her mother up through the 1910 census at least, and in 1920 she was a boarder, living in what appears to be a rooming house and working as a saleswoman in a department store (John Wanamaker’s, according to her death certificate). Bertha died just nine years later on December 31, 1929, from broncho-pneumonia. She also suffered from diabetes, which had caused her left foot to develop gangrene. She was only 52 years old. Her sister Hannah Durfor was the informant on her death certificate. She was buried at Arlington Cemetery in Drexel Hill, near Philadelphia.

Bertha Hamberg death certificate

Fannie and Ansel’s youngest daughter, Caroline, is still one I need to research more deeply. Like her sister Bertha, she was still living at home as of 1910, also working as a saleswoman in a department store. I had a hard time tracking what happened to her thereafter, but found a marriage record for a Caroline Hamberg to a Robert Daley, dated 1926. She was then living with him in 1930 in Atlantic City. I do not know if this was the correct Caroline (there was another who married a Thomas Smyth, but her death certificate was inconsistent with Caroline’s background and family information). And I have not yet found anything else.

Thus, as far as I know right now, Fannie and Ansel do not have any living descendants as I could not find any grandchildren for them.

As for the children of Joseph Cohen and his wife Carrie Snellenburg, three of them predeceased their parents, as I discussed previously. Hart died of typhoid fever as a young child, Meyer died in infancy, and Morris died in 1919 when he was 31 during the Spanish flu epidemic. As for the seven who survived their parents, I had reasonably good success in tracking them, in large part because I found the article below about Joseph and Carrie’s 50^th wedding anniversary celebration in 1919.

(“Matrimony Notice,” Tuesday, February 18, 1919, Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, PA) Volume: 180 Issue: 49 Page: 3)

The list of their children with their addresses and married names was a huge clue that helped me locate all but two of their surviving children and three of their grandchildren.

First, their second child after Hart was Jacob. Jacob married Aida Goldberg in 1899 and was in the wholesale jewelry business. He and Aida had two children, Eleanor born in 1900 and Joseph born in 1902. I was able to get these two pictures of Adai courtesy of her grandson Jack.

Ada Goldberg (second from left)

Ada Goldberg

Jacob did some traveling to Europe for his diamond business, and fortunately I was able to find his passport application online which includes a picture and a physical description of him as of 1922.

Jacob J Cohen passport photo

Jacob J Cohen passport description

Jacob died on April 10, 1933, from nephrostatic (?) pneumonia and a cerebral something (?). (UPDATE: Fellow genealogy blogger Alex from Root to Tip says it is hypostatic pneumonia and cerebral hemorrhage. Thanks, Alex!) He was 62 years old, and it appears he had been under a doctor’s care for over a year and a half when he died. His occupation was given as a diamond broker.

Jacob J Cohen death certificate

Jacob’s sister Bertha married Edward Herzberg in 1893. They had a daughter Pauline, who was born in 1894. Like his father-in-law and so many other Cohen relatives, Edward was a pawnbroker. Pauline was married to Philip Schultz (the Mr. and Mrs. Philip Schultz at the anniversary party) in 1917. Philip was also a pawnbroker. Sadly, Bertha died December 31, 1923, when she was 51 years old. She died after an operation for gall stones (cholelithiasis), but also suffered from kidney disease (chronic interstitial nephritis). The informant on the certificate was Walter Herzberg, who appears from other records to have been Edward’s brother. Edward remarried a woman named Hettie Kranzkopf. He died from heart disease on December 27, 1934.

Bertha Cohen Herzberg death certificate

The story of the next sibling, Isaac, is a little more convoluted. Isaac married Lilian Katz sometime between 1900 and 1907, when their son Jac(k) or John was born. In 1910 they were living in Philadelphia, and Isaac was the proprietor of a “loan office,” or what I assume was a pawnshop. By 1920, the family situation had changed. Lilian and her son John were living in Pittsburgh with her parents, and her marital status was “divorced.” Isaac was living in Philadelphia with his sister and brother-in-law, Julia and William Raken, and he was now an automobile dealer. His marital status, however, was still given as married. Ten years later, it seems that Isaac and Lilian had reunited; Isaac was living in Pittsburgh with Lillian, John, and Lillian’s mother. He was now employed as a real estate agent. They both gave their marital status as married.

I hope the reunion was a happy one, but it was not long-lived because two years later, on December 5, 1932, Isaac died from lobar pneumonia. He was living in Pittsburgh at the time of his death, and Lillian was his informant so they were still together at the time he died. Isaac was still employed as a real estate agent at the time of his death; he was 57 years old.

Isaac S Cohen death certificate

Lilian was still living with her mother in Pittsburgh as of 1940, but I have not been able to find what happened to Lillian after that. Their son John married a woman named Ruth sometime before Isaac died, and they had one child born in 1931.

Nathan, the next sibling, also had some marital troubles. He was single and living at home with his parents as of 1910 when he was 34 years old. He was working as a clerk in a “loan office,” presumably his father’s pawnshop. On his World War I draft registration, however, he was calling himself a self-employed jeweler and was still living at home with his parents. On Friday, July 4, 1919, the Philadelphia Inquirer ran an engagement announcement of Nathan Cohen and Sylvia Altman, and the marriage index also includes that couple. By 1920, however, Nathan is listed as divorced on the census and is once again living with his parents. Now he was working at a loan office again. Perhaps the jewelry business failed like the marriage.

In 1925 Nathan married again; his new wife’s name was Nettie Strieff, and this marriage lasted at least ten years. Nettie was 14 years younger than Nathan; she was 40 and he was 54 at the time of the 1930 census. According to the census, Nathan had no occupation at that time. The last record I found of them was a 1935 ship manifest listing them as passengers on a ship sailing from Hamburg, Germany, to New York. I have not been able to locate them on the 1940 census, but I also have not found a death record for them. I guess I have to keep searching.

That brings me to Sallie or Sallye Cohen, born in October, 1877. I was able to find Sallye’s married name through the 50^th wedding anniversary story about her parents. By searching for Isaac Goldsmith, I was able to find a marriage record dated 1913 for Sallye Cohen and Isaac Goldsmith. Sallye was 36 when she married Isaac, and they apparently did not have any children. They lived in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where Isaac was first a real estate agent (1920) and later a real estate developer (1930). As of 1935, they had moved to South Whitehall, Lehigh, Pennsylvania, and in 1940 Isaac must have been retired as no occupation is given on the census. He and Sallye were 63 as of the date of the 1940 census. They are listed in the 1944 directory for Allentown, but I have not found any later records including any death certificates. My guess is that that means they lived past 1944, the last year that Pennsylvania death certificates are currently available.

The child I have had the worst time locating is the next one, Fannie. Although she appeared on the census reports for 1900, 1910, and 1920, living with her parents, I cannot find her anywhere thereafter. I cannot find her on a census report, on the marriage index, or on any death records or burial records. She just disappeared. She is not even listed as one of the hosts of the 1919 50^th anniversary party for her parents, yet she was living with them both before and afterwards. She was not working in either 1910 or 1920, even though she was 28 and 38, respectively, when those censuses were taken. It’s another gap I just cannot fill at this point.

That brings me to Julia, born in 1884. She married William E. Raken in 1912 when she was 28. William was born in New Jersey and graduated from Jefferson Medical College in 1907. After marrying Julia, he served in the army as a major during World War I from June 20, 1917, until August 30, 1919. This article from the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1921 describes his military service:

(“Gets Italian Honor,” Tuesday, October 4, 1921 Paper: Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, PA) Volume: 185 Issue: 96 Page: 6)

In 1920, Julia and William were living in Philadelphia with Isaac, Julia’s brother, as mentioned above. Sometime between 1920 and 1929, however, Julia and William were divorced; William died on February 1, 1929, from heart disease and diabetes. He was only 44 years old.

William Raken death certificate

Julia apparently returned to her birth name, as she was buried as Julia Cohen in 1942 when she died at age 55. I could not find her death certificate, only her burial record, so I do not know her cause of death.

Finally, the last of the children of Joseph and Carrie Cohen to survive their parents was Samuel S. Cohen, the twin of Morris Cohen who had died in 1918 from influenza. Samuel’s story is fairly well-documented. He was born August 22, 1887 in Cape May, New Jersey. In 1910, he was still living at home and working as a salesman in a department store. In 1912 he married Tessie Wise. In 1914, their daughter Eva Carlyn was born. When Samuel registered for the draft in 1917, he, Tessie, and Eva were living in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where he was working as a merchant.

Samuel S Cohen World War I draft registration

On the 1920 census he was more specific and said he was a clothing merchant. The New Brunswick city directory for 1926 reveals that Samuel was then a manager for Snellenburg Clothes Shop in that city (Snellenburg being his mother’s birth name and probably his middle name). By 1940, they had moved to Highland Park, New Jersey, and Samuel was still in the clothing business. His World War II draft registration states that he was self-employed. The last record I have for Samuel is the 1944 New Brunswick, New Jersey, city directory, where he was still the manager of Snellenburg Clothing Shop in New Brunswick. In the 1946 directory, Tessie is now listed as a widow, and she is the manager of the store. Thus, Samuel must have died sometime between 1944 and 1946. He would have been less than sixty years old. Tessie would continue to run the store until at least 1969, when she was listed as the president of the Snellenburg Clothing business. She would have been 79 years old. She died February 14, 1973, when she was 83 years old. Tessie and Samuel were survived by their only child, Eva, who had married Abram Silverman. They had one child as well.

Looking back on all these people, the children of Fannie and Ansel Hamberg and of Joseph and Carrie Cohen, all grandchildren of Jacob and Sarah Cohen, all first cousins of my own grandfather, I am struck by a number of things. First, very few of them lived to be sixty, and as far as I can tell based on my research thus far, none of them lived to be seventy. Almost all who were married were survived by their spouse. There were many who suffered from heart disease, diabetes, and/or kidney problems. Second, it seemed that unlike some of their siblings (Reuben, for example) or Joseph and Carrie or their grandparents Jacob and Sarah, these Cohen cousins had very few children collectively and not one of them had more than two children. They also tended to marry fairly late for those times, which obviously also contributed to the low birth rate. There were many childless marriages and more than a few only children. As far as I can tell, Fannie and Ansel Hamberg had no grandchildren despite having had five children. Joseph and his wife Carrie had five grandchildren, not as many as one would expect for a couple who had ten children.

There are still a number of holes I could not fill in researching the children and grandchildren of Jacob and Sarah. As more records are made public over time, I am hopeful that eventually I will be able to fill them. But for now, that completes my research and writing about the children and grandchildren of Jacob and Sarah Cohen, my great-great-grandparents. My next post will reflect on the bigger picture, the forest I have not seen while focused on the leaves on the trees.

Genealogy Ethics: What and Who Do You Tell the Things You Learn?

Posted on July 1, 2014 by Amy

question (Photo credit: cristinacosta)

This past Sunday the New York Times ran an article about a reporter who learned that his great-great-grandfather, a New York City police officer, had killed a man under questionable circumstances, but had never gone to trial. The reporter tracked down the descendant of the victim and told him the story. That descendant had never known that his great-grandfather had been killed. I found this story interesting, but it also raised a number of questions about the ethics of uncovering a family secret. What lines should I draw when I learn something that might be upsetting to a descendant?

It doesn’t even have to be something involving criminal conduct. It could be learning about financial troubles, medical issues, family issues—all of which can be discovered in public sources like newspapers, census reports, vital records, wills, court documents, and other records that anyone, whether related or not, can find. Does the fact that these are publicly available facts make a difference in terms of disclosure and privacy?

Is there some point in time when revealing that information is clearly appropriate? Is there some point in time when those events are not remote enough in time? Does it matter whether the family involved never even asked you to do the research versus a situation where they asked but had no knowledge of the troubling information? Are there times you definitely should reveal information? Are there times that you definitely should not? What about putting things on a publicly accessible source such as a blog? What are the proper lines in that context?

I am seriously interested in these questions and what others think about them. Whether you are a genealogy person or not, I would really like to know what you think. Please leave your thoughts here. I really think this issue merits serious discussion.

Was the Census Taker Incompetent? Lewis Cohen 1862-1924

Posted on June 29, 2014 by Amy

Having now completed the stories of the seventeen children of Reuben and Sallie Cohen, I can return to Reuben’s siblings, the other children of my great-great-grandparents Jacob and Sarah Cohen. Reuben was their sixth child, followed by three daughters, Maria, Hannah, and Elizabeth, about whom I have already written. That means we are up to Jacob and Sarah’s tenth child, Lewis.

Lewis was born March 20, 1862, and grew up with his siblings at 136 South Street. In 1880 when he was eighteen years old, he was working as a clerk, presumably with his brothers in his father’s pawnshop. In 1886 when he was twenty-four he married Carrie Dannenbaum. At that time he was working with his brother Joseph as a pawnbroker at 1001 South 10^th Street and living at 404 South Second Street. By 1910, Lewis and Carrie had a daughter Helen, who was listed as being sixteen, and they were all living at 2144 Green Street. Lewis’ pawnshop was still on South 10^th Street at 1537, where he remained for another decade or more.

Lewis Cohen 1910 census

The only real wrinkle I encountered in researching Lewis was a strange entry in the 1920 census. On that census, Lewis and Carrie are listed as living with a son named Isidor Solis Cohen, 23 years old, who was working as a clerk in a department store. If Lewis and Carrie had a 23 year old son in 1920, then where was he in 1910 when he was thirteen?

Lewis Cohen 1920 census

I could not find any later record for him either. I found him on two other ancestry.com family trees as Lewis and Carrie’s son, but aside from the 1920 census, the only records relied on for support on those trees referred to different Isidor Cohens—one whose parents were born abroad and one whose parents were born in New York, whereas both Lewis and Carrie had been born in Pennsylvania.

The only source used on those trees aside from the 1920 census that referred to Isidor as Isidor Solis Cohen was a World War I draft registration, but on that form Isidor listed his contact person as J. Solis Cohen, MD.

Isidor Solis Cohen World War I draft registration

A quick search revealed that Jacob Solis Cohen was a prominent Philadelphia surgeon whose family had come to the United States far earlier than my Cohen family and from Russia, not England. I found Isidor living with Jacob Solis Cohen on the 1910 census along with his numerous siblings. It seemed pretty clear to me that Isidor Solis Cohen was not the son of Lewis and Carrie, but of Jacob Solis Cohen, MD.

So how did he end up living with Lewis and Carrie in 1920? Or was this just some strange mistake by the census taker? When I dug deeper and searched for the Solis Cohen family in 1920, I found something rather odd. Except for one brother who had married between 1910 and 1920 and one sister who was hospitalized, all of Isidor’s siblings and his father Jacob were living at 2113 Chestnut Street, but their listings were spread throughout separate pages of the census for the enumeration district. Jacob was listed with one daughter; three daughters were listed together on a different page; and one brother, Myer Solis Cohen, was listed not only apart from his sisters and father, but with two people a few years older than he named Ramsburgle. What made that even stranger was that Myer, aged 42, was listed as the son of the Ramsburgles, aged 49 and 48. Unless there was some truly miraculous event, there was no way Myer was their son.

Myer Solis Cohen the 42 year old “son” of the Ramsburgles, aged 49 and 48

Mixed in between the census pages listing all the other Solis Cohens was a page that listed Isidor as Lewis and Carrie’s son. The address was not 2113 Chestnut, but an apartment building called the Coronado located on the same block at 22^nd Street and Chestnut. All of these inconsistencies in this enumeration district convinced me that the listing of Isidor as the son of Lewis and Carrie was wrong, just as the listing of his brother Myer as the son of the Ramsburgles was wrong.

Thus, I believe that Lewis and Carrie had one child, Helen. Although the 1910 census gave her age as 16, it also said she was a cook for a private family. Looking at that census, it looks like the census taker had some information for Helen confused with information for the family cook, Margaret Johns. The numerous cross-outs make it rather hard to read. This was a different census taker, I assume, from the one who later took the 1920 census of the Solis Cohen family, but another census taker who was not very careful. Later census reports put Helen’s year of birth at about 1890.

At any rate, Helen was not 16 in 1910. Later that same year on September 28, 1910, she married William Bacharach, and the marriage record filed with their synagogue indicated that Helen was then 22. I know that this is the right Helen Cohen because the address given, 2144 Green Street, is the same address where Lewis, Carrie and Helen were living in 1910.

Lewis died on May 9, 1924, from an intestinal obstruction caused by carcinoma sigmoid or colon cancer. He was 62 years old. His widow Carrie died four years later on June 14, 1928, from endocarditis.

Carrie Dannenbaum Cohen

Their daughter Helen and her husband William Bacharach had three children, Augustus, Lewis Cohen, and Jeanne. I am very lucky to be in touch with two of Helen and William’s descendants. They were able to supply me with the photos posted here and with some of the information as well. William Bacharach came from a family that, prior to Prohibition, had been in the liquor business, but when Prohibition became the law, the family sold the business and developed a business as pawnbrokers; family lore is that they sold their liquor business to a company that became part of what is today’s Seagram’s. Thus, William, like the Cohens, was a pawnbroker and spent his career in the business. He was very successful.

Helen Cohen Bacharach and her children c. 1927

During the Depression, William and Helen purchased a large house with seven bedrooms in the Oak Lane neighborhood of Philadelphia. They also were very involved with the historic Rodeph Shalom synagogue and with the Philadelphia Jewish community in general. Helen died in 1950 from cancer, and William donated money and charity work to Moss Rehab, where there is an award given yearly in his name there, according to one of their descendants. After Helen’s death William moved to Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia. William died in 1973 in Tucson, Arizona, where he had retired.

Jeanne, William and Helen Bacharach

William Bacharach

This is what I know about Helen and William’s three children, Augustus, Lewis and Jeanne.

Lewis, Jeanne, and Augustus Bacharach

Helen and William’s son Augustus was their first born child, born on October 24, 1912. He was still living at home and not employed in 1930, presumably still in high school, but by 1940 he had married Jane Sinberg and was working as a salesman (I cannot decipher the entry for the industry). In 1950, Augustus was working in radio repairs, according to the city directory. He seems to have lived in the Philadelphia area all his life. He and Jane had one child. His wife Jane predeceased him by six years, dying in 1975. Augustus thereafter married Carolyn Sundheim Ostroff Osser, who had been married and widowed twice and had two children. Augustus died in December, 1981, leaving Carolyn a widow for a third time.

Helen and William’s second child, Lewis Cohen Bacharach, was born in August 22, 1914. He continued the Bacharach and Cohen family pawnbroker tradition until the 1960s when he closed the last of the family’s pawnshops. He and his wife Mary retired to Tucson, Arizona, and both lived full and long lives even after retirement. I was able to find a few articles and their obituaries which beautifully capture their lives and their commitment to helping others.

First, this profile of Lewis C. Bacharach from the June 2008 newsletter from his retirement community, Evergreen Estates in Lancaster, PA:

Resident Spotlight: Lewis Bacharach

Lewis was raised in Philadelphia, PA, the middle child with one brother and one sister. A graduate of Northeast High School, Lewis studied business for two years at Temple University. In 1942 Lewis began three years in the United States Army in New Guinea. It was while training at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland, that he met Mary. She drove for the Red Cross Motor Corps and was volunteering for an evening of Bingo. That night Lewis offered Mary a cup of coffee and four dates later they were engaged. In July the Bacharach’s will celebrate their 65^th anniversary. They are the parents of two children and have two grandchildren.

Lewis said, “Doing for others is what brought him and Mary together.” They were always involved in community having singly or together volunteered for the following organizations: Art League, Brandeis Book Club, Lions Club, Mobile Meals, United Order of True Sisters, Tucson Medical Center, the March of Dimes and Food Bank. In 1977 Lewis helped organize and establish the LaCanada Magee Neighborhood Association, a neighborhood of 5,000 homes in Arizona. Lewis has served as president of Wyndmoor Lions Club, Whitemarsh Village Association and The LaCanada Magee Neighborhood Association. Lewis and Mary served as docents at the Arizona Desert Museum, a world known organization, where they had the privilege of hosting people from around the world.

Lewis said he misses “doing for others.” These days he faithfully visits Mary who is recuperating in the nursing care unit at Brethren Village.

http://www.evergreenestatesrc.com/jun08.pdf

I also was able to obtain more information about Mary from her obituary in 2011:

Mary was a graduate of Maryland Art Institute and moved to New York City where she was a window decorator. She also taught at the Devereaux Foundation and was a founding mother in the Mothers March of Dimes, a co-founder of the Tuscan United Order of True Sisters, an organizer of the Whitemarsh Village Policemen’s Ball, and a member of the National Council of Jewish Women. As a little girl, she sat on Babe Ruth’s lap and studied dance at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore. Her love of art was a guiding light in her life and she encouraged her son to become an artist. She was always doing for others and enjoyed being a Cub Scout Den mother. Brandeis University bestowed upon her the honor of “Woman of Valor.” At the age of 90 Mary wrote and illustrated a children’s book called Big Black’s Neighbors. She was a member of Temple Emmanuel in Tucson, AZ and attended Shaarai Shomayim in Lancaster, PA.

(Intelligencer Journal-Lancaster New Era (PA) – Monday, January 31, 2011)

Mary Bacharach

From Lewis’ obituary in 2013, I obtained this additional information:

[As a long time pawnbroker in Philadelphia, Lewis was] respected by his peers as well as his clients, among whom he was known for his honesty. In the ’60’s, he closed his business and went to work managing the bookstore of the Philadelphia Community College, where he stayed until retiring to Tucson, Arizona. During his time in Philadelphia, Lewis was involved in the Lions Club, Congregation Rodeph Sholom, and founded the Whitemarsh Village Association. While working and volunteering, he still found time to help his wife lead a Cub Scout Pack and raise his sons to value friendship, loyalty, and honor. He instilled the importance of a good name and the concept that a man’s word should be his bond.

When Lewis’s wife Mary visited Tucson in 1973, she fell in love with the desert. A few months after her visit, the house was sold and Lewis took on new challenges. Outgoing, gregarious (God help you if you went to the market with him; he knew and spoke with everyone), and willing to help anyone, he soon became part of the community. Along with Mary, he became a docent at the Desert Museum, where he loved introducing visitors to the plants and animals of the Sonoran Desert. He started a neighborhood association in Casas Adobes East, where he fought to preserve the natural habitat and put limits on construction, and volunteered with the Food Bank. …. When other family members moved west, Lewis introduced them to his circle of friends and became the patriarch of the family, a role that he enjoyed.

Lewis and Mary returned to Pennsylvania while in their 90’s and moved to Evergreen Estates. When Mary’s health declined, necessitating a move to a skilled nursing facility, Lewis remained at Evergreen, visiting her faithfully until her death. Meanwhile, the wonderful staff and residents at Evergreen became his extended family and a source of support and camaraderie. He was a regular at the nightly pinochle gathering and enjoyed kibitzing in the evening over ginger ale. While in Lancaster, Lewis loved spending time with his children and grandchildren, and took pleasure in family gatherings and dinners, especially if there was a martini on the menu. He was proud of his extended family, and looked forward to his almost nightly chats with his niece … who kept him up on the news in Tucson.

(Intelligencer Journal-Lancaster New Era (PA) – Friday, June 21, 2013)

Lewis Cohen Bacharach

Lewis and Mary were clearly well-loved not only by their children and grandchildren, but also by every community where they had lived during their long and meaningful lives.

Helen and William’s daughter Jeanne was born December 15, 1917. She married Charles Towle, who became very well-known for his extensive collection of railroad related stamps. According to Wikipedia, Charles L. Towle “was a stamp collector who studied postal history and wrote philatelic literature on the subject…. On the basis of his studies, Towle, co-authored with Henry Albert Meyer, and wrote Railroad Postmarks of the U.S., 1861-1886, and, in 1986 Towle wrote his four volume United States Rates and Station Agent Markings. Towle wrote extensively on transit markings and received numerous awards for his effort. For three years Towle edited The Heliograph, the journal of the Postal History Foundation. … Towle was active in philatelic organizations, such as the Mobile Post Office Society, where he was president until he died, and as Chairman of the Board of the Western Postal History Museum, later renamed the Postal History Foundation. ….Towle was named to the American Philatelic Society Hall of Fame in 1991.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_L._Towle

Family members told me that Charles’ stamp collection was donated to the University of Michigan. Charles and Jeanne lived in Dearborn, Michigan, for many years where Charles was the president of a railway company during the 1950s and 1960s. Charles and Jeanne later moved back to Philadelphia and then to Tucson, Arizona, where Charles became very interested in mineralogy, eventually donating that collection to other museums. He and Jeanne were also very active in the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum along with Lewis and Mary Bacharach.

Jeanne died in 1976 of cancer, like her mother Mary. Charles died in 1990. They had four children who survived them and many grandchildren.

Jeanne Bacharach Towle

Thus, Lewis Cohen, my great-granduncle, has a wonderful legacy in the many contributions and commitments to community made by his daughter and son-in-law and their children.

Pennsylvania, I love you!

Posted on June 25, 2014 by Amy

OK, perhaps a bit of an overstatement, but yesterday morning I woke up to read online that the Pennsylvania death certificates up through 1944 were now available on ancestry.com. (Previously, only those up through 1924 were available.) As soon as I’d had my breakfast, I started searching for all my previously researched Cohen relatives who died between 1925 and 1944 to find their death certificates. Within a half an hour I had found eleven of them. Although they did not contain any amazing revelations, I was able to learn when and why several of my relatives had died.

I have updated the relevant blog posts for Hannah Cohen, Lewis Weil, Rachel Cohen, Martin A. Wolf and his wife Marie Morgan, Laura Wolf, Harry Frechie, and Samuel Rosenblatt, Jr. I also have certificates for Reuben Cohen, Sr., Emanuel Cohen, and Abraham Cohen which will be discussed in later posts. The only one of these that I was particularly interested in was that of Samuel Rosenblatt, Jr., who had died when he was only twenty and was his parents’ only child; he died of leukemia. Laura and Martin A. Wolf, siblings and the children of Hannah and Martin Wolf, also died at relatively young ages—in their 40s, Laura of diabetes and Martin A. of ulcerative colitis.

If you are interested in seeing the certificates, I have posted them at the relevant blog posts as linked to above.

It was good to put some closure on some of those lives, although sad to be reminded again of how many of my ancestors died so young. Thank you to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for opening up your records so that family histories can be told.

Family Heirloom: Jacob’s Ring

Posted on June 23, 2014 by Amy

I was told by its current owner, my third cousin, that the ring depicted above is rose gold with an onyx table and diamonds in the initial. I was also told that it once belonged to my great-great-grandfather Jacob Cohen, the successful Philadelphia pawnbroker, father of thirteen children including my great-grandfather Emanuel. According to my third cousin, the ring was passed down from Jacob to his son Reuben, who gave it to his son Arthur Lewis Wilde Cohen, Sr., who then passed it on to his son Arthur Lewis Wilde Cohen, Jr., who gave it to his son, my third cousin, for his twenty-first birthday. Jim shared with me the following story about the ring:

This ring is deeply important to me. The story behind it is as follows:

I found it one day while, as a kid who was doing precisely something he was told not to do (because, we do that kind of thing as kids), I was looking in my father’s jewelry cabinet in my parents’ room. For some reason the ring just grabbed me. I really loved it right from the start.

When I got older, and it actually fit closely enough to wear, I kept swiping it to wear it, and he would always catch me with it.

He’d give me the stern warning and ground me. I think he probably came to view this recurrent situation with some amusement. I think it was pretty obvious that I really had a thing for this ring, and if he had been truly angry the groundings would have been a LOT longer. So he must have known that, aside from swiping it, I wasn’t going to be irresponsible with it.

Then one day, I went to swipe it again, and it was gone. I thought, “I can’t believe he hid it!”

On my birthday, after our party, he took me aside, away from my twin brother and handed me a quite large box. It was covered all over in clear packing tape – and inside that was another box, and another, all wrapped in clear packing tape. Apparently, he wanted me to really work to get into the last box, and every time another box came into view, he laughed.

And then I got to the final box, opened it, and there was the ring. He had taken it, polished and cleaned it, replaced stones that had gone missing over the years, and sized it to fit my finger “for real.”

So yes, this was my 21st birthday present, and it meant a great deal on its own.

Then, he had a fatal heart attack two weeks before my 22nd birthday.

This ring, and its story and history, are the last birthday present I ever received from my father.

How lucky my cousin is to have something that once belonged to Jacob, our mutual great-great-grandfather. I wish I knew more about the story behind the ring and more about the men who have owned it. I wonder why Jacob gave it to Reuben of all his sons. Or did each child inherit something similar from Jacob and Sarah? If my great-grandfather Emanuel did inherit a family heirloom, I have no idea where or what that would have been.

I’ve never been one to care about jewelry for its material value, but I care deeply about the sentimental value of any jewelry that has been given to me. I have no idea what Jacob’s ring is worth in monetary terms, but to me the fact that it once belonged to my great-great grandfather, that it was once worn by my great-grandfather’s older brother Reuben and then by his son and grandson and now his great-grandson, makes it priceless in my eyes. I’d gladly trade a new piece of jewelry worth far more in material terms for one small “worthless” trinket that had come from one of my ancestors.

The Surviving Children of Reuben and Sallie Cohen, Part I: Minnie, Rae, Reuben, Jr., Lewis and Violet Mae

The Surviving Children of Reuben and Sallie Cohen, Part I: Minnie, Rae, Reuben, Jr., Lewis and Violet Mae

Posted on June 19, 2014 by Amy

As I wrote last week, Reuben and Sallie Cohen had seventeen children, but ten of them predeceased their parents. Eight of the children died before they were four years old of various illnesses or, in the case of one child, as a result of a horrific accident. Two of the children survived to adulthood, but then succumbed to illnesses in the early years of their adult lives.

That meant that Reuben and Sallie had only seven of their seventeen children alive when they died. All but one of those children lived relatively full lives, living at least into their sixties if not beyond. I will try and capture those lives, going in birth order.

The fourth child born after Sallie R., Jacob, and Hart, all of whom had died before their parents, was Minnie. Minnie was born on September 25, 1882, and lived with her family in Philadelphia and Cape May. On August 5, 1900, the Philadelphia Inquirer made this comment about Minnie in an article about summer visitors to Cape May: “Miss Minnie Cohen is one of the prettiest girls at the resort. Her bathing costume is always the picture of neatness.” (“Cape May’s August Days,” Sunday, August 5, 1900, Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, PA) Volume: 143 Issue: 36)

It was not until eighteen years later when she was almost 36 that Minnie married Harry Frechie in February, 1918. The Philadelphia Inquirer had this to say about her wedding:

(“Matrimony Notice,” Friday, February 15, 1918, Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, PA) Volume: 178 Issue: 46 Page: 10) Mrs. S. Rosenblatt was her sister Rae, discussed below. Violet Mae was her youngest sister, also discussed below.

Minnie and Harry were married for many years, but did not have any children. Like his father-in-law and many other family members, Harry was a pawnbroker. They appear to have traveled quite a bit, including a Caribbean cruise in 1939. I have not yet been able to find a death record for Harry, but the 1950 Philadelphia city directory has a listing for Mrs. Harry Frechie alone, suggesting that Harry may have died sometime between the 1940 census and 1950. I also could not find a World War II draft registration for Harry, which could suggest he died before 1942.

UPDATE: With the release of the Pennsylvania death certificates through 1944, I am now able to update this post and the information regarding Harry Frechie. Harry did die before 1942; he died on September 27, 1940. No cause of death was given as there was a pending coroner’s inquest. I will have to see if I can learn more about that.

Harry Frechie death certificate 1940

At any rate, Minnie appears to have lived a life without much controversy as I cannot find any newspaper references to either Harry or Minnie aside from the wedding notice. Minnie died in Philadelphia in 1977 when she was 95 years old.

Minnie’s sister and matron of honor, Rae, was the next child who survived. She was born in 1886. Rae married Samuel Rosenblatt in 1910.[1] Sam was in the business of dress manufacturing according to the 1920 census, more specifically children’s dresses according to both the 1930 and 1940 census reports. They had one son, Samuel Rosenblatt, Jr., born in 1913, who died in July, 1933. I have not found anything yet to explain why Samuel, Jr., died at such a young age. The Philadelphia death certificates through 1944 are supposed to be online soon, so I am hoping to find out eventually what happened to Rae and Samuel’s only child. Rae died in 1959 at age 73. Her husband Samuel died in 1973.

UPDATE: As noted above, I now have access to the Pennsylvania death certificates through 1944, including that of Samuel Rosenblatt, Jr. Sadly, Samuel died from leukemia.

Samuel Rosenblatt, Jr. death certificate 1933

The next child of Sallie and Reuben Cohen to survive his parents was Reuben Cohen, Jr., born November 5, 1888. Although at age 21 he was working as a clerk in a loan office according to the 1910 census, he appears not to have stayed in the pawnbroker business for his entire career. In 1914, he married Leona Mayer, and according to the 1915 Philadelphia directory, he was a notary public by occupation at that time. I don’t know how that would be a full time occupation, so perhaps he was still working in the “loan office” at that time as well. In fact, on his World War I draft registration he listed his employer as his father, Reuben Cohen, Sr., so he must have still been working the pawnshop at that time. In 1920, his occupation on the census is described as manager of a brokerage house, presumably a pawn brokerage, not a stock brokerage. But in 1930 Reuben’s occupation was listed as a textile designer, and then in 1940 he is described as a salesman in textile manufacturing. On his 1942 World War II draft registration, he listed his employment as “own business.” Thus, it appears that Reuben, Jr., went out on his own and left the Cohen family pawnbroker business.

Reuben, Jr., and Leona had one child, Elinor Cohen, born in April, 1915, who married Melvin Beard. I am now trying to contact their descendants. Reuben Cohen, Jr. died January 28, 1958, when he was 69 years old. His wife Leona died in 1970 at age 78. Their daughter Elinor died thirteen years ago in 2001.

Reuben Jr.’s younger brother Arthur was the next sibling to survive their parents, but I am going to defer telling his story until I get a little more information from one of his descendants.

Of the seven surviving children, the one I have had the hardest time tracking is Lewis Cohen, who was born in September, 1892, the thirteenth child of Reuben and Sallie. According to his World War I draft registration in 1917, he suffered from “nervous trouble.”

Lewis Cohen World War I draft registration

He was working as a real estate broker, and I was able to find a number of his real estate broker’s advertisements in the Philadelphia Inquirer as well as a news story about a large real estate transaction he brokered for a client in 1922. On the 1920 census he was still living at his parents’ home at age 28, and as far as I can tell, he never married or had children.

It’s very odd, but I cannot find Lewis on either the 1930 census or the 1940 census, and at first I thought that perhaps he had died. Then I found his 1942 World War II registration, in which he described himself as self-employed. He was then living at the Roosevelt Hotel in Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, and his emergency contact person was a woman named Hilda Eskin, also at that location.

Lewis Cohen World War II draft registration

Where was he between 1920 and 1942? I just cannot seem to find him. Is there any significance to the scar on his left wrist? To the fact that he was cross-eyed? And who was Hilda Eskin? The only Hilda Eskin I could find in 1940 in Philadelphia was a divorced 45 year old woman, living with her parents; she owned a millinery shop. She and her parents were living in 1940 at 329 South 63^rd Street, about four miles west and across the Schuylkill River from the Roosevelt Hotel. Since Hilda was not an employee of the hotel in 1940 and owned her own business, my hunch is that she was Lewis’ girlfriend in 1942, living with him at the Roosevelt Hotel. I could not find Lewis living at that address in 1940. I did find one Lewis Cohen as a prisoner at the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia whose age, birth place, and parents’ birth places all fit my Lewis Cohen, but then there were many Lewis Cohens living in Philadelphia who could have been the one in prison. Maybe I can find something more about the person in prison?

The only other records I found for Lewis related to his death in November, 1964. He is buried at Beverly National Cemetery in Burlington, NJ, as a veteran who served in the US Navy during World War I. So despite whatever the reference to “nervous trouble” meant on his draft registration for that war, he did serve in the Navy and was buried as a veteran of that war. I will continue to look to see if I can fill the gaps in Lewis’ life and military service.

The youngest daughter of Sallie and Reuben Cohen was Violet Mae. She was born May 7, 1895, and was living at home until 1921 when she married Abram E. Stern, who was born and lived in Washinton, DC. Violet and Abram lived in Washington, DC, where Abram worked in the store fixture manufacturing business. They had two children in the years after they first married. By 1940, they had divorced, and Abram was remarried. Violet Mae died in December, 1974, in Silver Spring, MD, at the age of 79. I am hoping I can track down her descendants and learn more about her.

Simon, the youngest child of Sallie and Reuben Cohen, did not live as long a life as the other six siblings who survived their parents. His story is another I will tell in a subsequent post once I get more information from one of Reuben’s descendants.

These five children of Reuben and Sallie Cohen all lived relatively long lives for those times and, in the case of Minnie, a very long life. They all also lived lives that were, at least as far as I can tell, relatively trauma and drama free. Yes, Violet was divorced, Rae lost her son when he was only 20, and certainly Lewis, Reuben, Jr., and Minnie must have also had some difficult times in their lives. But given the family tragedies their parents endured, losing so many children, it is somewhat remarkable that these five led fairly quiet and, at least outwardly, regular lives. But who knows what happened beneath the cold hard facts of census reports and city directories? Certainly losing ten siblings must have had some impact on these people. Did Minnie not have children for fear of losing them as her parents had? Is that also why Rae and Reuben, Jr., each had just one child? Did Lewis suffer from “nervous trouble” as a result of experiencing so many deaths? I don’t know, but I have to believe that growing up as they did, seeing death occur over and over again, had to have affected all of them.

[1] There was also an entry on the Philadelphia marriage index for a Rae W. Cohen who married Isador Landau in 1913, but since I cannot find any other evidence of Mr. Landau and since Rae and Samuel Rosenblatt were together on the 1920, 1930, and 1940 census reports, I have to assume this was an error in indexing.

Happy Father’s Day

Posted on June 15, 2014 by Amy

My Father and Harvey June 2012

Without actual family memories, whether orally passed down or written in letters or diaries or memoirs, one thing that I cannot find through my research alone is any real sense of the personalities of the people I am researching. I can draw inferences at best, but usually not even that. So I cannot tell what kind of relationships these ancestors had with their children, their spouses, their parents, their siblings. I can try and put myself in their shoes, but what do I really know about what it was like to raise children a hundred or more years ago?

So when I think about the men in these families, I have no clue what kind of fathers they were. Were they at all engaged in the lives of their children? Did they have any role in child raising or child care? Certainly Hart Levy Cohen brought his children into his business as a general dealer, and Jacob brought his children into the pawnbroker business. But beyond that business relationship, all I can do is speculate about what kind of fathers these men were.

In my own life, I did not know my paternal grandfather at all since he died six years before I was born; my maternal grandfather died before I turned five, and although I have some sense memory of him, there are no specific stories or memories I can describe. I know that my mother and her siblings loved him dearly and that he was a smart, funny and strong-willed man who had the courage to walk out of Romania as a teenager and the determination and strength to come to the US alone and make a life for himself and his family. And that he was an incredible tease. But I didn’t know him long enough to think of him as a model for what a father should be.

Jeff, Amy and Grandpa 1953

My idea therefore of what a father is and should be was first defined by my own father. My father is a highly intelligent, sensitive, creative and loving person whose top priority has always been our family. He was way ahead of time in the 1950s and 1960s as a father who was actively involved in parenting. Because for most of my childhood and all of my adolescence he worked as an architect either in our house or in his studio attached to our house, he was much more available and accessible than most of the fathers of my friends at that time. When my mother started working out of the home when I was in junior high school, it was my father who greeted me when I got home from school and sat with me while I had my milk and cookies. He was and still is always interested in the details of my life.

My father about 1965

He was also way ahead of his time in believing that girls as well as boys should fulfill their full academic potential. When I did not want to take physics in high school, he told me I was selling myself short and that physics was something I would regret not learning. I didn’t listen, and although I don’t regret taking the extra history course I took instead, he was right that it probably was more important to understand physics than I thought it would be when I was sixteen. Throughout high school, college, law school, and my career, my father along with my mother have always supported and encouraged me to learn, to work hard, and to find courses and work that would give me joy and satisfaction, and they still do. They also taught me to put family first.

The second significant father in my life is my husband Harvey. It was in many ways appropriate that my wedding day in 1976 was also Father’s Day because the man I married that day is truly the most devoted father of our children I ever could have imagined. He also has always put his family first, ahead of his career or anything else. He was and is my full partner in all parenting responsibilities, diaper to diaper, scraped knee to scraped knee, broken heart to broken heart. My girls knew to call Daddy, not Mommy, in the middle of the night because he was the one who had the patience to cope with upset stomachs or bad dreams at 2 am. He will drive any distance, pay any price, spend any amount of time, in order to help his children or me. Our happiness is the key to his own happiness.

Harvey and our daughters 1984

1985

2003

Finally, I’d like to recognize one more father who is a big part of my life, my son-in-law. He is an incredibly devoted father to my two grandsons, including the new baby just over a week old. His face lights up with joy whenever he looks at his two sons. His love for them is so apparent. I know that he will be a wonderful role model for Nate and for Remy so that someday they also will be devoted and loving fathers, following in the footsteps of their father, their grandfather, and their great-grandfather.

June 2014

Happy Father’s Day to the three of them and to all the other wonderful fathers out there!

By the way, did you notice that all three have beards?

Reuben Cohen 1854-1926: You Really Do Not Want to Read This

Posted on June 14, 2014 by Amy

As I wrote in an earlier post, I skipped over Reuben Cohen, my great-great-grandparents’ sixth child and fifth son, in order to wait for some information from one of Reuben’s direct descendants. I have to admit that I had other reasons as well. My initial research indicated that Reuben and his wife Sallie Livingston had twelve children. The thought of researching another huge family was a bit overwhelming. In addition, my preliminary research had uncovered a number of very sad stories about those children, and I just did not have the heart to research, write, or even think about them after researching the story of Reuben’s older brother Hart. Little did I know that his sisters, whose lives I’d not previously researched very far, also had more than their fair share of heartbreak as well.

Once I returned to the story of Reuben and did more research, I learned that his story was worse than I had even originally thought. His life started out well. He was born in April, 1854, and grew up at 136 South Street with his parents and siblings. By the time he was sixteen he was working as a clerk in a store, presumably his father’s pawnshop. In 1878 when he was 24, he married Sallie Livingston, and in 1880 they were living at 1725 Bainbridge Street and already had two children, Sallie R., who was a year old, and Jacob, who was a month old. Reuben was working as a pawnbroker at 635 South 17^th Street in 1881.

Reuben Cohen 1880 census

Originally I thought that the 1880s must have been fairly happy years for Reuben and Sallie, as Reuben continued to work as a pawnbroker and their family continued to grow. In addition to Sallie R. and Jacob, I originally found that five more children were born between 1881 and 1890: Minnie (1882), Hortense (1887), Rae (1887), Reuben, Jr. (1888), and Arthur (1890). The family continued to live at 1725 Bainbridge Street.

Then in 1891, tragedy struck. Little Hortense, only three years old, was run over and killed by a cable car owned by the Philadelphia Traction Company.

Hortense Cohen death certificate

The company had only been in business since 1883. I found this gruesome description of the accident in the June 14, 1891 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer:

[According to a witness who saw the accident], the child, who was with two other children, started across the street to reach the house of her grandmother, Mrs. Livingstone, at 607 South Ninth Street, with whom she had been living. When she had crossed the tracks she saw a carriage coming, and she made an attempt to run back. The child got bewildered, and as she reached the middle of the track the car struck her. The front wheel jammed the head against the track. It required the united efforts of [three police officers] to lift the car off the child’s head.

(“Killed by a Cable Car Little Hortense Cohen Becomes Bewildered and is Run Down,” Sunday, June 14, 1891, Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, PA), Volume: 124 Issue: 165 Page: 5) The conductor and gripman were arrested. Little Hortense was taken to the hospital where she died.

This story raises so many hard questions. What was a three year old child doing alone without an adult? Who were the other two children, and how old were they? Were they her siblings? What a terrible impact this must have had on them as well as the rest of the family. And why was Hortense living with her grandmother? Were any of the other children living with Mrs. Livingston? I don’t have any answers to these questions.

Obviously, times were different. There were no helicopter parents, and children were much more likely to be left to their own devices than children are allowed to be today. Also, cable cars were a recent addition to the city streets, and perhaps parents and children were not yet aware of the dangers they presented, nor were these companies likely regulated to any degree to prevent such accidents from occurring. But one thing must have been true even in those days: the absolute horror the family must have endured after losing a child in such a terrible way.

Somehow the family went on. My original research found that two more children were born in the next few years: Lewis in 1892 and Penrose in 1894. The family moved from their Bainbridge Street home sometime after Hortense’s death. In 1893 Reuben’s store was at 625 South 17^th Street, and he and his family were residing at 623 South 17^th Street. They remained in that residence for many years. In 1895 Violet was born, and in 1896 Irene was born, bringing the number of children living in the family to eleven.

Then another tragedy occurred in 1896. Two year old Penrose died from some form of capillary bronchitis. Perhaps someone can help me decipher and interpret the rest of the description of his cause of death. As if the family had not suffered enough, a year and a half later baby Irene, only a year old, died also from capillary bronchitis. The family had lost three young children between 1891 and 1897. The last child, Simon, was born in 1898, bringing the number of children to nine out of the twelve that I first thought had been born to Reuben and Sallie.

Penrose Cohen death certificate

Irene Cohen death certificate

I wish I could say that that was the end of Reuben and Sallie’s heartbreak, but I cannot. There was a period of relative calm. In 1900 the family was living in Cape May, New Jersey, at the time of the census.

Reuben Cohen and family at 208 Ocean Street 1900 US census

They were living back in Philadelphia by 1902, so I do not know whether the time in Cape May was a long stay or perhaps just a shorter stay for the summer. I do know from one of Reuben’s descendants that Reuben owned a home in Cape May built in 1864 at 208 Ocean Street that eventually became the home of his son Arthur and his descendants. It seems that during Reuben’s life this was not the year-round home, but perhaps just a summer home. Reuben must have been quite successful to have two residences. I found the house currently listed for sale on Trulia.com,with a description of the house and many exterior and interior pictures, such as this one.

208 Ocean Street, Cape May, NJ

1900 also was a good year for the family in other ways. Their daughter Sallie R. was married that year to Ellis Samuel Abrams in what appears to have been quite a society event. There had been a large engagement party the year before at Reuben and Sallie’s home where an orchestra played throughout the evening “behind a bower of palm trees.” The guest list was very long and included many of the aunts, uncles, and cousins I have written about on the blog: the Wolfs, the Sluizers, the Hambergs, and, of course, many Cohens.(“Melange of Events,” Sunday, December 31, 1899, Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, PA) Volume: 141 Issue: 184 Page: 14) Before the wedding took place on May 21, 1900, the Philadelphia Inquirer published a drawing of Sallie R., announcing the upcoming nuptials. Clearly the Cohen family was part of the elite of Philadelphia Jewish society.

Sallie Cohen

But all the business success in the world was not worth the personal losses that the family suffered. In 1907, Sallie R.’s young husband Ellis died from acute appendicitis. He was 30 years old, and they had only been married for seven years. They had had two children, Dorothy, born around 1905, and Simon, born around 1907.

Ellis Abrams death certificate

Then, two years later, in 1909, Reuben and Sallie’s son Jacob died of cardiac failure secondary to tabes dorsalis, or late stage syphilis. He was only 29 years old when he died. From his death certificate it appears that he had been sick and under a doctor’s care for five months before he died in December, 1909.

Jacob Livingston Cohen death certificate

And then, just four years later in 1913, Jacob’s older sister Sallie R., Ellis’ widow, Reuben and Sallie Livingston’s oldest child, died at age 34 from nephritis, kidney disease. That left Sallie R. and Ellis’ two children, Dorothy and Simon, orphaned at ages eight and six, respectively.

Sallie J. Cohen death certificate

On the 1920 census, both children were living with their grandparents, Reuben and Sallie. So far, I have had no luck finding out what happened to them next.

Reuben Cohen and family 1920 census

But what I did find was even more disturbing. In doing some last minute checks for additional documents on Sallie J. and Jacob, I found their headstones on FindAGrave. And to the left behind Jacob’s headstone, I spotted a headstone with eight names on it. Some were familiar: Hortense, Penrose, Irene. But five were new to me: Maria, Fanny, Joseph, Hart, and Edith. Who were they? When I saw it, I sighed so loudly that my husband wondered what was wrong. I took a deep breath and then started looking for these other five children.

Since none of these names had appeared on either the 1880 census or the 1900 census (and since the 1890 census was destroyed by fire), I assumed that they were born after the 1880 census and died before 1900 census. Eventually I found all five of these children, all of whom died before they were four years old.

As I mentioned above, I had originally thought that the 1880s were a happy decade for Reuben and his family, but this additional research revealed the opposite. After Sallie R. and Jacob were born, the third child, Hart, was born in 1881. He died February 27, 1883, when he was seventeen months old from uremia. In between Minnie was born in 1882.

Hart Cohen death certificate

The next child, Maria, was born in September, 1883, meaning Sallie was pregnant with Maria when Hart died. Maria died in Cape May, New Jersey on August 2, 1886, just shy of three years old, from paralysis caused by diphtheria (also evidence that the family had been spending summers in Cape May for quite some time before 1900).

Maria Cohen death certificate

But in between Minnie and Maria, Reuben and Sallie had had two other children, both of whom died before they were a year old. In January, 1884, Fanny was born, and six months later in July, 1884, she died from enterocolitis. On April 17, 1885, Joseph was born, and he died on August 9, 1885, not yet four months old. Thus, in each year from 1883 through 1886, Reuben and Sallie buried one of their children. Perhaps that is why some of the children were living with Sallie’s mother?

Fanny Cohen death certificate

Then came the tragic accident involving three year old Hortense in June, 1891. What I had not known before I found the additional names on the headstone is that in July, 1891, the very next month, Sallie had given birth to Edith. Perhaps that was some relief, but only for a very brief time because Edith died less than a year later on April 24, 1892, from “Diptheritic Laryngitis.” I am not sure what that means, but it seems like it must be some complication from diphtheria. And then, as described above, Penrose died in 1896 and Irene in 1897.

Finally, there were the untimely deaths of Jacob L. and Sallie R. as adults. So between 1883 and 1913, Reuben and Sallie had lost ten of their seventeen children and also had two young grandchildren who were left without either a mother or a father. Aside from Hortense, who died from an accident, all the other young children died from an illness that today would likely have been either prevented by a vaccine (diphtheria) or treated with antibiotics or somehow otherwise controlled by medicine. Reading about all these babies’ deaths made me aware once again of how grateful we all should be for the developments of 20^th century medicine.

How did Reuben and Sallie go on? It is unfathomable. But they did. Did they find strength in the seven children who survived? Or did these deaths leave them bitter, angry, depressed? How does a marriage survive all that stress? Did they find strength in religion? In their large extended family? I do not know; I only know that in the last few days as I researched this family’s saga, I also was spending time with my newborn grandson and my four year old grandson, both of whom are so precious to me, not to mention their parents and other grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and great-grandparents. Seeing either grandson cry over even the smallest pain or disappointment breaks my heart. I found myself so disturbed by reading about Reuben and Sallie’s children that I was not sure that I could bear to write this story down. But then I had to do it, if only so that those little children could be perhaps more than just names on a headstone. Someone should know that they lived and were loved.

Reuben and Sallie had seventeen children (at least—perhaps others lived who have not been recorded somewhere). They were married for many years. Somehow there was enough love to keep them together so that they could continue to raise the children who survived, including their two grandchildren from Sallie R.

Reuben died on December 31, 1926; he was 72 years old. His wife Sallie died four years later in 1930 when she also was 72. There were seven children left who survived them, and almost all of them lived long lives, but I will leave their stories for a later post.

Brotmanblog: A Family Journey

Adventures in Genealogy

Tag Archives: Family

A Delightful Conversation: Cousin Marjorie

Seeing the Forest: In Memory of Jacob and Sarah Cohen and All their Children

Filling in a Few Gaps, but Leaving Several to be Filled

Genealogy Ethics: What and Who Do You Tell the Things You Learn?

Was the Census Taker Incompetent? Lewis Cohen 1862-1924

Pennsylvania, I love you!

Family Heirloom: Jacob’s Ring

The Surviving Children of Reuben and Sallie Cohen, Part I: Minnie, Rae, Reuben, Jr., Lewis and Violet Mae

Happy Father’s Day

Reuben Cohen 1854-1926: You Really Do Not Want to Read This

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