John Nusbaum Album: Will the real Frances Nusbaum please identify herself?

Posted on June 19, 2024 by Amy

As I wrote in my last post, I learned from Ava’s information and analysis of the photograph that might be John Nusbaum that without a photograph that was labeled “John Nusbaum” to use for comparison, there was no way to know for sure who that man really was.

Turning to the two photographs of women on the first page, I had hoped that the woman at the bottom of the page would be Frances Nusbaum. Let’s look at Ava’s analysis of this photograph:

It was taken by Keely, the Philadelphia photographer who took the photographs of the two men on this page, and, according to Ava, likely in the same time frame (if not at the same time) as those first two photographs, i.e., 1863 to 1864. Ava estimated that the young woman in the photograph would be 20-22 years old, meaning she was born in the early 1840s.¹ Frances Nusbaum was born in 1845. She had no older sister, only older brothers. So this could be Frances.

But I have no other photograph of Frances, just a very blurry still from a video taken of a portrait made when she was much older. Ava didn’t find enough similarity between that blurry image and this photograph to conclude with certainty that this was Frances. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. The placement on the first page adds weight to the conclusion that this could be Frances, but there is no certainty.

I was further confused about whether this could be Frances when I asked Ava to analyze a different Keely photograph later in the project but worth discussing now. That photograph appears much later in the album, close to the end of the album. But it had a specific inscription on it, one of the very few in the album that did.

The inscription reads “Miss Nusbaum” in one handwriting, and then in a separate hand someone wrote, “Joan’s Great-great-grandmother.” The reference to Joan is almost definitely Joan Seligman, the granddaughter of Arthur Seligman and one of the last people to own the album, according to her granddaughter Jhette. Joan was the great-granddaughter of Frances Nusbaum. Her great-great grandmother with a Nusbaum surname would have been Jeanette Dreyfuss Nusbaum. Could this be either Frances or Jeanette?

Since this was a Keely photograph with no tax stamp, Ava dated it as either before August 1864 or after August 1866; based on the clothing and furniture, she narrowed it down to the earlier period, roughly 1861-1863. She also estimated that the woman in the photograph was a teenager between fifteen and eighteen years old, meaning a birth date between 1843 and 1848.

That meant it could not be Jeanette, who would have been much older than that by 1861, but it could be Frances, who was born in 1845. That seemed the logical answer to me, given the inscription on the back. The misidentification of her as Joan’s great-great-grandmother rather than her great-grandmother seemed minor.

But Ava was skeptical. She did not see a similarity to the woman she thought was Frances on the first page in the album. And she did not see a similarity to the woman in the blurred image from a video of a portrait supposedly of Frances. And she thought it unlikely that if Frances owned the album that her photograph would appear so late in the album.

Philadelphia 1868, born about 1848 Could this be Frances?

But what if someone moved the photographs around? What if the photograph on that first page is not Frances? In my mind, the inscription carries more weight than the location in the album, but it’s also possible that the inscription is wrong. Maybe it was a different Miss Nusbaum. Maybe it wasn’t Joan’s ancestor. I don’t know.

Finally, the remaining photograph on the first page, the one I’d hoped was Jeanette Dreyfuss, my three-times great-grandmother, turned out to be the most confusing one of all to identify. It is the very first photograph in the album; it should be of someone very important, you would think. I sure was hoping so.

This photograph was not taken by Keely, who took all the other photographs on the first page, and it was not taken in Philadelphia, but in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. My three-times great-grandparents John and Jeanette (Dreyfuss) Nusbaum had lived in Harrisburg from about 1843 until about 1858. Frances Nusbaum, my great-great-grandmother, was born in Harrisburg in 1845. But by 1860 and thereafter, John and Jeanette and their children were living in Philadelphia. Thus, if this photograph was taken when my Nusbaum ancestors were living in Harrisburg, it had to be taken before 1860.

But Ava concluded that this photograph was taken after 1866. The photographer who took this photograph was Christian S. Roshon, located at “No. 424 (Old No. 110) Market Street Harrisburg, Penna.” By tracing the succession of photographers who worked at this location, Ava found that Roshon succeeded a photographer named Robert S. Henderson, who came after David C. Burnite. Burnite (Burnite and Weldon’s) had been at 110 Market between 1864 and 1866, and Henderson was there with a photographer named Rogers from 1865-1866. That meant that Roshon didn’t occupy that address until 1866 or later, meaning that the first photograph in the album was taken after 1866. My Nusbaum ancestors were in Philadelphia by then, not in Harrisburg.

Since Ava estimated that the woman in the photograph was in her early 20s (20-22), she could not be Jeanette, who would have been far older than that by 1866. She might be Frances, who was 21 in 1866, but since Frances was no longer living in Harrisburg and was married to Bernard by 1866, that seemed unlikely.

So who could this young woman who holds the first spot in the album be? I searched my tree for a relative born in about 1845 who would have been living in Harrisburg in 1866. I could only find two women who came close to fitting into those parameters: Paulina and Sophia Dinkelspiel, daughters of Mathilde Nusbaum (John’s sister) and Isaac Dinkelspiel. Paulina was born in Germany in 1840, and Sophia was also born in Germany in 1849. Both were living in Harrisburg in the late 1860s. They were first cousins to Frances Nusbaum and John Nusbaum’s nieces.

Could that photograph be of Paulina or Sophia? Sure. But is the photo of either one of them? I have no idea. And if it is one of Frances’ cousins/John’s nieces, why would she be the first one in the album? It really doesn’t make much sense to me, but I also can’t disagree with Ava’s expert analysis of the dates of the photograph or the age of its subject.

Also, it’s important to remember that these CDVs could have been taken when someone was visiting from another town. Maybe Frances or someone else went to Harrisburg to visit her cousins and had her photograph taken while there. Of course, once you factor in that possibility, the photographer’s location becomes a less defining factor for identifying who was who in any of the photographs.

I decided to try a different approach with the next set of photographs.

The references to Ava’s analysis in this post all come from her first report, Ava Cohn, Analysis of Nusbaum Album #1, December 16, 2023 ↩

My Seligman Great-Great-Grandparents: Two Pioneers Who Made A Difference with Integrity and Kindness

Posted on October 9, 2014 by Amy

Bernard Seligman http://swja.arizona.edu/content/bernard-seligman-family

By the 1890s, my great-great-grandparents were “empty nesters.” Their daughter Eva, my great-grandmother, was married to Emanuel Cohen and raising her family in Philadelphia. (I’ve written about my Cohen great-grandparents here.) Their son James was working as a draftsman for the Department of Interior in Salt Lake City, Utah; he would marry Ruth V.B. Stevenson in 1893 in Salt Lake City, and have two children, Morton Tinslar Seligman, born July 1, 1895, in Salt Lake City, and Beatrice Grace Seligman, born December 4, 1898, also in Salt Lake City. By 1900, however, James, Ruth and the children had moved to Santa Fe, where they were living next door to Bernard and Frances. James was working as a clerk in a dry goods store, presumably the Seligman store.

Bernard Seligman and James Seligman and families 1900 US census Year: 1900; Census Place: Santa Fe Ward 4, Santa Fe, New Mexico; Roll: 1002; Enumeration District: 0126; FHL microfilm: 1241002

Arthur, the youngest child of Bernard and Frances, had returned to Santa Fe after college in Philadelphia, and in 1896, he married a widow named Frankie E. Harris in Cleveland, Ohio.

Marriage certificate of Arthur Seligman and Frankie E. Harris Cuyahoga County Archive; Cleveland, Ohio; Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Marriage Records, 1810-1973; Volume: Vol 42-43; Page: 489; Year Range: 1892 Sep – 1896 Jul

Frankie had an eight year old daughter Richie from her first marriage who became a part of the Seligman family. In fact for her ninth birthday on August 3, 1897, Bernard and Frances hosted a birthday party for Richie and 42 of her friends in their Santa Fe home.

City News Items Date: Tuesday, August 3, 1897 Paper: New Mexican (Santa Fe, NM) Volume: 34 Issue: 138 Page: 4

(This same “gossip column” also reported that Arthur and James Seligman and some friends were going on a two week fishing trip soon after this birthday party.)

Arthur and Frankie had a son together just a year later; Otis Perry Seligman was born on February 14, 1898, in Santa Fe. Thus, by 1900, Bernard and Frances had four grandchildren living in Santa Fe plus three more grandsons living in Philadelphia, including my grandfather John Nusbaum Cohen.

On the professional side, I could not find any specific references to Bernard’s political activities or his business activities during the 1890s although the 1900 census listed his occupation as a dry goods merchant. In 1894 he seems to have taken an extended trip to Europe, including to Germany and to Italy.

Saturday Small Talk Date: Saturday, October 27, 1894 Paper: New Mexican (Santa Fe, NM) Volume: 31 Issue: 214 Page: 4

From this clipping it is hard to know whether or not he was traveling with Frances. I also wonder who the relatives were in Italy and who he was visiting on the Rhine. Was this purely for pleasure or was it a business trip? I don’t know.

At some point after this trip, however, Bernard and Frances moved back to Philadelphia. Bernard was living in Philadelphia when he died on February 3, 1903, at age 65 from myocarditis. He was residing at 1606 Diamond Street at the time.

When I looked back to see where my great-grandmother Eva was living at that time, I was hardly surprised to see that she, her husband Emanuel Cohen, and their three sons were also living at 1606 Diamond Street as of the 1900 census. In fact, in 1900, Emanuel’s brother Isaac and nephew were also living at 1606 Diamond Street after the death of Isaac’s wife. Thus, Eva and Emanuel Cohen, my great-grandparents, were housing not only their three children, but also at least four other family members, Eva’s parents and Emanuel’s brother and nephew.

According to his obituary, Bernard (and presumably Frances) had moved back to Philadelphia three years before his death, to “recuperate from over-work.” The obituary goes on to say that Bernard had been doing well until sometime in the prior year when he had a “severe stroke of paralysis which weakened him considerably.” The paper noted, however, that he had been improving and that no one thought that he was near death. The obituary described his death as “shocking” and reported that the day before his death he had appeared fine and had even sent a dispatch relating to business matters to his son Arthur.

“A Good and True Man Called Hence,” Santa Fe New Mexican, February 3, 1903, p. 1

The obituary recounts all of Bernard’s many accomplishments, both political and business, and describes him as follows:

“Mr. Seligman was a pioneer in New Mexico, and during his residence of over forty years in this city and territory, was one of the most progressive, shrewdest and brightest businessmen and citizens of the commonwealth. He was a man of the strongest integrity and keen perception and high courage, public spirited and thoroughly posted on public affairs, indeed a valuable and good citizen in every sense of the word, a loving husband and a kind and indulgent, yet at the same time, a firm and sensible father. He was a prominent and important factor in the building up of the commercial, educational, civic, moral, and material interests in this city and county and of the entire territory. A good and true man has gone to the great beyond.”

What can I possibly add to that? Only that I wish that I had known him. I stand a bit taller knowing that I am descended from Bernard Seligman.

Just two years later, my great-great-grandmother Frances Nusbaum Seligman also died. She died in Philadelphia on July 27, 1905, at age 59.

She had been living at 1431 Diamond Street at the time of her death. Again, I checked to see where my great-grandparents Eva and Emanuel Cohen were living, and 1905 Philadelphia directory, their address was, not surprisingly, 1431 Diamond Street, and they still had their three sons and Isaac living with them in 1910 as well.

Frances was described in her obituary in very loving terms:

“She was a beautiful and accomplished woman, as good as she was beautiful and as beautiful as she was good, and of a most lovable and gentle disposition. She was an exemplary wife, a fond and good mother, and a dutiful and loving daughter. Indeed she was all that is implied in the phrase ‘a thoroughly good and moral woman.’ … She will be especially remembered by the poor people of [Santa Fe], to whom she was particularly kind. Many and many truly charitable deeds have been put to her credit.”

The obituary further commented:

“From the moment of her arrival to within a few years ago, when she commenced to spend most of her time in Philadelphia, she was a social leader, admired, respected and popular. She was a woman without guile and always ready to lend a helping hand in social as well as in charitable work.”

(“Gentle, Good Woman Gone,” Santa Fe New Mexican, July 27, 1905, p. 1)

While I was impressed and proud when I read my great-great-grandfather’s obituary, I was very moved and emotional in reading about my great-great-grandmother Frances. The words “good,” “gentle,” and “kind” are the same words that I have heard my father and my cousin Marjorie use to describe their grandmother, Eva Seligman Cohen, the daughter of Frances Nusbaum and Bernard Seligman. She seems to have inherited or learned those very traits from her parents, two people who left the city of Santa Fe a better place by the time and the effort that they spent in caring for their community while they lived there. As I will describe, their surviving children also left their mark, my great-grandmother Eva by her kindness and caring for others, and her two brothers James and especially Arthur by their service to Santa Fe and New Mexico.

Bernard Seligman

Frances Nusbaum Seligman

These two photos were given to me by my cousin Arthur Scott. They were taken from a video made by his sister of family photos in their home. The one of my great-great-grandmother Frances is so far the only photograph I have of her.