The Cohens

Print   

This history is from one of the four books that my mother's mother, my grandmother Marion Nivert, wrote to her children and grandchildren, to hand down to us our family history. The book these excerpts are drawn from was written in 1995. She addressed the books to her four children and wrote in first person.

Now more about my grandparents. My mother's parents (Max "Mordecai" and Mary Cohen) came to America in the 1870's from a village in Russia called Volkavich. Its location is unknown as well as its name today, but it was somewhere in Lithuania. At first, they settled in New York City and their oldest child, Bessie, was born there. They had several other chidren, the youngest being my mother, Ella. Sometime between Bessie and Ella they moved to Philadelphia where my mother was born. Only five of the children lived to adulthood. Philip, Louis and Sophie were the other three. The family was very poor. Grandpa was crippled, due to an accident during a storm, when a tree was struck by lightning and fell on a chair in which he was sitting. I never knew them as they died before I was born. My mother told me that Mary Cohen, for whom I was named, was a very gentle person. She loved birds and put out crumbs for them.

They earned a living by making paper boxes at home. One of the boys would bring home the materials and the whole family put together the boxes. Then the children would deliver them to the stores. This was called a "cottage industry" and was common in those days before big factories came into being.

They lived in a row house on Reed Street in South Philadelphia near Moyamensing (?) Prison. The house had white stone steps outside, leading to the front door. It was my mother's job to scrub this stoop on Friday to prepare for the Sabbath. The house and the school that Mom attended are long gone, as well as any records of her birth. Later in life, when she wanted to get a passport, Aunt Bessie signed an affadavit attesting to her birth to provide proof of her citizenship.

....

My mother, Ella, went to school until she completed eighth grade. She had no Hebrew education. In those days, girls were taught only what they needed to know about keeping a Jewish home: observing the Sabbath, holiday customs, and keeping kosher. When she was 13, she was apprenticed to a milliner. She sat at a long table with several other girls and learned to trim the large hats that were worn then. (Early 1900's) This was when women wore hats whenever they left the house, even if it was only to go to the grocery store. They wore great big hats, covered with decorative feathers, flowers and bows. We always referred to them as "Queen Mary" hats because Queen Mary of England was never seen without one on. My mother sewed the many decorations and learned a lifetime occupation of sewing. She made our clothes when we were small. During the "Great Depression", she did dressmaking for other people to help make extra money. She taught me to sew and I did the hems when she made things for people. But since I was then about 12, she didn't want the customers to know that I did the hems. It was our secret. I learned to love sewing as she did, and am still at it, though today it's in the form of embroidery. Mom never stopped either. When she was in her 60's she took tailoring lessons to learn how to make tailored buttonholes on coats and jackets. She never did grow "old". She painted her kitchen when she was 70.

....

At 15 months, Ruth said her first words, loud and clear, "bread and butter". This is one of the stories I remember being told by my mother.

Mom was strict about behaving as Jews should. Once Naomi cried because we didn't have a Christmas tree. She cried so much that the neighbors were sorry for her and asked Mom why she didn't get her a little one. But Mom refused to give in and Naomi never got her tree. Another time at Passover, she sat outside on the back steps and cried because she wanted bread and butter. But again Mom refused to give in so the tantrums did no good.

When we were small, we visited often in Philadelphia where Mom's relatives lived. We started out very early Sunday morning when the store was closed. When we got to "Philly", the first stop was at the automat. This was a restaurant where you put money in a slot and then a little door would open and you took you the sandwich or whatever you had chosen. Usually we had "sticky buns" and milk. This was a big deal to us kids. It was the 1920's version of "fast food" and we thought it was great.

Mom's brother, our Uncle Phil, and his family lived at 5839 Hoffman Avenue. (Why do I remember trivia like that?) They were richer than us and lived very nicely, with beautiful furniture and a live-in maid, whose name was Mame. The family included Aunt Ann, Hannah, Ruth, Leon and Florence (Flossie).

I don't remember much else about these visits, except that invariably I got carsick on the way down. And once, on the way down, Ruth and Naomi were carrying on and threw our coats out the window. This wasn't discovered until we got there.

....

"Mom," Doris said, "Tell me what you know about Aunt Dora for whom I was named."

Aunt Dora was my mother's aunt, your great-great-Aunt. Her last name was Caden, and she was a sister to Mary Cohen, my grandmother, for whom I was named. My mother was very fond of Aunt Dora. When you were born, I asked my mother if there was anyone whose name she would like for you, and she was pleased that we agreed on Aunt Dora, making your name Doris. When it was discovered that you were born with a dislocated hip, she blamed herself because Aunt Dora was a cripple.

The Cadens lived in Philadelphia. They made a living by selling little bags of peanuts at the ballpark. The whole family would gather around the table and fill the bags and put them into a barrel. When the barrel was full, they carted it by horse and wagon to the ballpark, where they sold the bags for .05 cents each. They were not allowed into the park, but stood near the entrance. Leon Goldman told me this. Once when his family was visiting the Cadens, he was taken on the wagon by cousin Louis Caden. When they returned with all the nickels they had collected, the family again gathered around the table to count the money. I don't know much else about these cousins, except there was one named Sophie.

....

I couldn't write this "History" without telling you about two of my favorite relatives: Aunt Bessie and Uncle Ike (Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Julius Goldman). On Sunday afternoons they held open house at their house. This went on for many years. I remember going there when I was very small; and when we lived next door to them after the war, open house was still a big event at the Goldman house. Freda and Lil were the only ones living at home by then, and every Sunday morning they baked goodies for the company. We would eat and talk and play games and have a wonderful time.

Aunt Bessie was a wonderful person. She was a charter member of the Jewish Home, once known as the Home of the Friendless. It was originally situated in an old home in the Providence section of Scranton. My mother would take me there to play with the children who lived there. The Jewish Home today is a home for the elderly, no chidlren. In the entry hall the original charter hangs, and there is Aunt Bessie's name. She was the hospitality chairman.

When Bessie and Ike were married, they came to live in Scranton, where he had a job at Linder's coat factory. Later on, he had a tailor shop on Madison Avenue where he did alterations and made suits. Their first home was in the "Flats" on Meridian Avenue. Then they moved to 1020 Madison Avenue with their seven children. It is a three bedroom house. Aunt Bessie and Uncle Ike had one room, the three girls had one room, and the four boys shared the other. It was a very happy and lively home. On Sundays when we all piled in, there were about 25 or 30 of us. It was loud, especially so because Aunt Bessie was a little deaf and all spoke loudly so she could hear. At Chanukah time, Uncle Ike always had little toys to give to each child. And he always had a pocketful of candy for us.

I loved going there, and I loved Aunt Bessie. She was kind and always willing to listen. When I was twelve, I had a wonderful summer gardening in their backyard. They had kept chickens in a coop in a corner of the yard. That summer they decided to give up the chickens. After the corner was cleared out, they let me have a garden there. (We were then living on Adams Avenue, where the yard was packed dry, brown earth where nothing would grow.) I did all the work and loved every minute of it. I ended up with bushels of green beans, so many that I gave some to my piano teacher. I was so proud.

Doris' daughter Beth was named for Aunt Bess. I was very happy that she was named for someone that I loved so much.

....

My mother's other siblings were Philip, Sophie and Lou.

Philip's wife was Anne. They had four children: Hannah, Ruth, Leon and Florence. The only one who married was Florence. Her husband was Jack Perlstein. They had one son, Michael, who lives with his family in Philadelphia. Uncle Phil was a policeman, until he got in trouble because of bootlegging during Prohibition. My father used to tell about getting him out of trouble by appearing as a witness in court and swearing that he had accepted the whiskey for John D. Rockefeller. Since Mr. Rockefeller would not appear, there was no way to disprove this. However, I am confused as to how this got Uncle Phil out of trouble, unless they had to prove that someone actually bought the stuff. When the family fortunes were very low, a marvelous thing happened. Hannah entered a contest in which she wrote a jingle for a bread company. She won first prize of $10,000, which was a fortune in those days. Her brother Leon came up with a patent for making articles out of metal. The money was invested in the venture which turned out to be very successful.

Aunt Sophie and her daughter Gertie visited my folks often. We lost touch with her other children Manuel and Reba. When Doris was married, Gertie made a trip to Scranton by bus to bring her my grandmother's gold candlesticks that she had brought from Europe.

Uncle Lou was a few years older than my mother. He had a grocery and liquor store in Washington, D.C. He and his wife Edith had two sons: Milton and Maxwell, both of whom became orthodontists.

....

I have always been surrounded by relatives - grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. I never knew my mother's parents since they died before I was born. But in my mother's family I had 4 aunts, 4 uncles and 16 first cousins. On my father's side I had both grandparents, 5 aunts, 3 uncles, and 15 first cousins. And I knew every one of them. We won't even begin to count second cousins.