The Cohen Family in America
L-R standing: Dad, Hymie Wexler (the groom), Sol, Jack. Seated, Minnie (Cohen) Wexler (the bride),
L-R standing: Dad, Hymie Wexler (the groom), Sol, Jack. Seated, Minnie (Cohen) Wexler (the bride),
For members and friends of the Cohen-Korntabak Family
Our grandparents Nisel (Nathan) and Essie (liberman) b. 16 July 1884 Korntabak lived in Piatka. Nisel was 5 years older.b. 1879
I believe they were orphaned so I don't have anything further back. Nisel died during the first year of my parents marriage. So I never met him. But I knew my Bubba well. She died after my Bar-Mitzvah around 1959. Nisel was born in 1879. Essie in 1884.
Nisel had 3 sisters who I think were older than him and were married and living in Piatka too. (Chana Schechtman, Gitel Gorodetsky, Lifsche Greenberg). They all came to America. But this is the special story about my line: Nisel left Essie in 1912 and arrives in Philadelphia Nov 13 1912 from Bremen, Germany which he left Oct 31st 1912 on board the Breslau to work as tailor and send money to Essie. Essie was left to raise 4 kids and she was 3 months pregnant with my Dad. Essie told us she didn't want to tell Nisel she was pregnant because otherwise he wouldn't have gone to the "Goldene Medina.". Essie raised the kids-oldest about 10, youngest 2 and then my father in 1913 during terrible years in Ukraine: pogroms, starvation, WW1, Russian revolution, Communism. Somehow she got out and arrives with the family in Ellis island 1921. Nisel meets my father first time age 7.
Nisel, by the way, listed a landsman named Aron (Harry?)Halendar as an uncle whom he new in Phila on the boat manifest. Aron's daughter Rochel age 16 came over on the same boat with Nisel to be reunited with her father.Her father paid for her passage. Listed as coming from Zitomer. So Halendar (maybe Hollander today for all I know) is also from Piatka. Nisel's passage paid by uncle. Nisel lists Harry Halendar as (relative or friend) he is going to join at same address as Rochel's father.
In 1922 Nisel changed his name when he naturalized to Nathan Cohen. On Declaration of Intention (US Dept of Labor, Naturalization Service) he signed in Hebrew letters his name which is the Yiddish spelling for Nisel korentabak. In petition he changes his name from Nissel Korntaqbak to Nathan Cohen living at 614 Cross St. (Bella Vista/Southwark Section. House built in 1920) He attests that he was born 15 May 1879 in Piatka Russia. He further attests that his wife's name is Elsie who was born 16 July. He has 4 kids: Manie Mar 8 1905, Solomon Nov 12 1909 Jacob Oct 15 1911 and Samuel Feb 9 1913
From My Story by Pearl R. Cohen
I think my in-laws had a very beautiful love affair. Pop loved my mother-in-law, he really did. I have to say that my father-in-law and mother-in-law had a beautiful romance, very loving. I think that's why all my in-laws – all the boys –were wonderful husbands, because they saw that at home. My father worked and I have to tell you this – when my mother gave him ten cents a day she'd pack him a lunch and he'd go to Horn & Hardart's[i] and have a cup of coffee or tea, but he took the money – the ten cents – and bought her a diamond ring, that's what he did. And she wore that ring all the time – it was a diamond ring and it had three diamonds.
They had a grocery store when Dad was young, and your father worked on these outdoor stands (that belonged to his mother) on Marshall St. – for clothes and different items.
After Pop had his stroke he didn't work. He recovered from the stroke and went back to work, he wasn't paralyzed. Anyway, they lived near my first apartment and when Pop died he died in that apartment. My father-in-law died a year after I was married. It was just before Pesach – it was a very sad Pesach.
So they went on relief, because Joe was still in high school and your father was the only boy that was working. And I was always contributing to her. And then when Pop died they had an organization – you used to call it a Landsmanschafen[ii]. You had a cemetery plot. And you had an undertaker, and the coffin.
I remember when she (Essie, my mother-in-law) would come and spend more time with me and she would tell me a story. She said she was Scheherazade[iii] ‘cause she had a thousand and one tales. I'm only sorry that I never taped everything because she had some horrible life, you know. But she was always laughing. She always had a joke to laugh with. A good sense of humor. It carried her through. Listen, to let him go (Pop, her husband) and she had all those kids. She also had a child that died. And we were walking to Pop's grave . I'll never forget. Remember we took all those buses. We didn't have a car and we went out to 69th Street. It was a hot day. Mom and you kids and Daddy and I. And we had to walk a long distance from 69th Street to get a bus to the cemetery. We get to the grave and she says to me, "You know Pearl, I loved Pop but I didn't feel as bad when he died as I did when I lost my child. He was two years old." Maybe he was between Sol and Sam. Probably between Minnie and Jack. But I don't think she discussed that with any of the kids. She told me she had nobody. She was alone in Russia and she lived with an Aunt by marriage. Pop kept sending money and they never got it. And she had to earn a living to keep the kids. But she would tell me she would go out and like put up a little stand and sell pottery and stuff. And then she said, "I would come home and Minnie had the kids. Minnie was tough with the kids." Sol and Sam used to always laugh how she pinched them and hit them. Then Mom would come in and say in Yiddish. "Children, I'm home, I'm home."
She had a great sense of humor. I think I told you about when she made the kugel when they got married and the next day Pop goes to Shul and he comes home and he says "What do we have for dinner?" and she made up a name. It was the same kugel. Matter of fact she was good that way. I mean she was unusual.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[1] Horn & Hardart- German-born, New Orleans-raised, Frank Hardart and Philadelphia's Joseph Horn (1861-1941) opened their first restaurant together in Philadelphia on December 22, 1888. The vest-pocket (11 x 17 feet) lunchroom at 39 South Thirteenth Street had no tables, only a counter with 15 stools. By introducing Philadelphia to New Orleans-style French-drip coffee, which Hardart promoted as their "gilt-edge" brew, they made their tiny luncheonette a local attraction. Word of the coffee spread, and the business flourished. They incorporated as the Horn & Hardart Baking Company in 1898. Horn and Hardart launched their first Automat in Philadelphia on June 12, 1902, borrowing the concept of automatic food service from a successful German establishment, Berlin's Quisiana Automat.[2] The first New York Automat opened in Times Square July 2, 1912. Later that week, another opened at Broadway and East 14th Street, near Union Square.In 1924, Horn & Hardart opened retail stores to sell prepackaged automat favorites. Using the ad slogan "Less Work for Mother," the company popularized the notion of easily served "take-out" food as an equivalent to "home-cooked" meals. The Horn & Hardart Automats were particularly popular during the Depression era when their macaroni and cheese, baked beans and creamed spinach were staple offerings. These cafeterias featured prepared foods behind small glass windows and coin-operated slots, beginning with buns, beans, fish cakes and coffee. Eventually, they served lunch and dinner entrees, such as beef stew and Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes. It developed into a self-service chain of restaurants that flourished in the city for nearly a century. The eateries began to close with the rise of fast-food restaurants. Carolyn Hughes Crowley described the appeal of the Automats:In huge rectangular halls filled with shiny, lacquered tables, women with rubber tips on their fingers—"nickel throwers," as they became known—in glass booths gave customers the five-cent pieces required to operate the food machines in exchange for larger coins and paper money. Customers scooped up their nickels, then slipped them into slots in the Automats and turned the chrome-plated knobs with their porcelain centers. In a few seconds the compartment next to the slot revolved into place to present the desired cold food to the customer through a small glass door that opened and closed. Diners picked up hot foods at buffet-style steam tables. The word "automat" comes from the Greek automatos, meaning "self-acting." But Automats weren’t truly automatic. They were heavily staffed. As a customer removed a compartment’s contents, a behind-the-machine human quickly slipped another sandwich, salad, piece of pie or coffee cake into the vacated chamber. Beginning in 1927, Horn & Hardart sponsored a radio program, The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour, a variety show with a cast of children (including some who later as adults became well-known performers). The program was first heard on WCAU Radio in Philadelphia, hosted by Stan Lee Broza. It was broadcast on NBC Radio in New York during the 1940s and 1950s. The original New York host was Paul Douglas, followed by Ralph Edwards and finally Ed Herlihy. The television premiere of The Horn & Hardart Children's Hour was on WCAU TV in Philadelphia in 1948, followed by WNBT(TV) in New York in 1949, telecast on Sunday mornings. The hosts were Broza in Philadelphia and Herlihy in New York.
[1] The moment immigrants arrived, they invoked their custom of self-segregation by shtetl, or town of origin, which is said to be rooted in the tradition of the self-contained societies in Eastern Europe. In their new lands they joined "landsmanschaft" societies. A landsmanschaft is an immigrant benevolent organization formed by ex-residents of the same locality or town. These aid organizations were established to deal with social, economic, and cultural problems, and provided a social framework for mutual assistance.
[1]Scheherazade is a legendary Persian queen and the storyteller of One Thousand and One Nights. The frame tale goes that every day Shahryar (Persian: شهريار or "king") would marry a new virgin, and every day he would send yesterday's wife to be beheaded. This was done in anger, having found out that his first wife was betraying him. He had killed three thousand such women by the time he was introduced to Scheherazade, the vizier's daughter. In Sir Richard F. Burton's translation of The Nights, Shahrazad was described in this way:
"[Shahrazad] had perused the books, annals and legends of preceding Kings, and the stories, examples and instances of by gone men and things; indeed it was said that she had collected a thousand books of histories relating to antique races and departed rulers. She had perused the works of the poets and knew them by heart; she had studied philosophy and the sciences, arts and accomplishments; and she was pleasant and polite, wise and witty, well read and well bred."
Against her father's protestations, Scheherazade volunteered to spend one night with the King. Once in the King's chambers, Scheherazade asked if she might bid one last farewell to her beloved sister, Dinazade, who had secretly been prepared to ask Scheherazade to tell a story during the long night. The King lay awake and listened with awe to Scheherazade's first story and asked for another, but Scheherazade said there was not time as dawn was breaking, and regretfully so, as the next story was even more exciting. And so the King kept Scheherazade alive as he eagerly anticipated each new story, until, one thousand and one adventurous nights, and three sons later, the King had not only been entertained but wisely educated in morality and kindness by Scheherazade who became his Queen.
Our grandparents Nisel (Nathan) and Essie (liberman) b. 16 July 1884 Korntabak lived in Piatka. Nisel was 5 years older.b. 1879
I believe they were orphaned so I don't have anything further back. Nisel died during the first year of my parents marriage. So I never met him. But I knew my Bubba well. She died after my Bar-Mitzvah around 1959. Nisel was born in 1879. Essie in 1884.
Nisel had 3 sisters who I think were older than him and were married and living in Piatka too. (Chana Schechtman, Gitel Gorodetsky, Lifsche Greenberg). They all came to America. But this is the special story about my line: Nisel left Essie in 1912 and arrives in Philadelphia Nov 13 1912 from Bremen, Germany which he left Oct 31st 1912 on board the Breslau to work as tailor and send money to Essie. Essie was left to raise 4 kids and she was 3 months pregnant with my Dad. Essie told us she didn't want to tell Nisel she was pregnant because otherwise he wouldn't have gone to the "Goldene Medina.". Essie raised the kids-oldest about 10, youngest 2 and then my father in 1913 during terrible years in Ukraine: pogroms, starvation, WW1, Russian revolution, Communism. Somehow she got out and arrives with the family in Ellis island 1921. Nisel meets my father first time age 7.
Nisel, by the way, listed a landsman named Aron (Harry?)Halendar as an uncle whom he new in Phila on the boat manifest. Aron's daughter Rochel age 16 came over on the same boat with Nisel to be reunited with her father.Her father paid for her passage. Listed as coming from Zitomer. So Halendar (maybe Hollander today for all I know) is also from Piatka. Nisel's passage paid by uncle. Nisel lists Harry Halendar as (relative or friend) he is going to join at same address as Rochel's father.
In 1922 Nisel changed his name when he naturalized to Nathan Cohen. On Declaration of Intention (US Dept of Labor, Naturalization Service) he signed in Hebrew letters his name which is the Yiddish spelling for Nisel korentabak. In petition he changes his name from Nissel Korntaqbak to Nathan Cohen living at 614 Cross St. (Bella Vista/Southwark Section. House built in 1920) He attests that he was born 15 May 1879 in Piatka Russia. He further attests that his wife's name is Elsie who was born 16 July. He has 4 kids: Manie Mar 8 1905, Solomon Nov 12 1909 Jacob Oct 15 1911 and Samuel Feb 9 1913
From My Story by Pearl R. Cohen
I think my in-laws had a very beautiful love affair. Pop loved my mother-in-law, he really did. I have to say that my father-in-law and mother-in-law had a beautiful romance, very loving. I think that's why all my in-laws – all the boys –were wonderful husbands, because they saw that at home. My father worked and I have to tell you this – when my mother gave him ten cents a day she'd pack him a lunch and he'd go to Horn & Hardart's[i] and have a cup of coffee or tea, but he took the money – the ten cents – and bought her a diamond ring, that's what he did. And she wore that ring all the time – it was a diamond ring and it had three diamonds.
They had a grocery store when Dad was young, and your father worked on these outdoor stands (that belonged to his mother) on Marshall St. – for clothes and different items.
After Pop had his stroke he didn't work. He recovered from the stroke and went back to work, he wasn't paralyzed. Anyway, they lived near my first apartment and when Pop died he died in that apartment. My father-in-law died a year after I was married. It was just before Pesach – it was a very sad Pesach.
So they went on relief, because Joe was still in high school and your father was the only boy that was working. And I was always contributing to her. And then when Pop died they had an organization – you used to call it a Landsmanschafen[ii]. You had a cemetery plot. And you had an undertaker, and the coffin.
I remember when she (Essie, my mother-in-law) would come and spend more time with me and she would tell me a story. She said she was Scheherazade[iii] ‘cause she had a thousand and one tales. I'm only sorry that I never taped everything because she had some horrible life, you know. But she was always laughing. She always had a joke to laugh with. A good sense of humor. It carried her through. Listen, to let him go (Pop, her husband) and she had all those kids. She also had a child that died. And we were walking to Pop's grave . I'll never forget. Remember we took all those buses. We didn't have a car and we went out to 69th Street. It was a hot day. Mom and you kids and Daddy and I. And we had to walk a long distance from 69th Street to get a bus to the cemetery. We get to the grave and she says to me, "You know Pearl, I loved Pop but I didn't feel as bad when he died as I did when I lost my child. He was two years old." Maybe he was between Sol and Sam. Probably between Minnie and Jack. But I don't think she discussed that with any of the kids. She told me she had nobody. She was alone in Russia and she lived with an Aunt by marriage. Pop kept sending money and they never got it. And she had to earn a living to keep the kids. But she would tell me she would go out and like put up a little stand and sell pottery and stuff. And then she said, "I would come home and Minnie had the kids. Minnie was tough with the kids." Sol and Sam used to always laugh how she pinched them and hit them. Then Mom would come in and say in Yiddish. "Children, I'm home, I'm home."
She had a great sense of humor. I think I told you about when she made the kugel when they got married and the next day Pop goes to Shul and he comes home and he says "What do we have for dinner?" and she made up a name. It was the same kugel. Matter of fact she was good that way. I mean she was unusual.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[1] Horn & Hardart- German-born, New Orleans-raised, Frank Hardart and Philadelphia's Joseph Horn (1861-1941) opened their first restaurant together in Philadelphia on December 22, 1888. The vest-pocket (11 x 17 feet) lunchroom at 39 South Thirteenth Street had no tables, only a counter with 15 stools. By introducing Philadelphia to New Orleans-style French-drip coffee, which Hardart promoted as their "gilt-edge" brew, they made their tiny luncheonette a local attraction. Word of the coffee spread, and the business flourished. They incorporated as the Horn & Hardart Baking Company in 1898. Horn and Hardart launched their first Automat in Philadelphia on June 12, 1902, borrowing the concept of automatic food service from a successful German establishment, Berlin's Quisiana Automat.[2] The first New York Automat opened in Times Square July 2, 1912. Later that week, another opened at Broadway and East 14th Street, near Union Square.In 1924, Horn & Hardart opened retail stores to sell prepackaged automat favorites. Using the ad slogan "Less Work for Mother," the company popularized the notion of easily served "take-out" food as an equivalent to "home-cooked" meals. The Horn & Hardart Automats were particularly popular during the Depression era when their macaroni and cheese, baked beans and creamed spinach were staple offerings. These cafeterias featured prepared foods behind small glass windows and coin-operated slots, beginning with buns, beans, fish cakes and coffee. Eventually, they served lunch and dinner entrees, such as beef stew and Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes. It developed into a self-service chain of restaurants that flourished in the city for nearly a century. The eateries began to close with the rise of fast-food restaurants. Carolyn Hughes Crowley described the appeal of the Automats:In huge rectangular halls filled with shiny, lacquered tables, women with rubber tips on their fingers—"nickel throwers," as they became known—in glass booths gave customers the five-cent pieces required to operate the food machines in exchange for larger coins and paper money. Customers scooped up their nickels, then slipped them into slots in the Automats and turned the chrome-plated knobs with their porcelain centers. In a few seconds the compartment next to the slot revolved into place to present the desired cold food to the customer through a small glass door that opened and closed. Diners picked up hot foods at buffet-style steam tables. The word "automat" comes from the Greek automatos, meaning "self-acting." But Automats weren’t truly automatic. They were heavily staffed. As a customer removed a compartment’s contents, a behind-the-machine human quickly slipped another sandwich, salad, piece of pie or coffee cake into the vacated chamber. Beginning in 1927, Horn & Hardart sponsored a radio program, The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour, a variety show with a cast of children (including some who later as adults became well-known performers). The program was first heard on WCAU Radio in Philadelphia, hosted by Stan Lee Broza. It was broadcast on NBC Radio in New York during the 1940s and 1950s. The original New York host was Paul Douglas, followed by Ralph Edwards and finally Ed Herlihy. The television premiere of The Horn & Hardart Children's Hour was on WCAU TV in Philadelphia in 1948, followed by WNBT(TV) in New York in 1949, telecast on Sunday mornings. The hosts were Broza in Philadelphia and Herlihy in New York.
[1] The moment immigrants arrived, they invoked their custom of self-segregation by shtetl, or town of origin, which is said to be rooted in the tradition of the self-contained societies in Eastern Europe. In their new lands they joined "landsmanschaft" societies. A landsmanschaft is an immigrant benevolent organization formed by ex-residents of the same locality or town. These aid organizations were established to deal with social, economic, and cultural problems, and provided a social framework for mutual assistance.
[1]Scheherazade is a legendary Persian queen and the storyteller of One Thousand and One Nights. The frame tale goes that every day Shahryar (Persian: شهريار or "king") would marry a new virgin, and every day he would send yesterday's wife to be beheaded. This was done in anger, having found out that his first wife was betraying him. He had killed three thousand such women by the time he was introduced to Scheherazade, the vizier's daughter. In Sir Richard F. Burton's translation of The Nights, Shahrazad was described in this way:
"[Shahrazad] had perused the books, annals and legends of preceding Kings, and the stories, examples and instances of by gone men and things; indeed it was said that she had collected a thousand books of histories relating to antique races and departed rulers. She had perused the works of the poets and knew them by heart; she had studied philosophy and the sciences, arts and accomplishments; and she was pleasant and polite, wise and witty, well read and well bred."
Against her father's protestations, Scheherazade volunteered to spend one night with the King. Once in the King's chambers, Scheherazade asked if she might bid one last farewell to her beloved sister, Dinazade, who had secretly been prepared to ask Scheherazade to tell a story during the long night. The King lay awake and listened with awe to Scheherazade's first story and asked for another, but Scheherazade said there was not time as dawn was breaking, and regretfully so, as the next story was even more exciting. And so the King kept Scheherazade alive as he eagerly anticipated each new story, until, one thousand and one adventurous nights, and three sons later, the King had not only been entertained but wisely educated in morality and kindness by Scheherazade who became his Queen.