The headstone of Israel I. Cooper in Franklin Street Cemetery, Elmira, Chemung, New York, USA took a very long time to find- many years. Finding the burial place of Israel and his wife Bessie was a wonderful collaboration of family, a local library, interested volunteers that aren’t even related, Find A Grave, and those who own the cemetery.
It is a peaceful feeling to know where ancestors are “quietly resting.”
Israel Cooper belonged to the Modern Woodmen of America. They are (still) a fraternal insurance society that also provides fellowship and service through their many chapters throughout the country. The following was in an Elmira newspaper on 24 Jul 1904:
Bessie lived 28 years after Israel’s death, living with their daughter and son at various times. She died at the home of their son, Joseph Cooper, at Montgomery, Lycoming, PA, on Saturday, 28 May, 1932, at 1 o’clock, per her obituary that was published in the Elmira Gazette on 29 May 1932. The obituary states that she was a former resident of Elmira for 35 years. She was survived by 4 daughters: Mrs. Harry Tatelbaum and Mrs. Israel Kremer of Rochester, NY; Mrs. Joseph Oppenheim of Elmira; Mrs. Samuel Blostein of Worcester, MA; and 3 sons: Joseph Cooper of Montgomery, PA; Joseph B. Cooper (should be Jacob B. Cooper) also of Montgomery, PA; and Samuel Cooper of New Haven, CT. She had 27 grandchildren at her death, and 8 great grandchildren. The funeral took place at her son Jacob Cooper’s home at 165 Washington St, Elmira, on Sunday at 2 pm.
It would be nice to have the Hebrew section of their headstones translated.
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I can transliterate the Hebrew/Yiddish names for you.
Israel’s tombstone:
line 4: Yisrael Yitzkhak [Israel Issac] son of
line 5: Baruch Menakhem Cooper
Bessie’s tombstone:
line 4: [last two words] Batya Feiga
line 5: daughter of Shraga Feivish
line 6: [first word] ha’Kohan [Cohen indicates she was descended patrilineally from the Cohen priestly caste]
You may not be aware of a wonderful resource on JewishGen called ViewMate. One may upload images and others will translate for you. I suggest posting these two and asking for direct translations of the Hebrew. JewishGen is free. One needs to register, I believe, to use this service.
http://www.jewishgen.org/ViewMate/
Thank you so much, Emily! It is nice to finally know the names, and we also appreciate the suggestion to use ViewMate. I have registered on JewishGen and they do have wonderful resources- in fact, that is how we have found where some of the family is buried. I will need to spend more time on their site- they seem to have a wonderful, active community of folks very willing to help, as you are.
You are welcome. To me, ViewMate is one of the most amazing JewishGen resources (and one of the least known, I think, outside of Jewish genealogy).
Also,just discovered that my blog URL was mistyped in the last message. Now corrected in this message. 🙂
Love your blog- lots of good info there! I will be browsing there for quite a while. 🙂
Are you related to the Cooper family or *just* a helpful genealogist?
Nope. No Coopers. Just noticed your tombstone posted by Thomas MacEntee (Geneabloggers.com) on Pinterest. Will be paging thru your blog, a well.