NAME in full: LORETTA ELSIE EHMANN^{1, 4, 14}

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:  Dark brown eyes

PHOTO:  (above) Time and place unknown; from the 1940s or 1950s?

SIGNATURE:^{5-2, 5-11} 

EDUCATION:  Public grade school education in the Bronx, New York City. Death certificate filled out at the funeral home⁶ did not indicate schooling but death certificate filed in Syracuse⁷ indicates “0-11” years of schooling completed.  May have also taken classes at Cooper Union College (according to a family member), a private institution in New York City off Union Square that offered free day and evening classes to students of all ages.¹⁸

OCCUPATION(S):  Wife and mother; worker in various factories (hosiery, lingerie, pocketbooks) after separation from her husband in 193-?  Worked for 10 years to qualify for Social Security; thereafter: Housewife.^{6, 7, 14, 15, 18}

DEATH date:  Died at the age of 97 on 22 April 1988, 8:10 a.m.^{6, 7, 8}

Place:  Loretto Geriatric Center, 700 E. Brighton Ave., Syracuse, Onondaga County, New York 13205 (Nursing home; admitted October 7, 1976).^{6, 7, 8}

BURIAL date:  26 April 1988^{6, 7, 8}

Place:  North Syracuse Cemetery, North Syracuse, New York. Burial handled by Welter-Price Funeral Home, Inc., 2649 James St., Syracuse, New York.^{6, 7, 8, 9}

RESIDENCES:

Town, County, State, Dates

818 Courtlandt Ave., [The Bronx], New York (Melrose neighborhood?), New York, NY -- birth and c. 1890, where her father, Oscar Ehmann lived at the time of his enlistment in the New York  State Militia^B

89 Monitor St., Brooklyn E.D., New York City, NY -- November 1898 to? (Her mother, Ellen Ehmann, moved to Brooklyn while Oscar served in the Spanish-American War; they lived there for awhile after his discharge,^B perhaps to be near her Wolfrath or Zinckgraf relatives

(696?) 145th Street, New York City (South Bronx, perhaps in or near the Mott Haven neighborhood), New York, NY -- 8 June 1900 (U.S. census)¹⁹

2128 Valentine Avenue, New York City (Tremont/south of Fordham neighborhood of the Bronx), Bronx, NY -- November 1903 to 192-?^{B, 2, 20, 4-21} (1920 U.S. census, 15 January²¹)

Gilboa, Schoharie Co., New York –February 1922 (1923?) -- gave birth to her daughter there (while her husband Philip Stone was working on the NYC aqueduct/reservoir system?)

2128 Valentine Avenue,[The Bronx], New York City, Bronx Co., New York -- Loretta gave birth to Dave there on 12 December 1925¹⁴

Rented the “Maddigan house,”¹⁴ New Hampton (village: Lat. 41.4 N, Long. 74.4 W), Orange Co., New York -- Philip Stone living there as of December 1925 when son Dave was born¹⁴ in the Bronx; family lived there --? until the early 1930s?

Sanford Ave., Chester, Orange Co., New York -- April 1930 (census)²²

Two different houses near each other, Greycourt (just east of Chester), Orange Co., New York – as of Jan. 1932 until at least Feb. 1933;^4-26 (to mid-1930s?¹⁴)

Academy Ave., Chester, Orange Co., New York -- 21 January 1943⁴ (Was this the address of Loretta and her children from mid-1930s to circa 1950s?¹⁵

Church Street Extension, [later/also known as] 611 Church Street, just outside the Village of North Syracuse, Town of Clay (apartment above the garage at Clara and Tony Lipke’s home), Onondaga Co., New York -- Fall, 1955? to ?

Grey Cape Cod house located just east of present-day I-81 Taft Road on-ramp, Taft Road, North Syracuse (apartment behind the garage at son Dave’s home), Onondaga Co., New York – 195-? to February 1967

20426 Delight St., Canyon Country (at son Dave’s home), Los Angeles Co., California – 1968 to October 1974¹⁸

Lived with daughter(?), Onondaga Co., New York -- September 1974 to 1976¹⁸

Loretto Geriatric Center, 700 Brighton Ave., Syracuse, Onondaga Co., New York -- October 1976 to April 1988^{6, 7}

Loretta Stone, Taft Road, N. Syracuse,

New York, 1963 (about age 73 years)

ADDITIONAL BIOGRAPHICAL DATA (baptism, religious affiliation, etc.):

Social Security number 056-20-0647^{4, 5, 6, 7}

Loretta’s parents were both 29 years old, were first-generation Americans with German-born parents, and had been married for approximately three years when their daughter Loretta (their firstborn child) was born. Loretta’s father was at that time a bricklayer.¹ They lived at that time in what I believe was the Melrose neighborhood, on Courtlandt Avenue, known then as “Dutch Broadway” because it was a major avenue through a German section of the Bronx, near 158^th Street, east of today’s high ridge of greenery known as Franz Sigel Park (Latitude: 404926N, Longitude: 0735530W). At that time the park was called Cedars Park and was a place where schoolchildren went for their May Day festivals, where people strolled and picnicked in June, and listened to summertime band concerts in the pavilion atop the park’s highest point, at East 154^th Street. Franz Sigel, a famous retired German-born Civil War general and writer/publisher lived nearby. When he died in August of 1902 (Loretta was 12 years old), no funeral parlor could accommodate the thousands of mourners, so the services were held at the Melrose Turn Verein (German gymnastics association) headquarters. The funeral cortege consisted of an honor guard of Civil War veterans, platoons of policemen, Army units, 14 gymnast clubs, three choral societies, fifteen rifle clubs, 48 judges and fifty German-American organizations marching along Courtlandt Ave. ^(McNamara)  Cedars Park was renamed after him around 1910. This episode gives an idea of the neighborhood into which Loretta was born and the nearby park she no doubt would have been taken to as a small child.

The same year Loretta was born (1890), Louis A. Risse (who lived a bit south, in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the Bronx) was named official Engineer (designer, etc.) of the Grand Concourse to be built linking the north and south Bronx; he modeled it after the Champs Elysees of Paris. In 1898 Louis F. Haffen was elected as first Bronx Borough President (he remained in office until 1911). He was responsible for building  the courthouse at 161^st Street and Third Avenue in the Bronx. Perhaps Loretta’s father worked as a bricklayer on these major building projects.

The 1900 U.S. census¹⁹ (taken June 8th) shows her living with her family at 145th Street in the South Bronx (House Number 696, Dwelling No. 127, Family No. 438):

[EHMANN] LORETTA - daughter, white, female, born July 1890, age 9, single, self and parents born in New York; occupation: school; attended school 9 months.

This was in or near the Mott Haven neighborhood of the south Bronx, very near St. Mary’s Park. I don’t have any idea why they would have moved here. They evidently didn’t stay too long.

The part of the Bronx where Loretta remembered herself “growing up” had its rural aspects. She remembered enjoying her habit of climbing up into a tree in front of her home to read books. Given her probable age, this was probably at their home at 2128 Valentine Ave. in the Tremont (formerly Upper Morrisania) neighborhood, near Julius Richman Memorial Park (and today, about a mile west of the Bronx Zoo and Botanical Gardens). In the 1870s this area had been primarily populated by Irish and Germans, but in the 1890s and early 1900s more Italians, blacks, Armenians, and Greeks were moving in. It was connected directly to downtown New York City by the New York and Harlem River Railroad. Loretta lived what a relative described¹⁸ as a normal, middle-class childhood, with extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins) nearby or within the New York City area.

In 1906, while the family was living at 2128 Valentine Avenue, her mother died of tuberculosis when Loretta was sixteen years old.

Philip N. Stone and Loretta Ehmann may have first met while he was parading with his Coastal Artillery Corps company in the Bronx on Memorial Day, 31 May 1909. He was stationed at Ft. Totten in Queens, New York from 26 September 1908 to August 1911.^{4-22, 4-23} He paraded again in Manhattan (possibly the Bronx) on Memorial Day, 30 May 1910, at which time he was a musician (bugler?) in his company. As she would tell others about their meeting later, she ‘fell in love with his uniform.’¹⁸

The 1910 U.S. census²⁰ (taken 21 April) shows her living at 2128 Valentine Ave. in the Bronx (Tremont? Fordham? Section) with her father and brother; age 19, no occupation, not in school.

In 1912 D.W. Griffith opened his Biograph movie studio in the Tremont neighborhood, using locals as extras in his movies.

In 1914, after rejecting at least one other suitor¹⁸ Loretta married Philip Stone in a civil ceremony at 4187 Third Avenue, less than a mile from her home. They were married again by a clergyman on 20 April 1916 at 240 East Tremont Avenue in the Bronx. It appears that Loretta and Philip lived at the Valentine Ave. home with Loretta’s widowed father and younger brother for quite some time, as he registered for the draft for World War I from that address in 1917, and:

The 1920 U.S. census²¹ (taken Jan. 15) shows the following living at 2128 Valentine Ave.:

EHMANN, OSCAR - Head of household; Owns own home/Mortgaged; age 58; widowed; able to read and write; born in New York; father and mother both born in Germany, with German as their mother tongue; able to speak English; occupation: retired builder.

EHMANN, HERBERT - Son; age 25; single; able to read and write; self and parents born in New York; able to speak English; occupation: stenographer at the Navy Dept., for wages.

STONE, PHILIP N. - Son-in-law; age 33; married; able to read and write; self born in New York; parents both born in the United States; speaks English; occupation: flagman on the railroad for wages.

STONE, LORETTA E. - Daughter; age 29; married; able to read and write; self and parents born in New York; speaks English; occupation: housekeeper.

Loretta and Philip had left the Bronx to be on their own by the time their daughter was born, and were living in the Hudson Valley, in a dilapidated rented home in New Hampton, in 1925 (though their son was born at the Valentine Ave. home of his grandfather, near good medical assistance).

Fifteen years into her marriage, the 1930 census (taken 15 April) shows her living with Philip and their two small children in a rented house ($15/mo, with a radio) on Sanford Avenue in Chester Village, town of Chester, Orange County, New York:

[STONE], LORETTA E., Wife, female, white, age 39, married, age 24 when first married, not attending school, can read and write; self and parents born in New York; speaks English; occupation: None.

In the early 1930s the family lived in Greycourt, New York (near Chester) moving from one to another of two rented houses while Philip worked as a guard (“keeper”) for the New York City Department of Correction facilities in the area. Sometime in the 1930s Philip and Loretta separated; she and the two children moved in to Chester, where the children had been attending school. She lived there with them until the children grew up.

Loretta became a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Being raised a New York City girl, she never learned to drive. For many years she lived with her son and his family. She had refined tastes and listened exclusively to the FM classical music station on her radio. She was a cat lover and retained a faint Bronx accent throughout her life.

Loretta Stone, about age 72, walking with her Siamese cat, Taffy (North Syracuse, 1962)

REFERENCES AND SOURCES USED FOR RESEARCH

Many personal conversations and correspondence over the years with relatives and family members.