Three Sisters and Dozens of Cousins
Jules M. Seletz
Sarah B. Schlussel

THE BOOK

Three Sisters and Dozens of Cousins is a book of non-fiction, a Book of Memoirs that describes ancestors and descendents of a family derived from three daughters of a nineteenth-century Eastern European immigrant Jewish couple. It also includes the establishment of their hometown of Charleston, West Virginia, dating back to 1774. Three Sisters and Dozens of Cousins covers nearly one hundred and fifty years of United States and world history intertwining with seven generations of family members. Ancestors immigrated to America from Russia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Romania, Belgium, Syria, Mexico, Canada and France (Acadians). Descendents dispersed to Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, New Jersey, Maryland, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Illinois, Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and California ... covering close to fifty percent of this great nation.

The patriarch of the family, Hyman “Chaim” [Compinsky] Cohen, was born in 1860 in Grodno, Russia, so history begins in that year despite references being made to events involving the capital city of Charleston dating back to the middle of the eighteenth century. Within the background of history, one will quickly discover that this book imitates a time machine in that it transports the reader through the entire twentieth century, from the horse and buggy to Outer Space; from the telegraph to Cyberspace. Particular attention is paid to wars: the American Civil War, the Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII, the forgotten war of the Korean peace-keeping action, the undeclared war in Viet Nam, the Cold War, Desert Storm-the Persian Gulf War, the War on Terror and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

With the exception of Chapter One, which covers events occurring between 1860 and 1899, each subsequent chapter is devoted to a specific decade in history. Should a reader be interested in an event that happened in a certain year, he or she can explore that chapter. Chapter Two covers 1900-1909 and Chapter Twelve includes 2000-2004. Therefore the Forties, with the WWII years, would be embraced in Chapter Six. The chronology of the book continues right up to the time of submitting the final edited and revised manuscript that transports the reader into the autumn of 2004 in Chapter Twelve.

A great deal of the book focuses on Zionism, and also on the Jewish religion with its holidays and customs, beginning with strict orthodoxy in the Old World and, as generations evolve in the New World, ending with intermarriage and a reduction in observation of Jewish ethnicity. The book also highlights the trials and tribulations of anti-Semitism, racism, the KKK, integration, the Roaring Twenties, Prohibition and the Great Depression. It addresses the concerns of Y2K, entrance into a new millennium, and the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 09/11/01, only to discover that life in America goes on despite adversity. People marry, some divorce, children enter the world, elderly depart from it, politicians pontificate, the media exaggerates… and authors continue to write.

DEDICATION

How difficult it is to single out one single member from this gigantic family when so many felt the need for a Family Tree. There is one family member, however, who, down through the years, not only expressed extreme interest in such a project, but also spent numerous hours devoted to it. What a pity that before she could complete the monumental task, Alzheimer’s intervened. As Three Sisters and Dozens of Cousins was created, she was always in the minds of the authors. When the myriad family members read the book, they must remember the family member to whom we are so indebted. Fanny [Compinsky] Cohen Berman’s granddaughter, Barbara Joan Mann Reinfeld, always known to all as “Babs,” deserved a better fate, so the least we can do is dedicate this Book of Memoirs to her.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The author offers his extreme gratitude to Trudy Stockton, Library Aide at the Lincoln Public Library in Lincoln, New Hampshire, for her most generous contribution—voluminous hours of meticulously proofreading the entire manuscript, line by line and word by word

Front cover: Upper photograph portrays the Three Sisters: from left to right, the oldest, Fanny [Compinsky] Cohen Berman; the middle, Rebecca [Compinsky] Cohen Sheffer; and the youngest, Anne Cohen Seletz, circa 1957. Lower photograph depicts Charleston’s riverside, circa 1917. The Union building dominated the waterfront. The Ruffner Hotel is the brick structure to its right and the Charleston National Bank stands in the upper center. In the upper right-hand corner is the clock tower of the State Capitol that burned in 1921.

THE AUTHORS

Jules M. Seletz, a third generation member of the Three Sisters Family Tree, was born in 1930 in Chicago, Illinois, but from the age of four years, he lived and matured in Charleston, West Virginia. After attending Fernbank and Kanawha Elementary Schools; Roosevelt and Lincoln Junior High Schools; he graduated from Stonewall Jackson High School in 1947. After spending three years at West Virginia University in the School of Journalism, he transferred and graduated as a second lieutenant with a B.A. Degree in Biology from the Virginia Military Institute in 1953, and then from the Chicago Medical School in 1958 with an M.D. Following five years of post-graduate training at the Boston City Hospital, he practiced as a General and Peripheral Vascular Surgeon for thirty-five years.

He enjoyed an exciting military career in the United States Army that spanned forty-one years with a fifteen-year civilian break in service, rising to the rank of full colonel after starting as a second lieutenant in 1953 in the field artillery during the Korean conflict. He deployed in 1985 as a military surgeon to Morocco in North Africa; in 1987 to West Germany; in 1989 to Botswana in Sub-Sahara Africa; and finally, in 1991, to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in Southwest Asia during Desert Storm. Retired from the Army in 1994 while stationed at West Point, Dr. Seletz served for the next seven years as a physician surveyor for JCAHO, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. JCAHO is the nationally and internationally accepted accrediting body for the Healthcare industry. During those seven years, Dr. Seletz had several occasions to survey hospitals that have experienced untoward incidents, mishaps and catastrophic outcomes known as sentinel events.

Although his heart remains in his native Charleston, West Virginia, Dr. Seletz is currently a part-time resident of Marblehead, Massachusetts, but lives and writes in Lincoln, New Hampshire, in the heart of the White Mountains where he enjoys mountain hiking with his wife, Rilda Daigle Parker Seletz. Together, they have a blended family of seven children and thirteen grandchildren. In addition to Three Sisters and Dozens of Cousins, Seletz has also written six mystery/medical thriller novels that involve sentinel events: Sentinel Event; Not Another Sentinel Event; Code Pink, A Sentinel Event; West Point’s Sentinel Event, Sentinel Event on the High Seas and Sentinel Event Behind Bars. He is also the author of a Quartet of historical fiction, Pass In Review, that mirrors his own life during the twentieth century that begins with his father’s emigration from Russia at the turn of the nineteenth century and ends with the publication of his novels at the end of the twentieth century. Pass In Review includes Book One, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; Book Two, Jacob’s Ladder; Book Three, Jacob’s Travels; and Book Four, Jacob’s Novels. Pulp, Potatoes, and Ployes is a novel he wrote to honor his Acadian wife, Rilda, depicting a two-hundred-year Acadian Odyssey and the formation of his wife’s birthplace, Fort Kent, Maine.

When residents in his present hometown of Lincoln, New Hampshire, learned that Dr. Seletz had written a novel that described the establishment of Fort Kent, Maine, in Pulp, Potatoes, and Ployes, they requested that he write about the creation of Lincoln, New Hampshire. He entitled it Lincoln Logs.

Sarah Bloom Schlussel is a fifth generation member of the Three Sisters Family Tree. She was born and reared in Charleston, West Virginia, where she attended Overbrook Elementary School, John Adams Junior High School and graduated from George Washington High School in South Hills in 1993.

The B’nai Jacob Synagogue in Charleston has played an influential role in Sarah’s life. She was part of the fourth generation from the Sheffer family to have been a member; part of the third generation from the Bloom side of the family; only one of two in her Hebrew and Sunday school classes; and a bat mitzvah in 1987. More important, she married her wonderful husband in that synagogue in 1996.

After marrying Jeremy Schlussel, whom she met while attending West Virginia University, she moved from Charleston to be with him in Virginia. There, she drew up architectural plans for the local school system and a neighborhood house builder. Currently, besides being a homemaker for a husband and two small children under the age of five, she still finds time to work in the Weinstein Jewish Community Center Preschool office a few hours a week; substitute in the preschool classroom when her schedule permits; volunteer on the Weinstein JCC Camping Services Committee; and assist as a parent volunteer when opportunities arise.

Remaining faithful to her Jewish heritage, she and her husband are active members of the eighteen-year-old Congregation Or Atid in Richmond, Virginia, where she volunteers on its Membership Committee while her husband is a member of the Board. In whatever spare time she can find for herself, she enjoys water aerobics, walking, working on scrapbooks and reading. She has had a great love and passion for writing since her early childhood, having written several poems and short stories suitable for publication. But currently, as a stay-at-home mom, she has little time to fervently pursue that career and yet that did not prevent her from agreeing to coauthor Three Sisters and Dozens of Cousins. In that capacity, with her background in creative writing and her knowledge of Jewish customs and tradition, Sarah Schlussel has read, edited, revised and rewritten a major portion of the book. Although Three Sisters and Dozens of Cousins is her first published book, there is no question that it will not be her last.

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