Madeline Laurnell Cooper Bremner was born on February 23, 1932, in Spokane, Washington,
to Alice Pauline Lloyd
and Edward Joseph Ehrlich. She was put up for adoption. Her son, Doug Bremner, had her adoption record opened in 1990. But because
the names were falsified on the birth certificate it couldn't be determined right
away who the real parents were. In 2006 her son began again his quest to learn about
his mother's identity, and contacted the Eastern Washington Genealogical Society,
who were very helpful. The father's name was correctly listed as Edward Joseph Ehrlich,
and a search on internet genealogy sites showed up Denise Ehrlich, his granddaughter,
who was also doing research on this mysterious family as well. Edward was working
as a street car driver and later a busboy at a hotel in Spokane and married
Laura Schemmel in 1926. They had one son, Edward Joseph Jr ("Joe") Ehrlich, in 1927, and then
Laura died of polio one year later. Joe was raised by his grandparents, the Schemmels. In
1935 Edward married Katherine Leonard and later moved to Los Angeles.
Identifying the mother of Laurnell was more difficult than finding the father. Alice listed her name as
"Alice Pauline Woods" age 20 and born in Washington State. However her adoptive
sister Vinnie Cooper was told by her mother, Madeline Cooney Cooper, before
she died that Laurnell's half-sister was named Elinor Flood. Doug Bremner
looked up obituaries from Spokane and found the obituary of Lloyd Flood,
the father of Elinor, who married Alice Lloyd in about 1933; the obituary
listed a 'Elinor Iverson' as a surviving daughter, and Doug was able to
call her and establish the fact that she was Laurnell's half sister.
Doug and his family went to Spokane the next year and met her and her
family, as well as Connie Martin and her husband, Lanney, who was daughter of Thomas
"Hal" Conlon (brother of Edward). Together they visited the burial site of Laurnell's mother,
with a view of the Spokane River Gorge.
Alice Pauline Lloyd was the daughter of Henry Robert Lloyd, an immigrant from Wales
whose first language was Welsh, and Karen Mathea Fjellingsdal, an immigrant from Norway.
Henry was a wheat farmer in Cheney, WA.
A local neighbor was Frank Gilbert. His sister was Edith Gilbert. This probably explains
why after Alice got pregnant by Edward Ehrlich, who was working in one of the local
hotels in Spokane at the time, that she lived with Edith who acted as a "birthing mother",
i.e. a place where she could live during pregnancy and then deliver her baby in secrecy.
Her father, Edward Joseph Ehrlich, was the son of Jacob Ehrlich and Emma Powers. Jacob was
the son of Jewish immigrants from what is now the Czech Republic who left his
family in Spokane when his children where still small. Court records from the divorce show that
the two were fighting over a boarder in their home, Thomas Conlon, about jealousy.
Emma in fact later married Thomas Conlon, who helped raise the kids after their father
disappeared. Hal Ehrlich later had his name legally changed to Conlon.
After birth Laurnell was adopted by
Lyndle and Madeline Cooney Cooper.
They were both school teachers who worked in schools in various places in Eastern Washington.
Madeline's first child (Madeline) died shortly after birth in Wenatchee
while the family waited for the doctor to arrive. She apparently became depressed
after this and they moved to Cheney WA and adopted Laurnell. There is no
record of a legal adoption and the most likely scenario is that the "Dr Hall"
who delivered her arranged in advance for the adoption through mutual acquaintances
in Cheney.
After her birth the family moved to Four Lakes and later to Almira (1937) and Reardan WA (1941), a small
town 30 miles west of Spokane set in the middle of vast wheat farms. For some
reason her biological mother Alice, with her new husband Lloyd Flood, a wheat
farmer, also moved to Reardan. In fact Alice taught school at the Reardan
elementary where both Laurnell and Elinor where students. It was the family secret that
they were related, which came out years later. They later moved to Almira, WA,
about 1938-1945 and then to Renton where Laurnell and Vinnie graduated from High School.
Dr John Deshaye was quoted in her
obituary as saying that she had polio as a child.
That may have been what someone referred during her memorial referred to as the
difficulty in her early childhood that she had to overcome. However other familiy members
have denied that she ever had polio, and that her characteristic limp was from an injury
to her hip from a skiing accident.
After 1944 the family lived in Renton, King County, Washington, where she
attended Renton High School. Her parents both died in Renton.
She attended college at Western Washingon University and later the University of Washington
in Seattle, where she graduated in 1956 with a degree in business administration. She met James Douglas Bremner, who was
a medical student at the University of Washingon, and married September 6, 1953.
She gave birth to Steve in 1955 in Seattle, Lynn in 1956 on Staten Island NY
where her husband was an intern, Anne in McAllister, Oklahama, where her husband
was working for the Indian Service (Public Health Service), and Doug in Topeka, Kansas,
where her husband was a resident in psychiatry at the Meninger Clinic.
In 1962 they moved to Olympia, WA, where her husband started a private
practice in psychiatry. The family lived in Boston Harbor, Route 3 (Box 353-B) (now Fish Trap Rd).
Laurnell was a member of the Unitarian Fellowship of Olympia (UFO).
It was called a fellowship because there was no formal pastor or minister.
Each week, she or one of the other members got up and gave the "sermon".
The fellowship met at the old Women's Club near the corner of Washington and Union.
Her friends were also members of the church, including Lois Bergerson,
Betsey McGuire, Sally Giovine-Kerr, Herb Legg, Pat and Pete Holm, Jean Turnbow, Bob Gillis,
Dave Patillo, and Giovanni and Amne Costigan. The latter was a well known Professor
of History at the University of Washington who took a prominent role
in liberal causes including defense of intellectuals accused of Communism
in the 1950s and protest against the Vietnam War in the 1960s.
In 1963 the Holms and Gillises opened a coffee shop on the West Side called
the Null Set,
a coffee shop where they sold Bob's Art and had jazz concerts and other
"happenings." The coffee shop was a favorite place for the Unitarians to
meet and socialize.
"Olympia was a very conservative place back then," said Bob Gillis, a local artist.
"We used to feel more comfortable in the church. We viewed ourselves
as sort of like Bohemians."
"Laurnell had lots of friends and was very active in politics, the
environment, and was a fighter for justice," said Lois Bergerson.
"She was very generous. We teased her that she would give the
shirt off of her back. She was a warm and loving mother."
She was remembered as a very warm and loving person.
Laurnell was
very active in civic affairs. She was president of the
Boston Harbor PTA, a board member of the AAUW, a member of the committee
for a four-year college, the League of Woman Voters, the Mental Health
Association, was program chairman for Thurston-Mason County Medical
Auxiliary, and was a member of the Woman's Democratic Causus. She was involved in the
founding of the State Capital Museum and was active in the Governor's Festival of the Arts.
She was active in early efforts to save the Nisqually Delta from development.
Her friend Wallace W. Bergerson was then head of the Department
of Ecology under then Washington State Governor Rosellini.
She also volunteered at the West Side Cooperative Nursery
School where she was remembered to take her shoes off and
get down on the floor with the little children, which included
her son Doug. She would make him peanut butter sandwiches on toast
with peeled onions just the way he liked thm.
She had a bright red VW bug convertible that
she would pack her kids into and drive around. On the weekends
they would go out to Springer Lake near old 99 with the
Bergerson, Vandemanns, and others.
Friend and neighbor Katherine Turnbow Peil later recalled
"I remember Laurnell as being one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen,
an elegant lady, yet with a feminist intellectual fire and a fashionably 60’s
countercultural flair. Seems like I recall her in the kitchen one day smoking
a pipe with cigarettes tucked into it, wearing dungarees, and tossing off
scintillating comments and critiques about politics, philosophy and current events --
impressing me as the multidimensional kind of woman I wanted to be. But my
characteristic image of her was in an elegant scarlet red suit or dress looking
very Jackie Kennedyeque with her dark eyes, raven hair and overall polish."
Laurnell continued to lead her active life, attending a concert by Pearl Bailey
on Thursday and a dinner fundraiser for the museum on Friday, although she was feeling
ill on Friday. Early Saturday morning she complained of headache and
was taken to St. Peter's Hospital in Olympia where she was admitted at 10 a.m.
and later was transported to University Hospital in Seattle for specialized
treatment and died en route on February 12, 1966. The
death certificate lists
the ultimate cause of death as meningitis with a proximal cause of bilateral
pneumonia and a question about Haemophilus pneumonia infection.
A memorial service was held for her at the Unitarian Fellowship on February 15, 1966.
Betsey McGuire spoke at the funeral, and a 13 page memorial was written by
Betsey McGuire, Phil Vandemann, Herb Legg, Dave Patillo, and Dr. Giovanni Costigan,
a historian from the University of Washingon.
Betsey said at the memorial "Laurnell often reminded me of a bright, electric
light, people turned her on so easily and she shone brightly in a room."
That light still shines inside of her children and others who knew her.