The original Ehrlichs of Spokane WA were Joseph and Julia Cohn Ehrlich, who emigrated from what was called Bohemia and is now part of the Czech
Republic in 1879. Joseph was born 11 Nov 1853 and Juli Cohn on April 18 1855.
Her parents were Simon Cohn and Marion Lange of Bohemia; his parents are unknown.
They were Jewish immigrants who came over from the port of
Bremen on the Maine, arriving 12 July, 1879, with their infant son Jacob Ernest,
who was born November 1878 in Bohemia. Joseph became naturalized in 1880
with the naturalization petition dated 6 September 1880 in New York City
and his occupation listed as "gardiner". The family then moved to Cleveland OH
and most of their other children were born in Cleveland, OH, including
Samuel (1882), Ida (Feb 1881), Fanny (Nov 1885), Flora (Mar 1887), and Dorothy.
In 1904 they moved to Spokane WA where census records list Joseph as
working as a "butcher". Julia died on May 20, 1919, and was buried in
Mt. Nebo Cemetery in Spokane. Joseph died September 3, 1931 in Philpsburg,
Granite County, Montana, where he probably retired with one of his children,
but was buried next to his wife in Mt. Nebo Cemetery in Spokane WA.
Jacob Ernest ("Jake") Ehrlich married Emma Kate Powers probably around 1904.
They had Edward Joseph Ehrlich I on 16 July 1905 and Harold John ("Hal") Ehrlich (aka Conlon) on 28 Jan 1909.
He was listed as working as a shipping clerk in 1905. She ran a boarding house.
Divorce records show them as fighting about various things including jealousy
about a boarder named Thomas Conlon. In any case they divorced and Jacob
disappeared from the scene and Emma married Thomas Conlon. Hal later changed
his last name to Conlon. The whereabouts of Jacob are unknown and he does not
show up in social security or death records. The only clue is that Hal (as
told to his daughter Connie Conlon Martin)remembers him showing up with his sister during
his college years but Hal wanted to have nothing to do with him because he
felt that he had abandoned his family. Other recollections are that after Jacob
left Emma took her boys to Canada where they were placed for a while in a French
orphanage because she couldn't afford to take care of them. She later returned
to Spokane and married Thomas Conlon, who worked as a carpenter and died in 1952.
Hal Conlon married Eva Olson (b. 1916) in Spokane, WA, and had three children,
Tom, Connie, and Jeff. He worked for the telephone company and was active in local
politics. He died in 1988 and Eva in 1987. Connie married Darrell Frigaard and had five children,
including Dave, Don, Danny, Devon and Barbara, between 1961 and about 1972
in Spokane. She later divorced and remarried Lanney Martin, who worked
as a psychologist in Spokane.
Edward Joseph Ehrlich I married Laura Anita Schemmel in Hilyard, Spokane, Wa on 10 Aug 1926.
Edward worked as a street car operator and later in hotels in Spokane.
They had one child,
Edward Joseph ("Joe") Ehrlich II, on 14 Nov 1927; Laura died on 16 Sep 1928
of polio, and Joe was raised by her parents, Daniel and Sophia Schemmel. Edward
fathered a child with to Alice Pauline Lloyd, in 1931; Alice lived with a birthing mother
named Edith Gilbert until her child was born on 23 Feb 1932 in Spokane. She was adopted
by Lyndle Ross and Madeline Lucile Cooper, two school teachers from Cheney WA, and named
Madeline Laurnell ("Laurnell") Cooper. Alice married Lloyd Flood a year later and
both her family and the Coopers moved to Reardan where they all worked as school
teachers although the identity of her biological mother was not revealed to Laurnell.
Laurnell's 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.
In 30 Nov 1935 Edward married Katherine Leonard and they later moved to Los Angeles.
They had Thomas Patrick Ehrlich in 1940 in Spokane and Bridgett Susan Ehrlich
(later Jackson) in 1942 in Los Angeles where he worked in construction and
as a building inspector. Thomas married Sylvia Ball and they had two children,
Denise Marie (1961) in San Antonio and Thomas Neil Ehrlich (1972) in Los Angeles.
