Cannold loose ends

From various U.S. census records from 1880 through 1930, I now have a better picture of the Cannold family. Most of this is only marginally of interest to us, since the only Cannolds that had any relation to us were Lester, who was married and divorced from our great aunt Meta, and their two children, Thad, who committed suicide in 1946, and Harrison, who appears to have lived until at least 1965 and could have had children. Should that be the case, those children would be our second cousins.

Lester was the second of five children of Samuel and Sarah Cannold, who were both born in Poland but met and married in New York. By 1910, Lester is 23 and working as a public school teacher. Three years later, he marries Meta Rabinowitz and they start a family.

We know the outlines of the sad story after that. Lester rises in his career as a administrator in the Newark school system, but emotional problems begin to have an impact. By the time of the 1930 census, he and Meta have divorced. In 1942, we have him registering for the WWII draft from his mailing address at a Connecticut sanitarium.

On his registration card, he lists his sister Harriet Klein as "Name of person who will always know your address." And his home is given at an address on Seabreeze Ave. in Coney Island, Brooklyn.

So to tie up loose ends I went back and looked at Lester's siblings. At some point the family had moved from Manhattan to Coney Island, the same address Lester would later use. Of the daughters, one stayed single and continued to live with her mother, and two others married. One of those was Harriet Klein, who did not appear to have children. The other was Pearl Gerst, who had two or three children.

So that's all on the Cannolds, a family we are related to only by marriage but one with some tragic twists that seem to echo events in our family. Only Harrison and Thaddeus Cannold are of direct interest to us, so the hunt for Harrison goes on.