Gloria F Cohn

Gloria F. Cohn was born in her family home on South 4th Avenue in Highland Park, New Jersey on April 24, 1926. She is predeceased by her parents, A. Harry Freedman and Mildred Adler Freedman, as well as her two older brothers, Joseph and Edward.  She attended New Brunswick public schools and was a graduate of New Brunswick High School.  She met her beloved husband Frederick Simon Cohn on a blind date, in New Brunswick, when on a break from college (Pennsylvania State University), when he was still in dental school.  She graduated college in 1948, then they got married in 1949.  She worked at the Heydon Chemical Company until she had her first child, Joseph Theodore Cohn, in 1952.  She and Freddie lived in Highland Park, in the Harper Street Apartments, and they had two more children, Edward Lee Cohn (1955) and Betsy Claire Cohn (now Monaghan) (1958).  They bought a home on North Eighth in Highland Park (before Betsy was born) within the neighborhood of lifelong friends.

Gloria was a SUPER-MOM before the term was invented. She was president of the PTA,  cub-scout den mother, active in Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple, president of the Temple Sisterhood, active in the campaign to build the Highland Park Middle School and so much more. She was a welcoming mom to all the neighborhood kids and the community.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s Gloria and Freddie took the kids on amazing cross-country trips, at first living in tents, then a pulling a tiny siver Scotty trailer, and finally in a large pop-up camper.  Coast to coast, north to south!! In the end of the camping days they settled for a campsite on a lake in Maine, then finally at their close friends’ (the Milch family) campground in Pennsylvania.  All in the campground were always welcome to share the Cohn meals and hospitality. 

In 1968 she went back to work at Douglas College. She was the Secretary of the English Department.  She took amazingly fast shorthand!  She was “poached” by the newly formed Womens Studies Center and became their first administrative director.  In that role she not only administered the needs of the department, but mother-hen all the leaders of the new Women’s Movement.

In 1986 she retired from Douglas to devote time and attention to Freddie, ailing from many conditions.  They moved to Clearbrook in Monroe.  She lost Freddie in 1991.

She stayed very busy with cooking (the most delicious pies!), knitting, sewing, crocheting, quilting, and doting on her children, their spouses, and their children - her grandchildren -  and then on her great-grandchildren!!  Everyone cherishes the wonderful quilts, afghans, and sweaters she made. Typical of Gloria, she then began making quilts and hats and blankets for children at the New Brunswick Hospitals.  Eventually, she moved from the adult community  in Monroe to Stonegate Assisted Living. She organized a whole team  of knitters and crocheters and continued to make blankets and quilts of comfort for the hospitals.  

Gloria’s life is celebrated by her children , Joe, Ed, and Betsy, as well as their spouses and children and children’s children: Joe’s Deborah Rottman Cohn, and their daughter Elizabeth (Beth) Rose Buchter, her husband Joseph Buchter, and their daughter Juniper Ruth Buchter; Ed’s daughters Elisha Jane Cohn and her husband Theo Black and their children Miles and Elliot; and Ariel Miriam Cohn and her husband Aron Steinke and their son Marlen; and Betsy’s husband, much devoted to and loved by Gloria, Sean Monaghan.