Lane Villa–63 Cookman Avenue, Ocean Grove, NJ. Owners and staff pose out front c. 1905. Jacob Lane is seated with his wife Sarah to his left. Photo courtesy of Les Lane
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor Blogfinger.net
We enjoy hearing personal accounts of Ocean Grove history. Recently we were contacted by Les Lane who lives in Georgia. He has been tracing the history of his family whose roots go back to Amsterdam (Netherlands), emigrating to New Amsterdam, New York in 1663.
In 1905, his great-great grandparents moved to Ocean Grove— 63 Cookman Avenue, at the corner of Pilgrim Pathway. Les doesn’t know anything about the building prior to his family’s purchase. The property remained in the Lane family for about 35 years.
Mr and Mrs Lane celebrate their 50th in the Grove.
Mr. Lane says that his family surname was Laenen van Pelt. His GGGF Jacob Lane was born in New Jersey in 1830, while Jacob’s wife Sarah Ann Middlesworth was born in 1836. Jacob had a tailor shop in Newark. He evidently retired because of health reasons and purchased the property on Cookman to be run as a boarding house. He did not choose Ocean Grove because of religious reasons; he saw it as a business opportunity. We don’t know if the family were Methodists.
The Lane daughters: Mae Lillian and Laura Anna in Ocean Grove
Sarah and their two daughters, Laura Anna Lane and Mae Lillian Lane ran the day-to-day operations at Lane Villa.
Les Lane has no family letters to give any insight into their lifestyle, but he does have his GG-grandfather’s old tailor tools, a pair of opera glasses, and a coffee grinder that was used in the kitchen.
The 1910 census shows the four of them living there. Sarah died in 1911, while Jacob died in 1915. The two daughters continued to operate the Villa until the 1930’s. The 1930 census shows them still living there, but by 1940 they were living on Broadway. According to family lore, the sisters lost the Villa sometime in the 1930’s “to a shady lawyer.”
Les shared his genealogy research with us and commented on the current condition of the property, “It’s truly sad how much the Lane’s boarding house has changed since the early 1900’s”
The property today is much different. It consists of multiple apartments. Too bad the HPC wasn’t around back when. Thanks to Les Lane for sharing his research about his family in Ocean Grove.
The former Lane Villa: June, 2013. Blogfinger photo
“Thanks for the Memory”– This song won an Academy Award in 1938. The recording is by Regis and Joy Philbin. The album is “Just you, Just me.”