The Rehms of Montclair

The Rehms of Montclair

• Jul 02, 2025
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The three Rehm children were born while the family lived on Harrison Ave in Hasbrouck Heights. The first born in 1909 was Edna L. Rehm, given her mother’s first name but with a different middle name. Edward Lawrence Rehm Jr., his father’s namesake, was born May 20, 1914. Then a second daughter, Ruth Marion Rehm, was born in 1916.

They were still in Hasbrouck Heights for the 1920 census, but were listed in a 1928 Montclair directory, so their move to a bigger, more prestigious home happened between those dates. That coincides with Edward’s promotion to Cooper Union’s Secretary position in 1926.

Edna studied at Montclair State Teachers College and was a schoolteacher in Wood Ridge and Caldwell, N.J. She married Russell Fitt, an Upper Montclair real estate broker. They had three children (see Fitt under Branches). Edna died suddenly at 54 in 1962.

After high school in Montclair, Edward Jr. went out of state to The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for his college years. He pursued a business concentration and was a member of the Alpha Tau fraternity. He returned home for a few years after college, before taking a job that landed him in Evanston, Ill., where we will

The younger sister Ruth was also a schoolteacher in upstate New York in a village near Buffalo. There she met and married a local man, Gerald F. Clark, an advertising manager with the area newspaper. They returned to Ridgewood, N.J., next to Montclair, where they had a son, Gerald Lawrence, in 1943, before Gerald’s World War II service as a major. A second child, Carol Ann, was born in 1950. (See Clark under Branches.)

Edward Lawrence Sr. continued his work at Cooper Union until age 65 and seemed to enjoy his retirement years. He and Edna moved to Florida, but he died three years later in 1952 while vacationing in Hyannis, Mass. With two married daughters in the area, Edna returned to Montclair until she died there in a nursing home in 1970 at age 88.