Cochran family

The Cochran family papers include materials from these family members: Edward Colcord Cochran (1817-1866); John Webster Cochran (1844-1929); Asenath Williams Woodcock Cochran, later known as Aso-Neith Cochran (1851-1931); Adelaide Fredrika Cochran (1879-1942); and Olea Wanda LaFayette Cochron, known as Vota Cochran (1884-1975).

Edward Colcord Cochran was born in Scarborough, Maine on February 23, 1817. He married Joanna Gordon Nichols on September 13, 1835 in Roxbury, Massachusetts. They had ten children, one of whom was John Webster Cochran. Edward died in Illinois on April 6, 1866.

John Webster Cochran was born in Platteville, Wisconsin on December 4, 1844. He served as a Private in the 146th Illinois Infantry in the American Civil War and, at an unknown date, married Asenath Williams Woodcock. They had two daughters. John Webster Cochran died in New York City on January 1, 1929.

Asenath Williams Woodcock Cochran (later known as Aso-Neith) was born in Jackson, Missouri on June 16, 1851 to Elizabeth Pearson Woodcock and Cephas Parker Woodcock. She married John Webster Cochran at an unknown date; by 1880 the couple had moved to Seattle, Washington. There they had two daughters, Adelaide Fredrika Cochran and Olea Wanda LaFayette Cochran (known as Vota). The family moved to New York City at the turn of the twentieth century and the parents separated. Asenath changed her name to Aso-Neith Neypa Cochran and began to develop occultist theories concerning "universal vibration," numbers, music, and names. She published some of these theories as "Aso-Neith Cryptograms" and cultivated an international spiritual following. She traveled to Europe on numerous occasions with her youngest daughter, Vota, and became a devout follower and activist for the Bahai faith. Among Aso-Neith's followers and clients were numerous prominent New Yorkers (including Anna Dodge McCullough and "Mrs. Baruch," presumably Annie Baruch), Hollywood actors and actresses (including Mary Pickford and Eva Casanova Tellegen, wife of actor Lou Tellegen), and musicians (including violinist and composer Arthur Hartmann). On at least one occasion, Aso-Neith encountered legal difficulties as a result of her occultist teachings: a May 6, 1926 article in The New York Times describes her 1918 arrest on a charge of fortune-telling, as well as the large trust fund left to her by devotee Anna Dodge McCullough. Aso-Neith Cochran died in New York City on March 21, 1931.

Adelaide Fredrika Cochran, the older daughter of John and Asenath Cochran, was born in Seattle, Washington on February 22, 1879. She was a musical prodigy and performed widely in the Pacific Northwest from a young age. Adelaide married music teacher Charles M. Pond, Jr. in May 1899, and they had a daughter, Ruona, in 1901. Adelaide Fredrika Cochran died in New York City on May 16, 1942.

Adelaide's younger sister, Olea Wanda LaFayette Cochran (known as Vota) was born in Seattle on March 4, 1884. Like her sister, Vota was a musical prodigy who sang and performed solos and duets on multiple instruments. The two sisters performed on stage in Seattle when Adelaide was eight years old and Vota was just three. Vota moved to New York City with her mother around 1900, and they traveled together to Germany and other European countries in the first decade of the twentieth century. Vota would later study at Columbia University, and she appears to have lived in Butler Hall, on Columbia's campus, until her death on February 25, 1975.

From the guide to the Cochran family papers, 1857-1974, (The New York Public Library. Billy Rose Theatre Division.)