Jacob Morton “Yank” Ulmer

Jacob Morton Ulmer was born in Shreve, Ohio, on 19 November 1886. Friends and correspondents called him Yank. He made his adult life in Cleveland with his wife, Fan Berne Ulmer, and their daughters Janet and Susan, later known as Subie.

Yank served as treasurer of S. Ulmer & Sons, the family’s real-estate mortgage and bond house in the Ulmer Building on Public Square. A 1922 letterhead names S. Ulmer, W. L. Ulmer and J. M. Ulmer together. In November 1926, S. Ulmer & Sons was one of five houses identified as signing American Construction Council standards for mortgage bonds associated with Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The family keeps correspondence connected with Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1926, 1928 and 1931. Those letters are not transcribed here, and this page does not infer their contents. Later records place Yank in work around the National Foundation for Eye Research. The Concise Dictionary of American Jewish Biography lists him as an adviser to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and the U.S. Public Health Service, and as secretary of the foundation; National Library of Medicine collection MS C 225 is a pointer to that research history, not a document reproduced by this archive.

Cleveland Jewish records keep his familiar name. Letters from Rabbi Daniel Jeremy Silver in 1966 open “Dear Yank,” and seating for Abba Hillel Silver’s seventieth birthday in 1963 places Mr. J. M. Ulmer with Miss Janet Ulmer. The plaque at the family crypt in Mayfield Cemetery names Jacob M. Ulmer, Fan Berne Ulmer and Janet L. Ulmer. Yank died in Cleveland on 2 November 1972.