In a little town as we lived in, they could count the number of school age children on their fingers, so you know what a struggle a poor teacher had. The most my father ever could earn in a five-month season was about a hundred twenty five rubles. Seven of us had to live five months on that miserable sum. We could allow ourselves very little luxuries. But we were healthy, with natural rosy cheeks and good stomachs. I suppose the simplest way of living is the healthiest.

I am not through telling you all the qualities of my father. He could fix a watch or clock. He could cut men's hair. He got five kopeks (five cents) per head.

His personality, ability and his knowledge in Talmud made him suitable to lead a community in prayers and worship. So during the holidays of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah he would be the official representative between the community and God above. He was a cantor. His hearty and pleasing voice appealed and impressed the worshippers and inspired them for true confessions and prayers. He also blew the trumpet (shofar). In fact, he was combined with all religious affairs. He also had a tendency of writing articles, and he wrote short stories and articles in papers and magazines very successfully (in Hebrew).

However, nobody and nothing can be completely faultless, and as I have promised to tell all of what I know and the truth. So: I must tell you also the faults of my father. Namely he had a terrible temper. His temper would often go to the extreme and breaking dishes or throwing chairs were not excluded. He did not spare anybody. It may have been the king, as they say. If there was anything he had to tell or give his opinion, even if it was the opposite of what others thought, as long as he felt that he was right. The least wrong of man would make him extremely nervous. I have one excuse for him: the strenuous work he did. To be confined in a small classroom and to have to control a large number of children of different dispositions kept his nerves in a strenuous mood. And because of all of this my mother was not very happy in her marriage. She was a calm and straight thinking person. She was far from being happy as she never knew when his angry outburst would happen. Yet she loved him sincerely and admired him.

We as children knew his word had to be obeyed, as a command. He would punish us for the least wrong we did. However we admired him. We were very sure that he was always right and that he knew everything the best.

I realize now since I am grown and a mother myself, that his teachings to us were of a high moral and good mannered standing. He taught us never to take advantage of those were not a fortunate as we were. To help them without hurting their feelings. To share your last with one that is hungry. To obey the rules of your government and religion. To be honest in dealing with people, to tell truth, not to adopt a habit of lying. He would forgive our wrong deeds if we would promise not to do it again. However, beware of a lie.

I have told you before, my father worked very hard to provide a living for his family. But as we say, a lot of professions with a little luck, (it rhymes in Yiddish) and we had a struggle to make both ends met, as they say.

We had quite wealthy children attending the Hebrew School of my father. They always brought along tempting lunches. Enough to tempt

a less privileged child's heart. My parents had to live on counted pennies and there were smaller children in my family when I was just about nine or ten years of age. So I was denied of so-called luxury and many of times it made my mouth water. So once I could not control my desire and I took five kopeks (five pennies) and I bought a sort of smoked sardine. It came on a string in large bunches that was brought in wagonloads on the marketplace to sell. But when my father missed that nickel, I soon confessed. He understood the heart of a child. He believed in my honesty. He did not punish me but gave a lecture about it. He told me that one must learn the desire to do evil. That is why men are above animals which live just where their instincts direct them. I realized my great sin and I faithfully obligated myself to learn to live a straight and honest life. I hope I have fulfilled my obligation.

My mother obtained most of her knowledge from my father. She learned enough to be able to hold a class of her own. She taught beginning little girls to read and write Yiddish. My mother was a true daughter of Israel, kind and obedient. She looked up to her husband as to her master. She helped my father with his teaching. She took good care of her family to bring them up with religion, cleanliness and in good health. She cooked and baked, and made all of her children's and he own clothes. She observed all holidays with love and devotion. She spun her flax and wool into thread so she could have her linens woven. She knitted socks and stockings as they did at that time. I recall that the winter mornings my mother used to sit up in her bed with a little coal-oil lamp for light and strip goose feathers off the stems to accumulate enough feathers for her daughters' pillows and featherbeds that every girl was supposed to have with her trousseau. She washed the family's clothes and yet had time to visit the poor and the sick. I realize now that she was a model woman, one that King Solomon called a heroic woman which is hard to find. I would call one like her a good old-fashioned wife and mother. Later during my course of writing I am sure that I will come to the further life and activities of my parents. However now as I am the oldest child, I shall attempt to recall my own past life.

I was born about fifty-eight years ago (as I am writing this it is 1940) in the month of September. The Jewish time was six days before Rosh Hashana or September twenty seventh in the village of Schnurel at the home of my grandparents with whom my parents were living to collect board and room promised to them in the marriage bargain. It reminds me of what my mother told me.

My grandmother, her mother, gave birth to a son ten weeks later after I was born. It was her youngest child Jacob whom I have mentioned several times in my writings.

My grandmother suddenly suffered with feverish overfilled breast with milk her infant son couldn't absorb, so she found relief in getting hold of me and letting me nurse out of her overfilled breast. But it was almost fatal to poor little me, as an infant of ten weeks with a tiny little stomach could not digest the clogged feverish milk.

That seems a silly incident, but I was teased a lot over it, that I have nursed the breast of my grandmother, and there was also a lot of serious thinking. There was an old saying, a woman's children are her principal possessions and her grandchildren are her interest or percentage, or the percentage was dearer than the interest. But who knows! The grandmother received her relief at the expense of the suffering of her tiny little granddaughter, while a mother is always ready to sacrifice herself for the least of her children's suffering.

When I was about six months old my father accepted a position of teaching Hebrew reading and writing Yiddish, Russian and German in a small town called Yonishkel. My parents resided there until the World's War. Then they had to leave with the rest of the citizens to a world of nowhere. I will, however, come to that part later.

I do not believe that I will be able to recall every detail of my early life but I will attempt to bring back some incidents of different periods of my life. Some of them may seem silly and foolish, but while writing I see myself going through with all of this childhood foolishness as a child again. Many times it brings me to laughter when I remember some of the mischievous deeds I have carried out. It is a wonderful stimulant for one in my age.

One Incident

I had been wearing my hair in two braids hanging down. So the children of my father's school amused themselves by pulling my braids. Once I got so angered that I grabbed a pair of scissors and off went one of my plaited braids. I was plenty teased about it. But it eased my temper, which grew along with me and still is part of me.

Another One

As a child my mother told me I was good-looking and very bright. (Naturally all mothers are thinking that way of their children.)

So everybody loved to play with me. Once someone lifted me up by one arm and as I was heavy, it slightly sprained my arm. The noise I made was like if someone would have shot a bullet into me. My arm was bandaged and kept in a sling. No one could touch my painful arm. After several days had past and I still pretended this awful pain, my father caught on that something was fishy. So at night when I was fast asleep he changed the bandage and sling on the other arm. When I woke I started complaining and pointed at my bandaged arm which I mistook for the supposed hurting one. I was much teased about it.

At the age of twelve I was quite a young lady (at least I felt that way).

A widow, a neighbor of ours, had a very beautiful daughter, but they were very poor. So the girl had to work in a house, as this was about the only thing a poor girl could do. She worked for a very wealthy family in another city. The son of her boss was a handsome and intelligent and prominent young businessman. And just imagine that this young aristocrat fell in love with this poor and illiterate but beautiful girl, his parents' servant.

It was quite a sensation when her friends found it out. But it was tragic when his family learned about the choice of their son.

His love for her was so great that he thought she was entirely above in all ranking of his family and all of their friends whom she had to serve and wait on. So he made her leave his parents' home and she came back to her mother. He sent her a sufficient sum of money to live on.

But she could not read not answer his letters, so she chose me as her private secretary. It sure gave me a thrill to be an intermediary of such an unusual love affair.

In my writing to him I made believe I was a young man and in such a manner that it arose his jealousy. So once he sent a pound of a good grade of smoking tobacco as a gift for the young man writer of the letters, and at the same time he asked if one of her girl friends could do the writing instead. I was very much proud of myself, that I, a twelve-year-old girl could make a man like him take me as a young man by my way of writing. As far as their love affair, it did not have a happy ending. When his family found out they forced him to make an end to their ideal love affair and come to realize the fact that they were not meant for one another. But he really meant well with her.

At last he gave money and traveling expenses and with broken hearts, they parted. She left for America in the melting pot where love affairs like theirs have more passable chances.