MY GRANDPARENTS
( If you were reading "Yosef's blanket" click Yosef to go back)
I had three sets of grandparents.
You might wonder why that is so.
My mother, Laura, married my father, Sam in the late l930's
Very sadly, my father Sam died when I was 10 months old.
My mother was a widow with two children to raise for many years.
Then when I was six years old, she married my step-father, Henry.
So I had 6 grand parents: b
My mother's parents, Ida and Sam.
My father's parents , Laike and Harry
My step-fathers parents, Molly and Jacob.
My mother is sitting with my granfather
Sam, my grandfather Harry, my grandmother
Laike, and a friend of Harry and Laike. My grandmother
Ida was always there in our hearts.
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After my father Sam died, my mother, my sister and
I went to live with my mother's parents, my grandparents,
Sam and Ida
This is a picture of my grandparents Sam and Ida.
My grandparents, Sam and Ida, were to become two of
the most important people in my lives.
My mother had to go out and work.
My grandmother took care of me and Dena.
I have wonderful memories of them.
My grandfather was born in Russia.
He immigrated to the United States when he was
just 16 years old.
That was before 1907.
He came alone, and landed on Ellis Island.
To find out more about this Immigration center,
click here on Ellis Island.
In those days, when people came to the United States
as immigrants, they had very little money. They came with
the name of a person who used to live in their village, and who
came to the United States years before. This person was known as a
LANDSMAN
My grandfather , Sam, was in the army before
World War I.
If you want to read more about this war,
click on World War I.
Those were very hard times.
In this picture, my grandfather is second from the right.
He was a very young man in this picture.
Here is another picture of my grandfather.
He is the man holding the rifle.
This picture was taken about l912
and another
My grandfather is standing in the front row
far left.
My grandfather Sam was a very smart man.
He liked to read philosophy.
Philiosophy is the study of ideas.
To make money for the family, he
was a house painter.
He was a member of the painter's union,
and fought for the rights of workers.
This is a picture of my grandfather
Sam, taken about 1925
My grandfather called me poozel.
My brother, and one of my cousins still call me Pooz.
When I was young, my grandfather would call me when he
was eating his dinner.
He would shout out, "Poozel, look what I got."
I would come and eat some chicken from his plate.
Grandpa had other pet names for his grandchildren.
Dena was called Kushel, and our cousin Deb was called
c'naidel.
This is a picture of Grandpa Sam and
Poozel
My grandmother called him Zolman.
This is a picture of my grandmother Ida when my
mother was married to my father Sam.
I think she is so beautiful.
My grandmother, Ida, was a very
talented person.
She loved to sew and made beautiful things.
She made clothing for me and my sister and brother.
I remember watching her cutting the cloth with a pattern.
She would put the cloth on a table and put the pattern
on the cloth.
She would put spoons on the pattern to hold it flat.
I think I learned to love sewing from her.
I don't make clothing, though.
I sew dolls and other crafts.
My grandmother was a good cook. She made
many things that were made in Eastern Europe.
My grandmother Ida was born in Poland. She came
to the United States as an immigrant when she was only
a teenager.
Like my grandfather Sam, and my grandparents Harry and Laike,
she landed at Ellis Island. It was hard for her to leave her
family.
My grandmother Ida told me stories about her family.
Her mother, my great-grandmother was named Dora.
My sister Dena is named after her.
This is a picture of my great-grandmother
Dora.
She was my grandmother Ida's mother.
This picture was taken in Poland, about
1899 or 1900
My grandmother had two sisters named Anna and Bessie
This is a picture of Anna or Bessie with
her son
The small villages in Eastern Europe were called
Shetls.
If you want to learn more about those towns,
click on SHTETLS.
Both Anna and Bessie and their families were killed during the Holocaust.
During the Holocaust many people were killed.
It took place from 1933 to l945.
World War II took place from 1939 to 1945.
If you want to read more about those times,
click on HOLOCAUST and/or WORLD WAR II.
But remember, the facts about them are very upsetting.
When I was young, my grandmother Ida took me to the fabric stores.
I loved looking at all the colors.
She also took me to the chicken stores. In those days
people would buy chickens, and take the feathers off themselves.
There was a special room to do that.
I liked to shuffle around in the feathers.
My grandmother Ida was so special to me. My daughter is
named after her.
This is my favorite picture of
Grandma Ida
If you want to read more
about my Grandparents Sam and Ida click on
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My grandfather Harry's mother, my great grandmother, lived with
him and my grandmother Laike.
We called her Baba Tzipa.
She was my father Sam's grandmother.
Baba Tzipa was very old when I was a little
girl. In this picture she is about 85 years old.
Baba Tzipa was born in the Ukraine.
She lived most of her life there.
But when her son Harry, who was my grandfather
came to the United States as an immigrant, Baba came
too.
Here is a picture of my grandmother Laike when
she was a young woman living in the Ukraine.
When people look at the picture of my grandmother when
she was young, they think it is my sister Dena.
This is a picture of my sister taken
in the 1980's
My grandfather , Harry and my grandmother, Laike
visited my sister when she was in girl scout camp.
I have some good memories of Harry and Laike.
I remember when they owned a store in the Bronx.
My sister, cousins and I used to go there and play
store.
IT WAS FUN TO PLAY STORE IN A REAL STORE.
I always loved visiting my grandparents in their apartment.
There was a long hallway entrance. Their apartment was called
a railroad apartment.
There were 3 bedrooms in their apartment.
There were other people staying with them.
They were called borders.
If you want to read more about
my Grandparents Laike and Harry click on
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When I was six, my mother married Henry.
Henry became my step-father and always treated Dena and
me like his biological children.
That is why his parents became my third set of grandparents.
I only knew Grandma Molly.
Grandpa Jacob died in about l943 or l944.
This picture was taken about 1935
My grandparents, Molly and Jacob are seated.
My father, Henry is standing on the left.
His 2 brothers are in the picture too.
My father Henry told me many stories about
his parents.
My Grandfather Jacob was a tailor.
He was very skilled.
My Grandmother Molly stayed at home
to raise her 3 sons.
Life was very hard for them, especially in the
l930's.
That was the time of the Great Depression.
If you want to read more about those times,
click on GREAT DEPRESSION.
It was hard to get enough money to pay the rent
and buy food.
My father told me that he and his mother would walk miles to buy
half-rotten tomatoes.They would cut off the bad parts and make
the good parts into tomato soup. He told me that they would have tomato
soup.They would have soup all week.
Sometimes they did not have enough money to pay to rent.
But they struggled through.
I
This picture of Grandma Molly
was taken in the late 1950's or
early 1960's
This is a picture of Grandma Molly and
her brother, Sender.
If you want to read more
about my Grandparents Jacob and Molly
click on
FAMILY MEMBER MEMORIES
I hope you enjoyed reading about my grandparents and looking at their pictures.
It would be wonderful if you would collect pictures of your family and write about them.