Blogs which describe people or events related to my maternal line.
Surrounded by panic about the spread of Covid-19, what better way to spend an afternoon than researching my grandmother’s experience with disease during the Russian Revolution. I turned to her book, Upheaval, to find out how she was affected. She is not the best at recording dates, but I can
The photo collage above shows various pictures of the strong women in my immediate family – my mother, and both my grandmothers. I do not have to look very far from these three women to find strength, courage and determination. Although from different backgrounds, both of my grandmothers were refugees,
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once wrote, “Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them.” If I can make a judgement from this comment alone, my parents, especially my father, left me a very substantial way to remember them. The tub in the photo only holds
Apparently my grandmother kept a diary. It was brought to my attention last week when a friend, who speaks Russian, was kind enough to look through the documents I have. With her help I have been able to label and sort the various papers. Now I know what I should
As if a whirlwind wedding wasn’t enough, my parents also had a whirlwind honeymoon; four days to be exact. They spent those four days split between New Jersey and Pennsylvania, staying with family friends. In the February following their wedding my father began work as a junior accountant with the
My parents were married at 2pm on 21 January 1951, at the Russian Eastern Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension, in New York City. The wedding reception was held immediately afterward on Park Avenue, at the home of my grandparents. It was a Sunday. The day was fair, although windy and