Carved Wooden Bear
When she was a toddler, my mother stole this bear from her aunt. Made to return it by her own mother, it was an early lesson formative in my mother's impeccable sense of truthfulness.
In the end, aunt Rosemary gifted the bear to my mother.
Ida Sala
Oma (Grandmother)
"an object made from dripping wax into silicone mold of this ivory horse"
Figurine of a horse, Ivory
She would have been an artist if her family hadn’t run out of money and stopped sending the kids to expensive private schools. Instead, my Oma satisfied her cravings for beauty by buying and selling antiques. Tchotchkes. She curated a home that was museum quality. And entertained a large and worldly demographic of guests.
A favourite memory of her was the summer dusk we gazed at thousands of Monarch butterflies resting on the row of trees down to the lake. They covered the trees, lush like orange and black leaves. On our way back up the driveway to the Farm, we stopped in front of a Monarch laying on the ground, disabled and left with only one single wing. My Oma must have known saving it was hopeless, but she took it gently in her cupped hands anyway and carried it to a beautiful spot where it could expire.
I was 4 and the sky was purple.
Sadie Weinstein
Grandmother
"a ring made of plexiglass tubing put together in the shape of a flower, wax dripped on the back to the front pooling between the petals. CZs set in the pools"
In the hammock, enjoying the chickens with grandma
She's beautiful in this yellow shantung silk dress with crystals at the cuffs!
There's a funny story behind it; 20 years ago she took out two pieces of yellow fabric adorned with giant crystals. She asked me if I wanted them. (I wish I had said yes.) Turns out she gave the dress to someone young and pretty after she was finished with it. But before she handed it over, she ripped off the crystal cuffs. I can only assume she did it so that no one would look as good in that dress as she did.... I assume that because I think she told me.
She was a character!!
While this is not the kindest story about my Grandmother, it is one that sticks out. She was a woman my dad described as the perfect character for being a commandant in Stalinist Russia. We knocked heads as I grew up.
But I remember loving her so much when I was little. I used to run my finger over her blue eyeshadowed lids, rubbing the excess on my own eyes trying to be as beautiful as I thought she was. She lived to be 95 despite having had an emergency quadruple heart bypass at the age of 70.
Hinde Kaplan
Great grandmother
"An ornament or a brooch, representing trees. Using accents of gold. "
"There is gold in these trees"
The story goes; looking out of a window at a forest past their fields, my great-grandmother remarked "there is gold in these trees".
This comment set in motion an unlikely chain of events which lead to her husband and their 6 children surviving the Holocaust as an intact family.
Charlotte Szalavetz
Great grandmother
"a brooch made of chrocheted metal wire, with a crochet hook."
Lace (crotched)
Charlotte and her husband escaped Romania the summer of 1939. Their 4 children had all settled in North America years earlier. While I don't know the exact events that lead to such a narrow escape, I do know that there was a lot of discussion before hand. Neither Charlotte nor her husband spoke any English or French; they spoke German, Hungarian, and Romanian (highly likely, Slovak as well). Given their advanced years, my great grandparents learning 2 new languages seemed difficult to their children. The concern being social isolation if they left Europe; but they did.
44 members of their collective extended family were murdered in the Holocaust;
...parents and siblings, nieces and nephews and cousins....
Charlotte was crocheting this piece of lace when she was in the hospital.
She never finished it.
Rachel Weinstein
Great grandmother.
"A figurative representation of a loaf of Challah."
a loaf of challah
Grandma Rachel was adored by the family. But, I don't know very much about her. She was very present, coming to stay at my father's childhood home once a month. She would bring groceries. It was suggested that she came because she would run out of money before the end of the month. Whatever the reason, she was deeply loved.
Jenny Disman
Great grandmother
"small plexiglass flowers and birds in metal, to represent decorations on the hats she would have made."
Milliner's brush
Jenny came to New York from Odessa (in what was the Russian Empire) about 1914. She never saw any of her family there again. It is lore that she eloped with her husband who had been betrothed to her sister.
About 1920, her father was killed in a Pogrom in Galicia, my Grandmother remembers her receiving the news by a letter. The event left my Grandmother with a strong impression of her mother crying and wailing.
The milliner's brush came from Russia where she made hats.
Johanna Adler
Great-great grandmother
"a figuative representation of skirts of Isadora Duncan as she danced on the beach."
"She sang, and danced on the beach"
Every Channukah since the Pandemic, the descendants of Johanna Adler come together on Zoom for a little party. From North America (both coasts, and Newfoundland) to the UK and Switzerland, to the Canary Islands and Australia. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th cousins light the candles and sing the Bracha together. We may be many times removed cousins, but Johanna, and her husband, gave us a remarkably strong familial foundation.
The only thing I know about Johanna is that she sang, and danced on the beach with her children.
That is such a lovely image.
Sarah Hendeliovitch
Great-great grandmother.
"Brooch in clear acrylic engraved with the family portrait of her grandson's wedding."
Generations of Family
Where I know next to nothing about Johanna Adler, I have read chapters about Sarah Hendeliovitch. That is because her son, Maurice Hindus, wrote an autobiography called Green Worlds.
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