This photo was taken in Prostejov in 1907, and shows my grandparents, Max Mayer Steiner and Steffi Steinerova.
My grandpa on my mother's side, Max Steiner, was the oldest of five children of Jakob and Charlotte, née Husserl. Great-grandpa Jakob bought the house at Pernstyn Square No. 6. My mother told me, that Grandpa's grandmother was still living in the Jewish streets, and my grandpa lived with her, so that she wouldn't be alone, to take care of her and help her. When Max came to visit his parents, his youngest brother Josef asked who he was. Josef was 12 years younger, and didn't know that Max was his brother.
They used to say that when my grandpa was a child, he used to often visit his grandmother, whom he loved very much. She used to cook him noodles, not like today, but homemade ones, with sugar and poppy seed. Grandpa used to tell me that at the age of 78 his grandmother still had all her teeth; once, when he hugged and kissed her, one of her teeth fell out - how sorry my grandpa was for that! I am almost 79, have all my teeth except one!
My grandparents had a shop with supplies for shoemakers. Working in the store were Grandpa, occasionally Grandma, Uncle Josef, and several employees. Mrs. Mania made entries with her beautiful penmanship into voluminous accounting books in a separate office in the back of the store. There was a telephone there, old-fashioned, black and big. From Grandpa's writing desk I remember a glass paperweight that I liked, as well as colored calendars decorated with gilding that used to arrive in the shop around Christmas and New Year's as promotional items from companies whose goods they sold in the shop. Besides leather, they sold shoelaces, nails, pins, thread and other shoemaking supplies. In small drawers there were little discs of wax; in each drawer a different color: white, brown, light brown, black. My mother's cousin Gusta and I used to like playing with those discs.
