Tag #125448 - Interview #97881 (Lina Franko)

During my childhood, a washerwoman [a woman to do the washing only at a time when there were no washing machines] came to our house regularly. The name of this woman was Simbul, and she was Jewish. I have two memories related to this issue. I was the only daughter of the family who didn’t eat much food. My father would find and bring home the best of everything. The washerwoman had a daughter with red cheeks.  My mother asked her enviously what she gave her daughter to eat. She replied that she dipped bread into the coffee grounds which she had drunk before and gave this to her in the morning, and she shared with her daughter the food she was given at the houses where she worked.  In this way, they felt very sad, because I was very thin, though they were all paying very much attention to me.

This woman also worked at the community affairs. My grandmother was a very understanding woman. One day, while the woman was washing the laundry, news came that a corpse had to be washed. The woman left her work and started to prepare to go. As she was about to leave, my grandmother asked her whether she would also wash her nicely when she died. The washing maid said: “Si, a si biva la madam, de alma i de korason” meaning of “course madam, I’ll do it with all my heart.