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Grandmother Dudu, my mother’s mother, had suffered from Spanish influenza. As a consequence she got Parkinson’s disease. Her sons, Leon and Yosif, had made a special chair with a little opening in the bottom so that she could be attended to easily as she wasn’t able to stand up and walk. My mother used to send me to Plovdiv during my holidays so that I could sit next to her, to help her and make her feel better. She was practically immobile but she was full of energy, and she was sociable and liked to entertain guests. And whenever her friends came to her place I hid under the table. They were gossip queens. They would make coffee and when some of our lady neighbors appeared on the doorstep, they would start making comments about her immediately. It was a pleasure for me to listen to their chat. Once I even told my grandmother, ‘You meet her in such a good way but I heard what you were saying about her.’
Irrespective of the fact that she couldn’t move, she was aware of the order in the house, which she had created, and wanted everybody to stick to it. At home she was the queen, and the housekeeper. She often told me, ‘Go to the wardrobe over there, in the right part of the top shelf there’s a kerchief with embroidery at the ends. Bring it to me.’ What does that mean? She was present at the ironing of the linen and she observed how her daughters and daughters-in-law did it. She gave instructions while they were doing it and told them where to put it. Yes, she used to know everything, even the exact places of the plates.
She was a woman of order and common sense, respected by all the people she knew not only because she was able to put the household in order but also because she could put in order the relationships between people. She could put everybody in their place, she showed the people their shortcomings but with a lot of tact, without quarreling with anybody. Take for example my grandfather who liked reading the Bible very much and knew a lot of stories from the Old Testament. He would sit next to her to tell her one story or another but the train of his thought was often broken. At such an occasion she would say, ‘Come on, go to the kitchen and read it once again and come back to tell me the story because you have forgotten it a little.’
My grandmother had a reasonable attitude towards everybody. My mother, for example, had been the naughtiest of all the kids. She wouldn’t stay at home, ignoring my grandmother’s warnings, and she always stayed at the neighbor’s. Once she wanted to be photographed and borrowed a dress from a neighbor who had typhus. Afterwards she caught typhus, too, and spent three months in hospital. That’s the way things go, every waywardness is punished!
Irrespective of the fact that she couldn’t move, she was aware of the order in the house, which she had created, and wanted everybody to stick to it. At home she was the queen, and the housekeeper. She often told me, ‘Go to the wardrobe over there, in the right part of the top shelf there’s a kerchief with embroidery at the ends. Bring it to me.’ What does that mean? She was present at the ironing of the linen and she observed how her daughters and daughters-in-law did it. She gave instructions while they were doing it and told them where to put it. Yes, she used to know everything, even the exact places of the plates.
She was a woman of order and common sense, respected by all the people she knew not only because she was able to put the household in order but also because she could put in order the relationships between people. She could put everybody in their place, she showed the people their shortcomings but with a lot of tact, without quarreling with anybody. Take for example my grandfather who liked reading the Bible very much and knew a lot of stories from the Old Testament. He would sit next to her to tell her one story or another but the train of his thought was often broken. At such an occasion she would say, ‘Come on, go to the kitchen and read it once again and come back to tell me the story because you have forgotten it a little.’
My grandmother had a reasonable attitude towards everybody. My mother, for example, had been the naughtiest of all the kids. She wouldn’t stay at home, ignoring my grandmother’s warnings, and she always stayed at the neighbor’s. Once she wanted to be photographed and borrowed a dress from a neighbor who had typhus. Afterwards she caught typhus, too, and spent three months in hospital. That’s the way things go, every waywardness is punished!
Period
Location
Plovdiv
Bulgaria
Interview
Sofi Eshua Danon-Moshe
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