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My husband, Isak Franko, started his business life by doing the work he took over from his father. Isak Franko acted in an amateur theatre group which he and his friends had formed at the age of 18, on Heybeliada [one of the islands in the Marmara Sea, which are called The Princess Islands.] I was 8 years old then and would sing songs during the intervals, or between acts to enable the actors to change their costumes. After seeing each other for the first time, my husband always joked saying “I picked you up the first time I saw you, but waited for you to grow up”. Only, after 8 years from this first meeting, Heskiya Hatem and Soli Hatem, [my husband’s friends and at the same time distant relatives of my grandmother from her father’s side] introduced us to each other again. We came together one New Year’s Eve and went to the cinema the following day. Isak Franko announced his intention of marrying me through our common friends. When my family told me that there was someone who wanted to marry me, I said if it was Isak Franko, then I would agree. The news spread out fast in Ortakoy. Isak Franko came to us with his mother and brought us a box of candies. The permission for my marriage was given in the month of June of the year 1947. During those days the man’s family would bring candies in a silver bowl to the girl’s family when they went to visit them for the first time for the engagement. This was the custom, then. The size of the silver bowl, its hallmark and ornamentation and its karats (800 or 900 for silver) would indicate the refinement and wealth of the family who had brought it. That day they didn’t bring me a silver bowl. They brought us a box of candies from an ordinary pastry shop. I joked about this ironically for many years. Later on, I bought a lot of silverware for my house. I felt happy with the box of candies because his mother was unfashionable, and uneducated, and there was no one to show her the way to behave. I feel angry today when I see the young girls and boys who want everything complete from the first day. I try to explain that things earned slowly give much more pleasure.
I remember a very happy atmosphere when it comes to my wedding memories. We got married at the Zulfaris Synagogue, which is used as a museum today, [15] on the 6th of June in 1948. This synagogue had a positive feature for the wedding ceremonies. It was regarded as good luck for the brides to climb up the stairs till they reached the tevah. There is a staircase with 15-20 steps at the entrance of the Zulfaris Synagogue. All the girls who were single at that moment, my cousins, my friends from the neighborhood, all wrote their names on the soles of my shoes. [There was a belief that to write one’s name on the sole of a bride’s shoe would cause a single girl to get married] My friends refreshed my make-up. (In those times there were no professional make-up people to come and make up the bride and her fiamily like ther is today.) Actually, they were watching me with a little bit of envy. Though I was the youngest one among the cousins I was the one who got married the earliest. I was 18 years old. I had rented both my wedding dress and the veil, but I had had my veil made according to my taste. Our wedding was quite a modest ceremony, but all of our crowded family members, and all of Ortakoy was there. After all the bride was from Ortakoy. My bridal veil got ripped by a cat the day following the wedding. Consequently, we had to buy it. We went to Yalova [a city near Istanbul, which is famous for its spas] for our honeymoon. We shared the first house we rented with my mother-in-law. But I would always go to my mother’s house, which was in Ortakoy. My husband would also feel happier there. So he would escape from his mother’s authority and ignorance a little bit. My brother-in-law, Hayim, was faced with the same problem of finding a house for rent when he got married. We started living in the same house with my sister-in-law, Viktuar. We got along like sisters. We would play bezique, after having finished our household chores. Our most favorite dish, was a kind of salted fish called “liparidas” then. My sister-in-law would go out to buy liparidas, while I would stay at home. Then we would eat them. One day we must have eaten too much, because we both got urticaria. My sister-in-law, who had a more allergic constitution, couldn’t stop itching for a long time. We both didn’t eat liparidas again. My mother-in-law, on the other hand, died in Septemper 1952.
I remember a very happy atmosphere when it comes to my wedding memories. We got married at the Zulfaris Synagogue, which is used as a museum today, [15] on the 6th of June in 1948. This synagogue had a positive feature for the wedding ceremonies. It was regarded as good luck for the brides to climb up the stairs till they reached the tevah. There is a staircase with 15-20 steps at the entrance of the Zulfaris Synagogue. All the girls who were single at that moment, my cousins, my friends from the neighborhood, all wrote their names on the soles of my shoes. [There was a belief that to write one’s name on the sole of a bride’s shoe would cause a single girl to get married] My friends refreshed my make-up. (In those times there were no professional make-up people to come and make up the bride and her fiamily like ther is today.) Actually, they were watching me with a little bit of envy. Though I was the youngest one among the cousins I was the one who got married the earliest. I was 18 years old. I had rented both my wedding dress and the veil, but I had had my veil made according to my taste. Our wedding was quite a modest ceremony, but all of our crowded family members, and all of Ortakoy was there. After all the bride was from Ortakoy. My bridal veil got ripped by a cat the day following the wedding. Consequently, we had to buy it. We went to Yalova [a city near Istanbul, which is famous for its spas] for our honeymoon. We shared the first house we rented with my mother-in-law. But I would always go to my mother’s house, which was in Ortakoy. My husband would also feel happier there. So he would escape from his mother’s authority and ignorance a little bit. My brother-in-law, Hayim, was faced with the same problem of finding a house for rent when he got married. We started living in the same house with my sister-in-law, Viktuar. We got along like sisters. We would play bezique, after having finished our household chores. Our most favorite dish, was a kind of salted fish called “liparidas” then. My sister-in-law would go out to buy liparidas, while I would stay at home. Then we would eat them. One day we must have eaten too much, because we both got urticaria. My sister-in-law, who had a more allergic constitution, couldn’t stop itching for a long time. We both didn’t eat liparidas again. My mother-in-law, on the other hand, died in Septemper 1952.
Period
Year
1948
Location
Beyoğlu/İstanbul
Türkiye
Interview
Lina Franko