Tag #129082 - Interview #100036 (Pesse Speranskaya)

In 1947 Mama married Harold Kuuzik. She met him in our shared apartment. Harold was Estonian. He was single. He liked my mother at once. My mother liked him as well. Harold was kind to me. Harold asked me whether it was all right with me, if he married my mother. That they were asking my opinion was very flattering to me. Harold was born in 1915. He was much younger than my mother. My mother, though, always looked young for her age, and this age difference was not visible. I gave my consent. They registered their marriage in a registry office, and in the evening we had a quiet dinner, with Aunt Sonja and her family participating. Harold was a cabinet maker. Our neighbors used to say he was very handy and skilled. There were few things people could buy in stores then. Harold made furniture and never lacked clients. He earned well. My mother didn’t have to go to work for 5 years after they got married. He provided for my mother and me well. The only bad thing about him was that he liked drinking. Well, actually, when he drank, he went to sleep and caused no problems. My mother and Harold had no children. One day Harold decided to build a more spacious home for us. There was an old shed in the backyard. It was abandoned, and Harold made a small two-room apartment of it. The photo of it and our family having dinner was even published in a youth newspaper.

My mother always observed Jewish traditions. We celebrated all Jewish holidays. Harold celebrated with us. My mother liked cooking Jewish food. On holidays she used to make gefilte fish, staffed goose neck, chicken broth, forshmak, tsimes [12]. We celebrated holidays together with Aunt Sonja and her family. Sonja didn’t like cooking, while my mother enjoyed it. On Purim she made lots of hamantashen pies. She shared them with Aunt Sonja. My mother was a terrific cook. I learned cooking from her, and I can cook and bake many things. 

We kept in touch with my father’s family. My father’s brother Max married an Estonian woman after the war. She was 20 years younger than him. They had a daughter. I don’t know whether my grandmother and grandfather accepted this marriage well, but after the war such mixed marriages became a common thing with Jews. My father’s sister Lina also got married after the war. She was 55 then. I don’t remember her husband. All I remember is that he had never been married before.  They had no children. Rebecca had a daughter.  Mary also had a daughter. Her name was Maja, and she was the same age with me. My father’s younger sister Bertha, whose family name was Manova, had two children:  son Yakov and daughter Galina. They were about the same age with me as well.