Tag #143379 - Interview #78176 (Rachil Meitina)

I know very little about my paternal grandmother Gelia Meitina. I have her photograph. She had a beautiful and intelligent face. She was born in 1852 and died in New York in 1919. She emigrated to New York with her four children before 1915. My father didn’t want to go there since he was actively involved in the revolutionary movement here in Russia. My father Tsala Meitin was a member of the Bolshevik Party, propagated revolutionary ideas and was even exiled for this to the town of Beryozov, about 2,000 kilometers from Moscow. [Beryozov: a town in Tobolsk region, exile destination at the beginning of the 20thcentury]. Inmates in Beryozov called him Alexandr and when he obtained his documents later he had this first name written in there. He was exiled in 1905 during the tsarist regime and served his term until 1917, the October Revolution [see Russian Revolution of 1917] [4].