Tag #149987 - Interview #78060 (Ronia Finkelshtein)

My father worked as an accountant in Poltava in 1913 and could provide well for his family. I don't know how my parents got acquainted. Aunt Nyura told me that my father was engaged when he met my mother, but when he saw her, he fell in love with her at first sight. He left his fiancée and married my mother. My mother's parents were religious, so my parents had a traditional Jewish wedding. My grandmother told me that there was a chuppah installed in the yard of their house: a velvet canopy on four posts. My mother wore a fancy wedding gown and a white veil covering her head and face. My father wore a new suit. The rabbi said a prayer, gave his blessing and pronounced the marriage contract. My mother's relatives, neighbors and my father's friends came to the wedding. There were tables laid in the yard and klezmer musicians playing at the wedding party.

My father rented a room on the first floor in the center of Poltava. My mother became a housewife. My sister, Luda, was born in 1914. My mother was told that Jewish tradition didn't allow to name a child after a living relative, but she paid little attention to this. She liked the name Luda, which was the name of one of my mother's cousins. The girl was very pretty, blonde and had blue eyes, but there was something wrong with the way she was fed. The baby died of dyspepsia at the age of 7 months. My mother was grieving and wore mourning clothes for a long time. The revolution of 1917 didn't change my parents' life style. My father continued to work as an accountant and my mother remained a housewife.