Fanni and Arnold Struhl

The photo was taken in 1906, presumably in Gyergyószárhegy. This is the wedding photo of my parents, Fanni Struhl, nee Pascal, and Arnold Struhl. I don't know where my father's first wife came from. She died at childbirth. Her daughter was given the name Frida, she was born in 1901. We used to call her Friduska. Some five years later my father got married again. In fact, Friduska was raised by my mother. Friduska was always sickly, from her early childhood on. It is true that at that time all marriages were concluded through mediation. There were matchmakers. My mother was very young, only about eighteen years old, when her stepmother urged her to get married. She was married off very early. There was an age difference of twenty years between my mother and my father. One thing is certain: my father was very jealous, and he was always afraid that my mother would cheat on him. Well, nothing of the kind happened, but everybody was infatuated with my mother, that's for sure. Originally, before she got married, she had red hair. But she thought red hair would be too prominent in a village. How she had a chance to dye her hair black in Gyergyoszarhegy, I don't know, but I knew her only with black hair, and she always used to do her hair marvelously. It was simply out of the question for my mother to be seen when her hair wasn't done nicely. She never went to the hairdresser; I can't imagine how she could dye it herself.