This is a photo of my grandpa and his daughters, my aunts on my mum's side: Khaya Kart, nee Levit, Sonya Kontsevoya, nee Levit, my mother Maryaysa Eidlin, nee Levit, and grandpa Gersh Levit. Grandma was not alive at that time.
The picture was taken in Kherson in 1925.
Grandfather Gersh, born in the 1840s, was a melamed, a teacher, and that's how he earned a living. He had a big thick beard and he was almost bald.
He wore a high hat, a skull-cap and dark long clothes. Grandma and grandpa Levit had six children: Khaya, Volodya, Sonya, Boris, Fanya and Maryasya.
Their elder daughter, my aunt Khaya, was born in the 1860s. She lived for 94 years, married a native of a Lvov Jewish colony in the 1880s, a religious man called Gersh Kart.
He was a sewing cutter and lived in Kherson by that time. Khaya was the most religious of all her sisters and brothers.
While grandpa was alive she celebrated all the holidays with us. I remember it because my mum as the youngest daughter lived at grandpa's after she got married.
Sonya, was born in the 1880s. She married Gersh Kontsevoy in Kherson.
He worked as a seller in a kerosene-store. Sonya and Gersh had four sons and they were all born in Kherson: Motya, Isaac, Iosif and Zalman. After 1930 they all moved to Moscow.
My mother, Maryasya Gershevna Eidlin, was the youngest among her brothers and sisters. She was born in 1895 in Kherson.
My mother gave birth to me when she was nineteen years old. She finished four years at a Jewish school in Kherson.
She liked to read. Her sister Fani hired a teacher for her, who came home and taught her.
My mother was the favorite child in the family. She assisted her mother, with the household duties. Later she was a housewife.
She was very religious, read prayer books aloud at home, attended the synagogue on holidays, observed all ceremonies. She didn't mix dairy and meat utensils, and she kept kosher.
