Golda Margolina

This is my mother, Golda Margolina (nee Efest), at the age of 16. The photo was taken in Borispol, Kiev region, in 1912. My mother was born in 1896. After their parents died the children were taken to my grandparents numerous relatives' families living in various towns. My mother was raised in the family of my grandmother's sister Shyfra, who lived in Borispol. I don't know anything about my mother's childhood. I was too small to ask questions and when I grew up there was nobody to ask. My parents lived in the same street in Borispol and knew each other since childhood. They got married in 1917. I don't know whether they had a traditional Jewish wedding. They were both beautiful. My father had a small thoroughly trimmed beard. He didn't have payes. He wore dark suits, light shirts and ties. He wore a hat outside and a yarmulka at home. My mother didn't wear a wig and she didn't wear a shawl either. She had beautiful thick hair that she wore in a knot. She wore common clothes. My parents lived with Grandmother Shyfra and her husband in their house in Borispol. Their children had their own families at that time and left their parents' home. After bandits attacked them and killed my grandfather and my father's brother Shaya my parents didn't want to stay in Borispol and moved to Sumy, a town in the northeast of Ukraine,about 350 kilometers from Kiev. They decided for Sumy since some relatives of my mother lived in this town, but I didn't know any of them. I cannot say what my father did for a living in Sumy, either. I can vaguely remember my mother. When I was a bit over three years old she died at childbirth. This happened on 6th April 1924. The baby was stillborn. They were both buried in the Jewish cemetery in Sumy.