Kati Andai's mother, Margit Erdos

My mother. I don´t know where the photo was taken. My mother never wanted to teach, she didn't like it, they forced upon her the teachers' training school. She always invented something to do at home. From time to time she found something to do, she got through the examination as a tailor, then she sewed over-garments; she also had a few employees. And then she did something else. Sometime at the end of the 1930s it suddenly came into vogue that when the spring came straw hats were dyed and women wore these. Mother observed that very early on, at first she crocheted it by herself, then she gave the work out to others. But by July it went out of fashion. And then the whole thing ended. About ten years later she was knitting gloves, scarf, panties and everything of mohair. At that time I was also knitting, no, I span rabbit hair on the spinning wheel. My mother had her own circle of friends, from which she kept me out. I don't know where they met each other. She was very independent. My mother had a very strange girlfriend from Kassa, who wasn't a Jew, her name was Gitta Kolacskovszky. She was an ugly little old maid with very unusual and modern opinions. She was very free with her speech. She spoke calmly about topics, which one didn't really speak about. My father was very angry with her, and he said it was she who encouraged [my mother] to smoke.