Perl Derbaremdiker

This is my mother Perl Derbaremdiker, nee Kventsel. The photo was taken in Berdichev in 1941. My mother came from the family of Kventsel - a very respected family in Berdichev. Her father Oizer Kventsel was born in 1860. He owned a kerosene store. Unfortunately, I never met my grandfather. He and his wife Entel died of Spanish flu in 1919. But I remember well my grandfather's brother Meyer. He was my first teacher of Yiddish. Meyer taught Yiddish to many boys in Berdichev. He died in the late 1930s. His daughter Eti lived in Moscow and also died a long time ago. My mother received a good education at home like many other girls in Berdichev. She was taught to read and write in Yiddish, do the housekeeping and meet Saturday in accordance with all the rules: clean up the apartment, bake challah on Friday, light Saturday candles, be a faithful wife and cook Jewish food. I don't know whether my mother had any brothers or sisters. My father and mother were introduced to one another in 1911. On some Jewish holiday their mothers met in the synagogue, discussed the issue with other relatives and arranged that they should meet each other. The young people liked each other and got married in 1912. They had a Jewish wedding with a chuppah, a bunch of relatives as guests, and there were merry songs and dances, freilakh. My mother died in 1952. She was ill for the last three months of her life - there was something wrong with her stomach or something. My mother and father went to the synagogue in Podol until their last days and tried to observe Jewish traditions, however hard it was.