This is my mother’s sister Tuba Baletnik with her husband Boris Baletnik. The picture was taken in Pervomaysk, Ukraine, in the 1920s and sent to my mother in Rezina.
In 1887 Grandmother gave birth to twins in Kharkov. The twins were my mother Soibel and her brother Aron. In a year or two a girl, Tuba, was born, then a boy Motle followed his sister. When Grandmother died Mother became the head of the family, though she was only fourteen. She was a real homemaker: cooked food, washed linen, cleaned, helped Grandfather raise his younger children. I don’t know whether Mother got some education. I think she finished a couple of classes in the lyceum. Mother was very literate: she could read and write in Russian and Romanian. She was an erudite. Besides, Mother was very strong-willed. She was actually the head of the family. She had the last word in decisions made by her siblings and later on my father didn’t take any actions, even connected with his work, without having a word with my mother.
Mother’s sister Tuba and her husband Boris Baletnik lived in the Ukrainian city of Pervomaysk, Mykolayiv oblast. Both of them worked in the bar at the station. They had a very modest living. Tuba had four children, I remember the names of three of them –Menihe, Nahman, who died at a young age, and Mikhail, who died in the lines in the 1940s. Having returned from evacuation Tuba, her husband and daughter settled in Soroca. She died in the 1960s.
