Uncle Moise Faierstein

This is uncle Moise, a brother of my wife's father. He fled to America in 1917 as he didn't want to join the army. It seems he did well in America, he got married, had children, yet my wife says she never met him. She met one of his sons during one of our visits to Israel. I think the photograph was taken in America and sent to my wife's family. It was probably taken around 1925-1930.

My wife's maiden name was Devora Faiestein. She too was born in Iasi, in January 1925. We met for the first time in our Jewish neighborhood, I fell in love with her and to this age, after 56 years of marriage, I'm still in love with her. When I come home and ring the doorbell, and she opens the door for me, it's as if a spotlight lights up the entire house. When I was going to work in the morning and by the time I returned home, I'd start missing her as I didn't see her all day long.

My wife's family situation wasn't very different [from ours]. They were 5 children, 3 girls and 2 boys. The girls went to school during roughly the same period. Her mother wanted all her girls to be elegant and she woke up at the crack of dawn to iron their school uniforms. The uniforms were washed and the collars were starched, and in order for them not to wear their great coats over the collars, they went to school with the collar placed in a book and they attached it once they arrived at school. The girls wore their hair long, and their mother had to braid it into plaits and iron their bows.