Arkadiy Redko with his family and friends

This photograph was taken in 1932, when my mother's older brother who emigrated to the USA in the 1900s, visited Ilintsy to see his family. 1et row, the children sitting: the 2nd from the right is my younger sister Asia Redko, I am the 3rd from the right. 2nd row, from left to right: the 3rd from the right is my father Leib Redko, the 4th from the right is my mother Pesia Redko. On my mother's left is her older brother from the USA. 6th from the right is my mother's older brother from Ilintsy, a rabbi, and his wife is 7th from the right. 3rd row: the 1st from the right is my older sister Klara Redko. The rest are neighbors and friends, who came to see my mother's visiting brother. This photo was taken in Ilintsy in 1932. My mother, Pesia Redko, was born in Ilintsy in 1886. I don't know how many brothers and sisters she had. I only remember her two older brothers. One of them, whose name I don't remember, lived in Ilintsy. He was much older than my mother. He was a tall, stately man with a big black beard. My mother's brother was the chief rabbi of the synagogue in Ilintsy. Judging from my mother and her brother, my mother's family was very religious. My mother's second brother emigrated to the USA in the early 20th century. I don't remember his name. I only saw him once in July 1932, when he came on a visit. I was a child, and can hardly remember this meeting. My mother's family spoke Yiddish. My oldest sister was born in 1914. Her Russian name was Klara, and her Jewish one Mariam after one of our grandmothers. My second-oldest sister, Esther, was born in 1916. She was named after the other grandmother. In 1918 my brother, Volko, named after my father's father, was born. I was born in 1924. My Russian name is Arkadiy, and I was given the Jewish name of Avrum after my mother's father. My youngest sister, Asia, was born in 1926. My mother was a housewife after she got married. My father had to support the family. He traveled to neighboring villages looking for work. He mainly fixed buckets and wash tubs. He didn't earn much and we were poor. We lived from hand-to-mouth. We only had meat on holidays and our everyday food was bread and potatoes. The younger children wore the older children's clothes and shoes. However, we didn't care that much about it since the majority of the population of Ilintsy lived that way: Jews and non-Jews. Despite our poverty, my father insisted that all children had education.