llona Fischer as a bride

This is a picture of my mother, Ilona Fischer, taken in Nyiregyhaza, she was perhaps engaged already, because she was from Kotaj, and I'm sure that the picture was taken by a photographer in Nyiregyhaza, around 1908. My mother was born in 1885 in Kotaj. She probably completed six years of elementary school, I don't know exactly. At home she managed the household, she had a kosher kitchen. We always observed the holidays. Sabbath was not really special, at those times my mother didn't cook, we only warmed up the food and my father went to the Orthodox synagogue in the morning. In Nyiregyhaza there was a Neolog and an Orthodox synagogue. When Uncle Simon Silber and his wife, my father's sister Aunt Eszti, lived with us, then my father and Uncle Simon always went to the Orthodox synagogue together. At holidays there was always meat-soup for lunch, and we loved fish, too. On Fridays my mother cooked fish jelly, we all loved that, too. We ate meat-soup, fried, cooked meat and chulent. But my mother often cooked paprika chicken, too. Otherwise these holidays were nice, because the family could be together. My mother always made cookies for the weekend. She always kneaded the dough, she was a very skillful housewife. I often got a telling off, because the dough was never round when I did it - I still can't roll the dough out nicely - and this was a big shame at that time. It sometimes occurred that our mother stuffed a goose, but this wasn't general practice. We grew some green beans, corn and fresh vegetables at home for the summer.