Mark Golub's paternal grandmother,
Esther Golub and her family

The family of my paternal grandmother, Esther Golub (nee - Gerbinskaya) (standing, right). Next to her is my grandmother's sister, Genia Gerbinskaya (standing, left). Seated (left) is a stranger, and next to her my great-grandmother (my grandmother Esther's mother) (seated, right). The photo was taken in the 1890s in Ladyzhin town in Gaisin province. Some of the women in this studio photo wear cammon, everyday dress. My grandmother is wearing normal dress. My father's mother Esther (nee - Gerbinskaya), born in 1874, came from the Podolie. I don't know anything about her parents. After my grandparents married my grandmother stayed at home raising their children. She was a housewife. My grandmother had a strong character and she kept the house. My father told me that she was involved in charity activities. My grandparents spoke Yiddish between themselves and with the children. They also were fluent in Russian and could read and write in Russian as well, and also in Yiddish. My grandfather and grandmother were truly religious people. They had their own seats at the synagogue. They observed Jewish traditions and followed the laws of kashrut. They always celebrated Jewish holidays and the Sabbath, when grandmother lit candles, and grandfather read prayers, and afterwards, the whole family ate at the festive table. My grandmother cooked the most delicious traditional food I had ever tasted. At Pesach she made sponge cakes from matzah flour, strudels with jam, raisins and nuts, stuffed fish, chicken broth with dumplings, and stuffed chicken necks. Even during the war when special festive dishes were out of the question my grandmother and father's sister Riva used to clean the everyday dishes with sand and ashes as required by Jewish tradition at Pesach. After the war my grandmother also observed Jewish traditions. She was the mistress of the house. My grandmother had a younger brother and sister. Her sister Genia Gerbinskaya, born in 1889, and her husband Yakov Schwartz lived in Basseynaya Street in Kiev. They had a room in the communal apartment. Genia trained for the profession of midwife, but she worked as a senior scrub nurse at Kiev Military Hospital. Her husband was director of the pharmacy at this hospital. Before the Revolution he owned a pharmacy in the town of Sobolevka not far from Ladyzhin. During the war we evacuated with them. Yakov Schwartz was responsible for the evacuation of the pharmacy. They evacuated to Tomsk. After the war they stayed there and worked at the military hospital. They were relatively wealthy. They both died in Tomsk before they turned 60. They had adopted a girl, Dora, from an orphanage in the 1930s. Her married name was Dora Zubkis. My grandmother had a younger brother and sister. Her sister, Genia Gerbinskaya, who was born in 1889, lived with her husband, Yakov Schwartz, in Basseynaya Street in Kiev. They had a room in a communal apartment. Genia was a midwife, but she worked as a senior scrub nurse at Kiev Military Hospital.