My husband as a soldier

A photograph of my deceased husband as a soldier. He was a very handsome man.

Mordehay Murat was a handsome young man. He was respectful. Even though later he seemed to be an authoritative father in his relations with his children, he doted on them. His philosphy in life was honesty and living with your principles. He paid a lot of importance to his children's education. He wanted his son to obtain a career and his daughter to study in a foreign school no matter what.

My husband was an extremely good person. We used to go to the movies, to the theatres, to musical entertainments. We used to buy bulk tickets (tickets bought at the beginning of the season, for movies playing at a certain time and certain day in a movie theatre throughout the year). We used to dress in our best clothes to go to the movies. We used to go to Chinarcik (a vacation area close to Istanbul) in summers. The sea was clear blue. We had fun with our friends. The men came only for the weekends.

After 15 years of marriage, my husband first passed a kidney stone, he had surgery in a private hospital. After about a month, he had chest pains one night. We called the doctor, medicine was not as advanced then. He was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Bypass procedure was not developed much in the 70's. When we were married, my older sister, my brother-in-law, my mother, myself and my husband lived in the same house. When the children were born, we couldn't fit in one house any more. My husband and I first moved to Taksim (a neighborhood in central Istanbul). In Taksim, Kazanci Hill, mostly people who came to work from the United States lived. I was very young. My husband's friends said "Mordo, are you crazy? How can you live here, they will hit on your wife. You will have no peace". So we moved to Kurtulush, a short while later. I would wait my husband's arrival on the hill every evening, and take the bags from his hands.

One evening, after dinner, Sara went out with her fiance. My husband wanted to lie down. I thought he did not look well, so I called Sara back home. When I came back from the telephone, it was over already. I lived through a huge shock.