Olga Munkova

In this photo you can see my mother, Olga Munkova (nee Nachodova), when she was dressed as a gypsy at a ball. It was taken in Brandys nad Labem in the 1910s. My mother was born in 1897 in Brandys nad Labem. She grew up in Smichov in Prague. My mother had some one-year German business school, and knew German shorthand perfectly. I've even got a diploma stored away someplace, where they write that she won some shorthand contest in Teplice-Sanov. This contest was organized by the Association of Gabelsberg Stenographers. She wrote down all recipes or even other notes in shorthand. She obviously also spoke German very well, because when as a young girl I was studying German and going for lessons, my mother would correct my homework and also used to tell me that I've got a Czech accent. Besides German she also spoke a bit of French, because when she was young she used to take French lessons from a lady who was a native French speaker. In 1923 she married my father. I think that my mother wasn't very satisfied with her life. She was never employed, although she would have very much liked to be. In spite of being a good cook, and having no problem managing our household, she always claimed that she didn't like being a housewife. My mother would have liked to have had a job. She also very much wanted to travel. My mother and father unfortunately didn't have too many interests in common. When they went to Prague together on a Sunday, my mother would go to a coffee shop, most often to Café Alfa on Wenceslaus Square, where she had loads of friends, and my father would in the meantime go see some exhibitions by himself. What's more, my mother and father were somewhat different in terms of personality. While my father was calm and collected, my mother would often fly off the handle.