Rachel Izsak

This is a photo of my mother Rachel Izsak, nee Legmann, when she was still a maiden. The photo was taken in the photo studio of the famous Janovics brothers in Kolozsvar, around 1906 or 1907. If I recall correctly, she was already a fiancée then. She and my father got married in 1907. Besides the Janovics brothers there was another famous photographer in Kolozsvar, called Veress, who took some beautiful photos of the city. His photo collection is now kept in the University Library of Kolozsvar. I don't know whether Janovics or Veress were or not of Jewish origin. My mother was born in Drag in 1884. I don't know what education she had, nor which elementary school she went to. She attended middle school in Budapest. She lived at her uncle's. My mother lived a very rich cultural life there. She used to go to the theater, read periodicals and literature. After she returned to Drag, she subscribed to several periodicals she had liked in Pest: the Magyar Lanyok [Hungarian Girls] and the outstanding literature journal founded by poet Jozsef Kiss, the Het [the Week]. My mother liked folk art very much, and she passed on this spirit to me. My parents met in Marosvasarhely. There was a family in Marosvasarhely called Konig, Gyula Konig and his wife, Berta, my mother's relatives. Gyula Konig had a younger sister, Roza Konig. They were probably the ones who brought to my mother's attention that there was a young man, my father, who could start a family. He had a good job and was financially stable. They somehow arranged for them to meet, and from then on everything probably took its own course. My parents got married in 1907 in Marosvasarhely. They never told me anything about the ceremony.