This is I and my daughter Sofia Shabad. The picture was made in Moscow in 1954.
I was multi-field doctor. I had worked at the hospital for 23 years as a common surgeon with intermission during oncology courses. Having finished oncology courses, I became oncologist-surgeon.
Once in February 1950, engineer Yuri Shabad came to our hospital to see a doctor. It was a fateful visit. Yuri was born in Minsk in 1913. He came of intelligentsia. On the 5th of August 1950 we got married. We registered our marriage in a regional marriage registration office. In the evening we had a party with our relatives and friends. We could not even think of a traditional Jewish wedding back at that time. Both of us were communists, so it was impossible for us.
Both Yuri and I had neither money nor a lodging. We lived with our parents in a room of 10 sq. m. His salary was skimpy and my salary was not that big, but he had never heard a reproach from me regarding the lack of money. We had lived that way for 32 years. We got along with his daughter from the first marriage. Our daughter Sofia named after my deceased mother was born in 1951, when we lived with our parents. When my daughter was born her baby-sitter also moved in our 10 sq. m. apartment. We made a partition with the wardrobe and put bed for the baby-sitter on another side. My daughter was premature born and quite feeble. I was taking good care of her. I had to work a lot and came home late at night. Sofia was missing me and did not go to sleep before I came. I fed her, tucked her in bed at night. In the morning she was sleeping, when I left for work. Mother cared for Sofia and loved her even more than other grandchildren. Raisa brought up Sofia very well. She taught her good manners. Sofia was a very pretty girl and I tried to dress her well. There was hardly anything pretty in the store and tried to do something by myself. When I was on duty at night I was sawing some piece and then stitched it at home.
Being a veteran of war I got a separated 2-room apartment in 1968. My daughter had her own room. Sofia was finishing school and she had to study a lot. The same year she entered Moscow Construction Institute following in the footsteps of my father and elder siblings. She was a good student. In 1973 Sofia married a Jew, Mikhail Tulchinskiy. He was her fellow student. They had a common wedding: got registered in state marriage registration office and in the evening had a wedding party at home. Our kin and friends were invited. The were a lot of people. Sofia lived separately, but she called us and grandparents everyday and was concerned with hour problems. In 1976 the most terrible thing happened in my life: my daughter died. She was stricken with cancer, having taken her life very quickly, the way it usually happens with young people.
