Fania Meitina

This is my mother Fania Meitina. This photo was taken on her 80th birthday in her home in 1963. She was photographed by her grandson Leonid Prusak. My mother obviously liked my sister more. She was never satisfied with me and constantly reproached me with her 'she can sew', or 'she is so handy while you aren't'. The only time I heard my mother praise me was when I defended my thesis. My mother called her friend and said 'Rachel has defended her thesis today'. This was the only time in my life that she complimented my achievements. She was strict and greedy. Her father was greedy and she probably took after him, as well as my sister and her son. My mother was prudent. She was a cold person. I was never as close with my mother as I was with my father. I met Isaac Verkhovski in 1934. In 1943 his mother, two aunts (Anna and Sophia junior) and he moved to Moscow. They lived in a room in a communal department. We met again at his mother's birthday in 1948. We dated until we decided to get married in October 1950. We had a civil ceremony. We settled down in my apartment on Kropotkinskaya Street. My mother, my father, my sister Vera and her son also lived there. There was too little space. Our son Gleb was born in 1958. Two months after he was born I went back to work. My mother and mother-in-law looked after him. Our family didn't have much to live on. I received a salary of 80 rubles when I was a lab assistant, which wasn't a lot of money. My husband received 60 rubles. We lived with my parents until my son was born. We gave my mother 100 rubles of housekeeping money every month and had little left. My mother wasn't really fond of my husband and that was mutual. My mother believed that I deserved better while my father was easy about it. In 1954 my husband mother's sisters insisted that my mother-in-law lived with us. She was living with her sisters in a room in a communal apartment up until then. Living with my mother and mother-in-law under one roof wasn't easy. My mother died of stroke in 1967. We buried her in the town cemetery where my father was also buried.