Irena Braunova

This is my mother Irena Simkova, nee Braunova, dressed up like a man. The photo was taken at the beginning of the 20th century in Slovakia. My mother, Irena, is of course one of the daughters of Viliam and Cecilia Braun. She was born in 1897 in Nitra. They called her Csibi. No one knew her by any other name than Csibinéni. Csibe, which means chick, that's from Hungarian. Because she was this typical little chick, merry and chipper. My mother was amazing. Unfortunately she got cancer. Just the year before she died, we'd still been skating and skiing together. In 1953 she died suddenly in Zilina of cancer.