Rebeca and Noe Gatlan

This photo was taken in Braila in the 1940s, when my parents went to a ball. My mother was the queen of the ball. She wore a black dress with a peacock of beads. I kept this peacock of beads for a long time. My mother wore a natural fair-haired wig.

My parents didn't use to go to restaurants. But there were charity balls and house visits, which are now gone. They used to receive two or three family at a time, not just one person. This is what social life used to look like: visiting other families and going to balls to meet the others. Balls were held at the Communal Hall, which now houses the 'Maria Filoti' Theater. The Army House also organized huge balls. As I was growing up, the parties thrown by my parents were getting scarcer.

I remember my parents took my sister and me everywhere they went, from an early age. This is why I loved art. I didn't miss one single performance. For instance, when Ion Dacian came to town with his operetta performance, I was there. We didn't have a nanny anymore, so our parents couldn't leave us at home, and took us with them to operetta and opera performances, and to the movies. They probably did that partly because they couldn't find anyone to baby-sit. As for us, we really enjoyed going out like that.

My mother didn't have an occupation. She was a housewife, but she wasn't anything like those ladies who just sit around doing nothing; she took part in the activities related to our household, she didn't spend her time having coffee in the living room. When she would go some place, she would leave me with the nanny.