Mariam Gonopolskaya and her children

This is my paternal grandmother Mariam Gonopolskaya with her children. Sitting from left to right: Hanna Spirt, nee Gonopolskaya, and grandmother. Standing from lef to right: Lyonia Gonopolskiy and Dora Mezhysko, nee Gonopolskaya. The photo was taken in Odessa in 1935. My grandmother was of average height, but she seemed tiny beside my grandfather. She always wore a long dark skirt and a kerchief - I don't ever remember her without a kerchief. She was a housewife and kept a kosher household. She was always responsive to the needs of others and raised her children to be sympathetic. My grandmother and grandfather had six children. My grandparent's older daughter Hanna was born in 1899. She got married in Petroverovka. Her husband's name was Joseph Spirt; he was a Jew. He was also from Petroverovka. I don't know what he did for a living. They moved to Odessa and lived in a big 25 square meter room in a communal apartment in Tiraspolskaya Street in the center of town. Hanna worked at the shoe factory as a worker. Her son Ilia was born in 1926. She moved to Odessa after my father. My father managed to help her get employment at the buttery. She was a laborer. Aunt Dora was as hardworking as my father. She was soon promoted to a more qualified position. Dora got married to a Jew, Efim Mezhysko. Her husband was an officer in the Red Army. My grandparent's youngest son Lyonia was born in 1913. He served in the army in the middle of the 1930s. After he demobilized he got married. In two years' time he was sent by the authorities to study in a military school that he finished shortly before the war.