My father's sister Manya Khatset photographed to send her photo to her fiance in Moscow. Photo studio 'N. Ouzemsky a Kieff', Kiev, 1906.
My grandmother and grandfather on my father’s side were deeply religious: my grandfather had a Torah and there was a mezuzah over their door: a box with a scroll with a prayer written on it. My grandfather had a black and cream striped tallit and a leather tefillin: two small boxes with long leather straps to be worn on the forehead and hands. My grandfather strictly observed Jewish traditions and went to the synagogue as long as his condition allowed.
Before the Revolution of 1917, the Khatset family was wealthy: they could afford to take a vacation at the seashore in the Crimea or Caucasus.
My grandmother and grandfather had five children. Manya, the second daughter, was born in 1880. She graduated from the conservatory in Kiev and met her future husband there, he was a Jew. Manya took her husband's last name, but I don't remember it. I only remember that her husband's name was Samoilik, he worked as a foreman at a construction site in Moscow. Manya went to live with him after they got married. Manya's husband provided well for his family. She was a housewife. Samoilik had a son from his first marriage, I don't know for what reason he divorced his first wife. He was a very handsome young man but he was killed in a shooting training shop, I know what my father told me. He and another young man courted one girl and somehow Samoilik's son was killed - nobody knew why or how. During the Great patriotic war they stayed in Moscow. We didn't see each other after the war. They only wrote letters occasionally. Manya died from cancer in Moscow in 1950s and uncle Samoilik lived few years longer.
