My grandmother on my father's side, Rodoneha Sneiderman. This photo was taken on my grandmother's 40th birthday in 1907 in a photo shop in Panasovskogo Street in Kharkov.
My grandmother was born in the town of Mitava, Latvia. I don't know her maiden name. She was ten years younger than my grandfather Moshe-Aren Sneiderman. My grandmother was a housewife. My grandfather was a tinsmith, and also sold food products. They had nine children. My father had three brothers, Pinhus, Abram and Emil; and five sisters, Dina, Ida, Lida, Bertha and Hava.
At the beginning of the 20th century my grandparents and their family moved to Kharkov. I don't know why they decided to move. We had a pre-revolutionary picture of my grandmother. Her attire shows that hers was a wealthy family. She had a beautiful blouse, a chain watch and a beautiful hairdo. It was a custom among Jewish women to wear wigs at that time, so I guess, it was a wig. My grandmother always wore a long skirt and a blouse. She was a reserved and calm woman. My grandparents were religious. They always fasted on Yom Kippur, celebrated Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot, Chanukkah, Purim and Pesach. I sometimes visited them on the eve of Sabbath. On Friday evening my grandmother lit candles and said a prayer. They followed the kashrut. She even had a special cloth for washing kitchen utensils for meat and dairy products. My grandfather was confined to bed from the early 1920s, and my father looked after him. He died in 1926, my grandmother died six years later.
Ida Limonova's grandmother Rodoneha Sneiderman
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