Istvan Koltai and his sister and cousin

This is my husband Istvan or Pista Koltai (on the top), me, then his sister Dora Greiner in front of me and her little daughter Ildiko. The photo was taken in Cece in 1940. The whole Greiner family was like close relatives to me because we lived in the same street. The Greiners had six children: four girls and two boys. After I finished middle school, I went to work for Dora Greiner. Three or four of us worked in her workshop. Dora was our boss. She was very strict, she used to upbraid me all the time before she became my sister-in-law, and after her brother married me, I used to tell her: 'You were such a nasty boss, it was horrible'. I worked there as an apprentice for a couple of years. I was working in the sewing workshop of my husband's older sister and I 'kept repairing the iron' until my husband fell in love with me and I with him and we got married. The poor Greiner parents died very young. I think around 1930. The girls were left alone and they were thinking about what to do and decided to move to Pest. And they did. Dora and her sister Mandi joined forces and brought the sewing workshop to Pest. Their workshop was on Terez Boulevard and I used to go there as if I was going home. I went to see them more often than my own sister. They accepted me in the family as if I were a sister to them. We were very close, they were very humorous and quick-witted, and I loved them. We were almost like sisters, we grew up together. I knew that I could always rely on them. Pista courted me for a very long time because he didn't have a job. We got married in Budapest in 1937. He had already got this job in Cece, otherwise he couldn't have married me. We lived in Cece from 1937 to 1942. When I got married and moved there, I thought that I would move to a normal place. But when I got off the train in the evening and started looking for the village I found nothing. Because it really was just a village compared to Eger. So, I got off the train and said to myself: 'It's ok, I will find it in the morning'. And I woke up the next morning and there was nothing there, just the wilderness. I just couldn't stand living in a village. Eger wasn't a big place but it was still a town. However, I had to get used to village life because I knew that my husband wouldn't find a job anywhere else.