Korina Solomonova with her husband Shemaya Geron

Korina Solomonova with her husband Shemaya Geron

This is a photo of my husband Shemaya Geron and me, taken in 2000 while visiting my son Yoni Geron in the USA. My son Yoni lives with his family in Minneapolis. He works as a laboratory technician, he found this job and decided to stay in the USA. In America life is easier. You can find work more easily and the wages are better. I was impressed by the fact that health care was quite expensive there. There were even occasions when my son didn't want to go to the doctor, because he knew that he had to pay. It turned out that my son's sick benefits didn't completely cover his needs. Minneapolis, where my son lives, is very clean. The river Mississippi passes near it and there are large and clean parks. My husband is an electrical engineer. He worked in the State Planning Committee for quite a long time. He was dismissed at some point in the 1970s because his sister - who was a psychology professor and chairwoman of the Association of Jewish Sports Psychologists - didn't return to Bulgaria after one conference abroad and went to live in Israel. Then the head of the State Planning Committee told Shemaya that he couldn't continue to work there because his sister had 'escaped' from Bulgaria. He didn't regret his dismissal because he had much work to do there. He always worked until late then, and I had to look after our little children. I love my husband and after he was dismissed, I supported him and told him I would follow him even to the countryside if he found a job there. My husband started work in the Energoprojekt Institute. There he was in charge of the planning of the production of the electrical stations in Bulgaria. By profession I?m a microbiologist and immunologist. In January 1951 I started working in the Infectious and Parasitic Diseases Institute, where I was assigned to the laboratory doing research on tetanus. Later I became head of that laboratory. I became a research associate of second degree, and in 1973 a research associate of first degree, which is equivalent to the professor's degree. From 1973 until 1990 I worked in the institute as head of the laboratory and head of the department for vaccines and prophylactics, which included 1,500 people, working on all kinds of vaccines. I also headed the production department of the institute. In my life I?m most proud of my personal achievement in the field of medicine. I was the first in Bulgaria to introduce active immunization against tetanus and whooping-cough; furthermore I discovered that old people can develop immunity against tetanus. Now we are retired and still live in Bulgaria.
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