Mor Spitzer and Marija Koh with their family
My paternal grandfather Mor Spitzer, was born in Subotica and lived on the Tompa farm, a small place in Vojvodina. His wife was Mimi - Marija Koh, married name Spitzer. She, unfortunately, died very young, at 40, from galloping consumption. She was a beautiful and strong woman, who kept the family on her shoulders. She left behind five children. They lived on the farm, at that time Jews did all sorts of things; they worked with meat, textiles, and tools which they used to sell in the village. They didn't have a shop but it was known you could get everything you needed in their house and they even had inns. Since it was a bohemian age where it was usual to spend all night at an inn making ruckus, my grandmother tried to prevent it and succeeded most of the time by having gendarmerie on stand-by. I remember that after she died the chief of gendarmerie used to come to my father and tell him how she was a wonderful, energic person, and we suspected that he was in love with her.
They were well-off materially while great grandmother was alive. After her death grandfather sold everything they had, he let the children go wild, without giving them anything, and became an alcoholic.
Their mother tongue was Hungarian . They were very religious, but you could not tell this from their dress. They were Neologs . They kept kosher at home and went to synagogue. They celebrated every holiday very strictly.
They were members of the Jewish community but since the farm was very far away they did not socialize much, except for holidays when the family gathered together.
Grandmother died from her own carelessness. One winter the laundress did not come so she cleaned everything for the household (for five children and two adults) by herself in the yard, she caught a cold and died a short time later on Purim. After that the family fell apart but grandfather never married again, in fact he was so ill they amputated one of his legs. He was in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, until he was 75 or 77 years old.