Morduchai Grinberg with his son Emmanuel Grinberg

Morduchai Grinberg with his son Emmanuel Grinberg

On the left is my grandfather Morduchai Grinberg and on the right his son, Emmanuel Grinberg. This picture was taken at the beginning of the 1920s in Jurbarkas.

My family comes from the small town of Jurbarkas 200 kilometers away from Vilnius. My maternal grandpa, Morduchai Grinberg, was born in Jurbarkas in 1864. Morduchai was involved in commerce. He was neither rich nor poor. His wife, Grunya, was also born in Jurbarkas. She died at a rather young age from some sort of a disease in 1905. She died and six children became orphans. Grandpa didn’t remarry, though he was a rather young man. He didn’t want his children to be brought up by a stepmother. Morduchai and Grunya had three sons and three daughters.

Mother's brother Emmanuel was one year older than my mother. Since they were of the same age group they got along very well. Emmanuel immigrated to the USA in the mid-1920s. We didn’t hear from him for two years. His aunt Beila, Grandmother Grunya’s sister, was looking for him. She went to the USA to see her brothers: one of them was called Gersh, Gary in English, I don’t know the name of the other. She didn’t find Emmanuel there. She turned things upside down and finally found out that her nephew was working in Canada as a security guard. After that they found a job for Emmanuel and took him to the USA. He worked for the company of Grandmother’s brothers. Unfortunately, I don’t know the names or the fate of my Grandmother’s siblings.

Emmanuel had a wife and two children, whose names I don’t remember. He had a modest living, but in spite of that he helped out his siblings, our family in particular. During the Soviet times we didn’t keep in touch with my uncle’s family as we feared persecution and exile. All I know is that Uncle died in 1965.
 

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