Sofia Ryzhevskaya

This is my mother Sofia Ryzhevskaya, nee Gitina. The picture was taken when she was still single as per request of my father. The picture was kept in our family album. The picture was taken in the village of Shirokoye in the Svet photo studio in 1912. My mother's family lived in the small town of Ingulets not far from Krivoy Rog, which belonged to Dnepropetrovsk oblast. The family was large, and I don't remember the names of all the children. My mother was born in 1892. I don't know anything about the education of my mother and her siblings. There was no Jewish school in Ingulets. I know that before getting married, Mother worked in the local village school as a teacher. She taught Russian language and literature. My mother told me the story of how she met my father, Samuel Ryzhevskiy. One of my mother's relatives asked to invite my father to the family get-together on the occasion of the engagement of my mother's sister Manya. Father attended the party. He saw my mother there and fell in love with her. When he came back home, he wrote a letter to my grandfather in Ivrit, in which he asked for the hand of the middle daughter, Sofia. Grandfather was so moved that the letter was written in Ivrit that he blessed the coming marriage. The wedding took place in Ingulets in accordance with the Jewish traditions in 1913. My parents left for Pismennoye after the wedding.