Tag #125081 - Interview #97653 (Rebeka Evgin)

My mother Varda Babakardash was a beautiful woman with a light complexion, medium height and brown eyes, she did not wear make-up but would dye her hair with henna.  [Henna is a kind of plant. This plant is mixed with water to make a paste and put on hair.  This mixture nourishes the hair and gives it a reddish hue.  There is also a tradition of painting hands with henna.  This is when young girls put henna on their hands before they are married and their hands become dark red.  It is a tradition mostly applied in Anatolia.  With this tradition, the family of the girl gathers together before the wedding.  Music is played, folkloric dances are performed, local outfits are worn.  Even though painting hands with henna is no longer applied today, the tradition of family and friends gathering together the night before the wedding to eat sweets and have  musical entertainment still continues.  In this way, the tradition of sending off the young girl from her home in a joyous atmosphere and enable her to have pleasant memories is given weight].  She was a woman who dressed well.  She had tailors sew her outfits.  These outfits were usually dark-colored, long-sleeved and with shoulder paddings.  There was no problem for fabrics because my father was in this business, and he always brought the best fabrics.  Sometimes foreign sample fabrics were used, sometimes domestic ones.  There were people who worked as tailors in the family.  They would sew it for my mom.

My mother never went out with her head uncovered.  In Adana, they would not look kindly on women with uncovered heads.  She wore scarves.  She was a very good housewife.  Her first husband had died in the war, too but she did not have children.  She was very fastidious about her clothing.  They had 25 years of age diffence with my father.  She was quiet and calm.  I would get the impression of a woman who had accepted her fate in my mother.