Aniuta Drutowska with her children, Czeslawa Tikitin and Leon Drutowski

This picture shows my maternal grandmother, Aniuta Drutowska (nee Imass), and her children, my mother, Czeslawa Tikitin (nee Drutowska) and her brother, Leon Drutowski, known as Lolek. The photo was taken in Lodz in the 1910s. Grandma was rather small, quite thin, you could call her petite. Perhaps it had something to do with the angina pectoris she suffered from. Apart from the education she'd earned in Switzerland she didn't go to any school. She never worked. She told me that in 1905 there was a great demonstration in Lodz which the Cossacks were dispersing, and so Grandma went there to take part in it, against the Cossacks naturally. She didn't have to go, her status did not force her to fight and protest. Grandma Drutowska had a heart condition all her life and for that reason I didn't have such good relations with her as with Grandpa. She had a brother named Jozef, whom Grandpa had come to Lodz from Chisinau. I remember I met him once at an ice-skating rink. We even talked. I see the way he looked as I close my eyes. He was a bit younger than Grandma, not too tall, plump. As for Grandma, I cannot say anything more about her. My mother was born in 1897. She went to a girls' gymnasium in Lodz. She wanted to enroll in a university but Grandpa wouldn't allow it. I know Mom was musically gifted, she used to sing and play the piano back before her marriage. She had her favorite café - on the corner of Piotrkowska and Moniuszki streets - which she used to go to almost everyday. She'd meet her friends there, but unfortunately I don't remember any of them. Lolek was two years younger than my mom. He was born in 1899 in Lodz. As soon as the Legions were formed, Lolek, who was still underage, ran away to the army and so Grandpa went to look for him. He found him brushing horses in some unit. Lolek was a co-founder of the Polish scouting organization in Lodz. The troop was named after Tadeusz Kosciuszko and Lolek was its scoutmaster. He probably served in the army in the 1920s.