Clara Vollerner

This is my mother Clara Vollerner, nee Tetelbaum, as a student of grammar school in Kiev. She is 15 years old on this photo, which was taken in Kiev in 1903. I know very little about my first mother, as I call her. Her parents lived in Tulchin, a small town in Vinnitsa region. My mother's father's name was Joseph Tetelbaum. Her mother's name was Nehama. They owned a store. I don't know any details about their life. I know that her family was religious. They had five children. Meyer, the oldest, was born around 1880. The next one was Isaac, born around 1882. Moisey followed in 1884 and Malia in 1886. My mother, the youngest, was born in 1888, her Jewish name was Khaya. All children got religious and secular education. Regretfully, I don't have any details about my mother's childhood. My mother died when I was a small child and I know very little about this period of her life. My mother studied in a grammar school in Kiev. I guess she met my father through her brother Isaac who was married to my father's sister Maria. After finishing grammar school she left for Odessa and stayed with Grandfather Joseph's brother, Moshe-Khaim Tetelbaum, and his family. My father came to see her there and proposed to my mother. They got married in 1909. They had a traditional Jewish wedding with a chuppah. They had their wedding in Tulchin where my mother's parents lived. After the wedding the newly-weds came to Kiev. My father worked as a dentist and my mother was a housewife. I was born on 31st October 1910. My mother died during the epidemic of Spanish flu in 1915. She was buried in accordance with Jewish traditions in Lukianovka Jewish cemetery.