Erzsebet Gunst

This picture of my mother, Erzsebet Gunst (nee Kohn), was taken in Hodmezovasarhely in 1909, I think, right before my parents' wedding. My mother is dressed in the style of the period, I think she's very beautiful and elegant in this picture.

My mother was born in 1887, in her birth certificate she appears as Orzsike and her Jewish name was Eszter. Her sisters were older than her, I don't know exactly, perhaps four-five years older, and they were both housewives. I know that my mother, after completing four years of civil school, went to school in Temesvar, there were higher girls' schools at that time, where they learned housekeeping and community skills. I think it was for two or three years, and my mother graduated from it.

My father got together with my mother in the following way: Aunt Maca was married in Hodmezovasarhely, and my father, as a young man, used to visit her, and met my mother there. It might have been arranged, but of course, I don't know that. I had an older sister who died before I was born, at the age of two and a half, of yellow fever. She was born in 1912, her name was Eva.