Mark Golub's parents, Grigory and Sophia Golub

My parents, Grigory and Sophia Golub [nee Lukashevskaya] in Kiev in 1970. The photo was taken by my brother Lev at my father's 75th birthday celebration. That's why they are dressed so elegantly. My father knew my mother since her birth. My mother's parents were renting rooms from my father's parents, as I mentioned before. My father was 10 years older than my mother. After he turned 30, he decided it was time to get married. My father didn't go anywhere in search of a fiancée. He already had my mother in mind. She was a beautiful girl, they knew each other and they were good friends. My father came to Ladyzhin from Kiev and proposed to her. I don't know whether my mother was in love with him. She was 21 and realized that there were no prospects in Ladyzhin. She knew my father and he was a wealthy man. They married in Ladyzhin in 1926. They had a traditional Jewish wedding with a chuppah and a rabbi. The entire Jewish population of the town came to greet the bride and bridegroom. There were klezmer musicians, the guests feasted and danced, and had lots of fun. The wedding party lasted 3 days and then my father took his young wife to Kiev. My father worked at Vodotopstroy after their wedding. My mother was a housewife. My mother and father lived in Nivki. My mother became the guardian of Jewish traditions in our family after my grandmother died. She began to arrange family gatherings at Jewish holidays. Our whole family got together on Yom Kippur and Pesach. My father's sister, Aunt Riva, came from Moscow every year to spend Pesach with us. Mother made traditional Pesach food. She took her chickens to the shochet at Podol. My father went to synagogue on all the holidays. There was one synagogue on Schekavitskaya Street in Kiev. I don't remember anybody praying at home. They all prayed at the synagogue. We bought a lot of matzah, although I took plain sandwiches with bread to work. Our family fasted on Yom Kippur. They didn't follow the laws of kashrut, although my father never ate pork, sausage or tinned meat. My mother was less strict about such things, and she loved to treat all of us except for my father, of course, with a pork chop or a ham. I don't remember exactly when my father retired. He actually worked up until the end of his life. A year before he died he started having liver problems, and he died on 14th June 1983. My father was buried at Berkovtsy, in the Jewish section of the town cemetery. The Jewish cemetery was closed at that time. After my father died on 14th June 1983 my mother remained alone there. My father's younger brother Leonid's wife Tsylia was living in the next-door apartment, though. In the late 1980s my mother had a stroke. It was difficult for her to live alone, and we decided that she should move to our apartment. By that time my wife's sister Sophia had died, and mother moved in with us. My mother died in 1995. We buried her beside my father. Jewish traditions left our house with her.