Matilda Cerge on vacation at the Vrnjacka Spa

Here I am at the Vrnjacka Spa. The photo was taken in the late 1930s. I was my grandmother Matilda's favorite. She practically raised me. I went everywhere with her. She even took me with her to the spas. Twice a year she went to the spas, like Vrnjacka Spa, and she took me with her. Once, when I was five years old, I went with my grandmother to the spa. Grandmother was very worried that her granddaughter shouldn't go hungry. We were in a hotel and we had normal meals there. But, it wasn't enough for her. So she went to the farmers' market early in the morning to buy kajmak, the wonderful fresh cream that they make there and fresh lepinja, flat rustic bread. She went to buy these things to ensure that her granddaughter didn't lose one gram. While she was at the market I was locked in the hotel room, so that I wouldn't go anywhere. While I sat there in the room, bored, waiting for Grandmother, I sat by the mirror and started to twist a brush into my hair. When grandmother came she couldn't untangle the brush and in the end she had to cut my hair. Her granddaughter, her beauty, instead of having lovely curls was deformed, with one side longer than the other side. She only cut the one side, the other side she left as it was.

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