This is my grandmother Tsylia Rahman with her friend. This photo was taken in Yelisavetgrad in 1900.
My maternal grandmother Tsylia Rahman, whose maiden name I don't know, was born in a town near Chernovtsy in 1875. She graduated from a private Russian grammar school. My grandmother was a beautiful girl and dressed with good taste. She was married very young to a man she didn't love. She divorced him shortly afterwards and never wanted to talk about him. She then married Isaac Rahman for love. I don?t know where she and my grandfather met. The newlyweds settled down in the town of Konstantinovka in the Poltava province where my mother and her brother were born. Then they lived in Yelisavetgrad.
I knew my grandmother very well. She was the one who raised me, since my mother and father were at work from morning until night. She took me for walks in the park and to my music classes. My grandmother told me stories. When I grew up, I recognized the biblical themes in them. My grandmother was a housewife. She was a great cook; I remember she often made Jewish cookies, kichelah and gefilte fish. My grandmother was also good at sewing. She made me lovely suits and dresses. My grandmother was well-read too: she knew Yiddish and read Jewish books. Her favorite writers were Sholem Aleichem and Bialik. Grandmother Tsylia was not religious: she didn't go to the synagogue, but she knew all the Jewish traditions and fasted on Yom Kippur.
