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About Carol
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My Father was born in a small village ....
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My father was born in a small village in Lithuania, which was then part of Russia. He was born in 1892. The name of the village in Lithuanian is Kapciamiestis and in Yiddish is Kopcheve. He was the only boy among four sisters. During these years, from the age of 3 until his Bar Mitzvah, Jewish boys learned in the heder – a boys' school next to the synagogue. After bar mitzvah, Jewish children studies at a Hebrew Gymnasium, a Russian school, seminary or synagogue, or Russian gymnasium (like high school). For a Jew to be accepted into a Russian gymnasium one had to be sponsored by a Christian family. Of course, the Jewish family paid for room and board as well as tuition. My father's parents sent him to study in Grodno, Belarus. He lived with a Russian family and studied at the Russian gymnasium until he graduated. When he returned to the village at the age of 19 (1910), his parents were concerned that he would be drafted into the Russian army. Therefore they collected money and smuggled him across the border to get to United States. The year was 1910; he was smuggled out of Lithuania tied under a wagon with another boy. The story of my interview with him and copy of his Russian passport will be told at a later date.
One of my father's sisters died from illness in Lithuania. Three sisters married and came to the U.S. My father's parents came to the United States in 1918. My paternal grandmother passed away in America in 1923. My paternal grandfather missed his brother and relatives and returned to Lithuania to his village Kopcheve. Attached are copies of letters my grandfather wrote to my father in 1936. These letters are in Yiddish. Of course I did not know my grandparents as I was not yet born.
My father was 17 years older than my mother. They were cousins: my mother's mother and my father's mother were sisters. In 1935 when my parents were married it was acceptable and legal for cousins to marry. Since my father was close to the age of 50, he did not want children; but my mother persuaded him. My father's three sisters lived in the coal mining village Browsville close to Pittsburgh. As a small child when my aunts were still alive, we would go visit them on Saturday. My Aunts' big vegetable gardens flourished - it was a blessing during World War II when I was a little girl.
My father was very quiet and rarely spoke unless he had something important to say. You could say he was shy. He was not an athlete. He worked, came home, ate and then read newspapers. He read a lot, mainly about business and philosophy. He loved opera and did not like popular music. He refused to go to movies, theatre, parties, etc. - only when he had (to like my sister's wedding).
My father was a philanthropist too - he was among the founders of the School of Pharmacy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. My parents have always said that if we have one loaf of bread, we must give half it to the hungry and the other half for our family.
For many years I was curious as to how my father connected to my mother's family (my mother had been born and raised in New York). So after I retired I went to Lithuania to find that little shtetl where they started. First trip documentation can be read in http://www.kapciamiestis.org/shtetl-life/.
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