Second from left, Haia-Sara Movsheuna-Krassinskaya, a Jewish girl, at The Kamiskaska School, Har’Kov, Ukraine 1910
THE ROARING TWENTIES I was born in 1925, in the middle of what became known as the Roaring Twenties, just about half way between the Great War (WWI) and the Great Depression. It was a time of prosperity and huge social experiments. One of these was Prohi- bition which banned the sale of alcohol. That didn’t work out too well. Another was the rejection of old social restrictions by a new generation of women called Flappers who bobbed their hair and wore short skirts and generally shook up the older gener- ation. I was just a baby while all this was going on but it shaped the world I would grow up in. The year I was born Calvin Coolidge was President of the United States. He was such a quiet man that when a reporter accepted a bet that he could make Coolidge say three words, Coolidge replied, “You lose.” In Tennessee the Scopes Trial was fought over the issue of teach- ing Evolution in the public schools and the very first television images were produced. At the time it was called radiovision. And the actor, Paul Newman was born.
SONJA / SADIE / SARA My mother, born in June 8th, 1895, came from a town called Choslavitch (Kostyukovichi) in the state of Mogelov (Mogilev) in what was then Russia but is now Belarus. Her name in Russia was Sonja Krezinsky, when she came to America with her mother, my grandmother Mary, it was changed to Sadie Carson. She never liked the name Sadie but she went along with it. She was the first child. Her mother had been forced to marry a widower with five children when she was 19. One of the main things I remember about my grandmother was that she was blind. Sadie was the oldest of five siblings. After her came Lily, Katie, Charlie, then Max, in that order. My nephew Andy Nipon and his wife, Nancy, named their daughter Sadie after my mother.
Grandmother, Mary Krezinsky
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