Biographies

  
  Erika:  She was the youngest of 7, 4 males, 3 females.  She lived with her Mother, Grandmother of mine, for all of Grandmother's life. This was mainly due to them living in the eastern part of my home country, which was after WWII occupied by Russia and under Communist dictatorship.  Life was hard and little choices existed.  They were fortunate to have their home, a 4 story apartment house, which belonged to my Grandparents.  It was old fashioned, toilets outside the apartment in the hous'es stairwells, the kitchen had running cold water, but into an oval shaped metal sink, which you would nowadays find in maybe some public outdoor bathrooms.  Water had to be heated on the gas stove or coal stove.  And dishes had to be washed in a bowl that was sunk into a cut-out of the drawer of a kitchen table. The sink was too small to put a dish-washing bowl into. But the house had a large garden in back, with some side buildings that were storage places or a little work shop for the owner to make home repairs.  The garden consisted mainly of grass area and apple and fruit trees. One small section on one of the sides of the house contained a small plot for parsley and some other herbs, and the house wall was covered with vines that had good tasting grapes on them in the summer time.  Also, there was one "dangerous" section, the dung pit. An open pit that contained garbage and rain water, which eventually would turn into fertilizer for the yard.  It usually was covered with a slimy green substance, and a child was warned not to get near it. It was deep enough for a child to drown in it.
The apartment usually smelled of apples, as Grandmother stored her apples on top of a big cupboard of the bedroom.

After WWII nothing much changed, since there's  were no materials available to do any repairs not until nearly 2 decades later. 
But it was home to Erika and Grandmother.  It was their way of life, and they were used to it.

Erika worked in a nearby factory in the office, because she was considered very well educated - only 8 years of grade school,  in the mid 19hundred-teens, and she had learned and read and studied on her own, and worked early as a young woman, learning about doing office work and book keeping. It was called an apprenticeship. 

She was a vivacious person, with an enormous sense of humor.  When I visited her as a child with my mother, my Dad, who was her brother, never made it, because he was running his newly founded machine shop in the western part of the country, I always loved the stories she told me, all made up, the dancing she did for me, and which she liked to teach me also, with both of us hopping around the kitchen or living room area. I particularly loved it when she wound up the old phonograph, and we danced to the music of those old tunes right there in the big, square, wooden board covered hallway.  Grandma would often scold us for being so silly.  

It was especially grand when I could accompany her, when I was about 6, to her work site; it was in walking distance, by their standards, not ours today, and then I would walk home alone. In the late afternoon I would walk there again to pick her up, or sometimes already meet her halfway home. 

When I was about 11/12 I visited her and Grandmother with a friend from my home town, who went to visit friends of hers in the same city. I stayed with my aunt and Grandmother, the friend lady stayed with her family.  We had gone there to avoid the air raids in our western city, while my parents and her family held the fort back there.  During that time with my aunt she took me to my first ever theater performance, a children's story, and I was so enthralled by the scenery that showed a night scene, with a big moon and stars, and some children floating in the space around those orbs.  

Erika also had a great knack for acting and would often act out imaginary scenes for her Mom and me.  We were the audience.  She had a wonderful memory and could recite poems which she incorporated into her stories she enacted.  

The time she visited my family in our home after the war, I loved it when she put me to bed, because she would always tell stories. Or if she knew I had to memorize a poem for class, she would sit on the edge of the bed and drill me into the memorization, in which she was so much better than I.  But I would remember the poem at least long enough for the next day's school and reciting.

Erika also loved to do manicure for  my Dad's work worn nails and my nails.  As  I later realized, all those talents indicated an artistic streak in her, which in a different time and world might have her even gotten into the world of theater arts.  But in her times that was not possible.

In years after the war she met her husband and  married.  She had one son, and he inherited all those wonderful traits from his mother and a lot of his father's mathematical talent.  In fact, he eventually was called to study in   a Russian University because of his intellect. But, his great loves always were the arts.  He wrote skits and short stories, some with a "Drunk". being the main character. He would go to different parts of the city where he acted out the part of the drunk, and his friend, the cinematographer,  would tape it.. Eventually he would edit it into a short movie and show it in some movie  houses.

Yes, the memories of Erika are great and I always consider her my favorite aunt, simply because she was younger than all other family, and she had the chance to be my "play mate" so often, while all other aunts and uncles were adults and married and had children of their own, some my age.  I loved them, but they were not my play mates....