Maurice Chandler - October 3, 1993
Family
How large was your family?
Well, my family consisted of um, we lived with our grandparents on my mother's side--grandpa, grandma.
What was her name--her maiden name?
Skalka, S-K-A-L-K-A. And my father came from a different city and they were all in the same, same type of business, you know, the textile.
Was the name Chandler?
No, the name was Tuchendler, which also meant in the German, you know, merchants of textile. And that's how people, you know, married. The shadchen would travel throughout the countryside, and he would match up--he would find a boy who came from the same family background, and he would know a girl from this background, and then they would--he'd bring the news, and then they'd make a, you know, a date. From a distance they could see each other, and then if they liked each other, then they would bring them together, and then they--and eventually the shadchen would wind up with a few matza balls and that was everywhere. It was interesting. And that's how I heard my parents, but that was the standard...
So, your grandparents, your parents, you...
We were three boys.
You were the youngest?
I was the middle one and my older brother--his name was Avrum--and I had a younger brother, David.
What about aunts and uncles, cousins?
We had aunts, uncles. My mother had two brothers and their families. They lived right near us. My father had a brother, two sisters, and they lived in Warsaw and they all had children, and then my grandfather had two brothers, and they had their children, so we were quite a large family.
How large would you say, including first cousins?
First cousins, probably, uh, a good hundred, hundred and twenty people.
Do you know how many survived?
Well, the only person that I can find relation to me that is alive in this world that I know of is my mother's cousin--my mother's first cousin--and she's now in her eighties, she lives in Detroit. She is the only survivor.
All the rest...
All the rest, there isn't one single person that survived.
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