Ruth Kent - May 4, 1982
Family and Religious Life
Did, did this involve uh, Shabbat celebration too?
Uh, my parents uh, my father came from a I would say ultra-Orthodox family but he himself was sort of very traditional I adored him I was the only girl that he would ever take, I mean I was the only girl his daughter, but I would always be the only girl that would be found in the little synagogue with him. I always would--he would always take me. Um, he was more traditional rather than Orthodox. My mother did not wear a wig or a sheitel what you call. Uh, we were sort of--we lived sort of perhaps more conservative than his brothers did. My mother's side was not as religious.
But these Friday nights were...
Friday nights...
Special?
Were always Shabbos um, which was sort of a, a custom. We didn't think of it as being that religious to light--my mother always lit candles--and we had the Shabbos. And we always had extra people for dinner. Every day we had like thir... every day we had thirteen people for dinner. That's how much my mother had to really uh, accommodate.
What--how large was your family?
Um, there was my, my father, my mother and my uh, mother's sister died while giving birth to her little boy. And my mother sort of adopted the children. I don't know whether they were, no I don't think they were legally adopted because their name was Hyman, ??? and ??? Hyman but it was sort of an adoption. Uh, they were just like my brothers and sister however ??? and ??? they were older than my oldest brother and then I had three brothers, two older brothers and one younger brother. And then also in our house we had my grandmother's sister which was like my great aunt and she just lived one flight uh, above us and her daughter would eat with us she was a divorced lady, believe it or not even then people were getting divorces and she ate with us and she was like uh, in charge of our house. We had a housekeeper but she was in charge of all the shopping um, and supplies for the house and us. And then we had uh, like a governess maybe you would call her. She would help my brother Jack with his homework and she would like take us to the park. It was always dangerous to go to park alone on account of the uh, Polish children they would throw stones at us. So we always had Panna she would take us. And uh, then we had our uh, worker Władek and then we had always one of our families who lived, my father's side, that lived outside in a small town and the daughter would work in the city so she was always invited for dinner too. As a result uh, every day we had at least thirteen people for dinner and that's a lot of people to support. My parents, I don't know if I said it, owned a bakery and um, my father always worked at night my mother was in charged um, of the business. And my, I call it cousin, I never called her a sister because I was the only daughter by birthright she was uh, a bookkeeper for us and her brother ??? worked in the bakery. And uh, we had a very open and, and, and beautiful home. We lived in a very nice area. Although we didn't have trees and gardens or, or a park around us, but uh, we all had, had our flowers boxes on the windows and we sort of occupied like a, um, what would I call it here, like a, a ranch type sort of, we lived in an apartment but our part of the apartment was sort of like a two f... two story high. The bakery was on the first floor sort of like in a basement and we had like the first floor and our home was always lit up beautifully at night. And we had a beautiful silk curtains I remember how they cleaned them in our living, in our bedroom we had a tremendous bedroom to, to place all these kids we had to put them somewhere. So we used to, when we had cleaned these curtains they were always stretched on the bedroom floor, I remember that. And um, my mother as I said was not a housekeeper but she was a very sort of very, very wise brilliant lady. People came and ask advice to my mother. And uh, she had a beautiful voice and she had season ticket to the opera she had season ticket to the theatre.
This was Polish opera and Polish theatre...
Yes...
Not, not Yiddish or Jewish?
Yes, no not Yiddish. She had a very nice fur coat and she dressed very nicely. And I had all my clothes made in the in THE uh, most famous uh couture houses in, in, in Łódź because my great aunt's daughter worked in a, a place like this. So I was really dressed beautifully and when my cousin ??? we would go on the main street Piotrakowska in Łódź uh, many times uh, she was stopped and she was asked uh, "Where did uh, you get your little girl's coat made?" I had very beautiful clothes always um, velvets, uh, blues and uh, bordeaux and I was very well dressed and um, I went to a school not but a couple blocks away from, uh...
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