Esther Shulyakovskaya, Nina Shulyakovskaya and her daughter Nelly

This photo of my mother, Esther Shulyakovskaya, nee Kulakovskaya, my sister Nina Shulyakovskaya and her daughter Nelly was taken in 1943 in evacuation in Sevrdlovsk.

My mother was born in 1888. Mom grew up in a village and she was used to the countryside labor. Mom had only elementary education. She was taught by a village teacher at home. She didn’t go to cheder, there weren’t any in that village. She was proposed to my father as a wife. Most likely it was her parents’ idea and it was a custom in those times. Mom was the eldest daughter in her family. She was married off at the age of 17. Mom never told me about her wedding. I was her fourth kid when she was 24 years old. She was married off because there were seven daughters in the family. Before her marriage she worked as a milkmaid in the kolkhoz, later she kept her household. During the war in 1941-1944 she was with me in evacuation in Sverdlovsk. After the war Mom lived with us, she was sick a lot of the time and died in 1952.

My parents got married in 1905. I don’t know what kind of wedding they had. They lived in Slutsk at first. They had four kids: Yefim, Lev, Nina and me, Raisa.

My elder sister Nina was born in 1910. She was a candidate of medical sciences, taught pathological anatomy first at the Minsk Institute, later in evacuation in Sverdlovsk. In 1943 she wrote to Moscow, her professor invited her there, thus since 1943 she was in Moscow. They had a four-year study period at the Medical Institute at that time. She entered it even a little bit earlier than it was allowed, because there were no passports. She defended her thesis in Moscow already at the age of 24 and studied for three years at the post-graduate department.

She had a daughter, Nelya [Nelly], who came to visit me on my 90th birthday celebration. Nelya is 67 years old now. She graduated from the Geology Faculty of  Moscow University. She also worked at Moscow University. She is retired now. Six people came to visit me on that date without invitation: my nieces and nephews. My sister’s husband was subject to repression because he was a Pole. We cut his face out of the family picture, such was the time.