[Cz-L] My Grandmother

My grandmother was a remarkable woman. She could not read or write, but in spite of it she owned a fruit and Kolonialwaren store in the Kuczurmarerstrasse which was registered in her husband’s name, my grandfather. I believe that he never has stepped a foot in the store as he always studied in the synagogue with the Rebe. Grandmother all by herself send her 3 sons to study in Vienna. Her only daughter my Tante Fanny stayed in Czernowitz, as she was a girl. My father was the eldest; his siblings called him “der Krohn Prince” (Crown Prince, the first born)

My grandmother was an Equal Opportunity Employer; she had several people who worked for her. She had two Ukrainian ladies which cleaned the house and once a month it was Waschtag, laundry day. They made a fire in the yard and on top they place a large cauldron where they would boil the laundry. Later the laundry was hanged to dry in the yard and in the winter the laundry was hanged in the “boidem” (attic). Those 2 ladies also tended to the small vegetable garden in the yard.
In the fall it was pickling time. Grandmother had 2 small wooden barrels, one was for pickling whole heads of cabbages for later use for Haluschken, and the second barrel was for sauerkraut. The ladies used a shredder in German “ein Hobel” which would shred the cabbage and according to the Czernowitzer recipe they would add shredded carrots, salt and caraway seeds. They would layer cabbage, carrots and spread a layer of salt and caraway seeds, till the barrel was full. Each layer was press down with a wooden spoon. The barrel with the sauerkraut was placed in the cellar and on the first frost it was rolled out and left overnight to freeze, then it was ready to eat. I can still remember the taste.
In the cellar you could find a sack of potatoes, a sack of onions and in straw on the ground apples. On the shelves there were jars of pickled red peppers, jars of schmaltz with goose liver.

She had a Hutzul man (a minority in Bucovina) who would bring wood for heating and cooking. He would come 2 or 3 times a week to chop wood and on Shabes he would come to make the fires. He was her Shabes Goy. We had a big stove in the kitchen which in is called a Pripicheck. In the cold winters my father and I would sleep on top of it.

She also had a Lipowener woman (a minority in Bucovina) who would bring us milk; she would also bring eggs cheese, sour milk in a ceramic container which had at least 2 inches of cream on top, smetana (sour cream) and butter. In the morning grandmother would wait for this woman outside the house and yell at her to hurry up as she needed the milk for my breakfast. Suddenly she calls me and tells me to follow her as the woman turned around and went back up the hill. I run right behind her and watched her going towards the Prut River where she added water to her milk canister. I run back home before the Lipowener woman arrived and I told my grandmother about the Prut water, my grandmother commented that she had noticed that in the last few weeks the milk was watery.

Arthur

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Received on 2010-06-26 16:28:52