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BF: Now, I was going to ask you, I know that your grandmother was someone you really respected and very influential, and it sounds like -- now, this was the grandmother that you lived with for a while at the duplex?

AS: Yeah.

BF: So could you tell me a little bit about what it was that you so admired in her?

AS: Well, I knew she came from a very difficult background, and when she was in Russia, I remember being told that she would knit gloves and socks, I guess, to make money so she could pay for lessons to learn how to speak Russian and write Russian. So I knew that she was an intelligent woman, and that she was a very hard worker. And she kept a very neat, neat, clean home, and when they first came to this country -- when they first came to Seattle, she took in boarders and did, I guess, until at least for several years until my grandpa got better jobs. And, 'cause my grandfather was street cleaner when he first, that was his first job in Seattle. And, and that was pushing a brush -- I mean, a broom. And so Grandma would take in boarders, and, and I never heard her complain about things. And also she was very active in an organization called the Workman's Circle, and, which mainly, I think, all the members were from Eastern Europe, Jewish, but from Eastern Europe, and had a reputation of being very Socialistic. Socialism was an idea that, at that time in Europe, was... well, there were a lot of people that thought that was a very good system. Of course, I do, too, as long as it's democratic. [Laughs] And anyway, so it was a way of supporting each other, so if there were problems, these were things that could be discussed. So it really was, I think, a very important organization. Oh, my grandmother was very active in that, and she would speak out, she, she never hesitated. And the thing that... because she was strong and fair, just woman, and always concerned about her family, and just a down-to-earth woman. Worked hard. They had chickens when they were living in Seattle there, and they had their little garden, they raised produce. And so I really admired her ability to do things, and that she was a thoughtful woman and a good person.

BF: It sounds like she, you spent a lot of time with her, or around her.

AS: Yeah, I did. Yeah, when I got older and she was getting frail, I used to help her in the kitchen, so I felt very good about that.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.