Before Russia invaded Ukraine, which sometimes seems like a lifetime ago, I began a quest to discover my great Aunt Ella’s correct birth year. Since then I have poured over the documents in my possession and read over pieces of information sent to me by my friend in St Petersburg.
If you have read my previous posts you will know that my grandmother, Olga Woronoff, wrote a book, Upheaval, about her life in Russia before and during the Russian Revolution and the Civil War. I have found at least two unpublished manuscripts also written by my grandmother. You might have
Although I gave away and threw out many of the things my parents collected, such as a large pile of magazines, unopened newspapers, recipe books and empty margarine containers, I kept my mother’s stamp collection, even though I have no idea what to do with it. It appears that, as
Fyodor Dostoevsky, the great Russian writer, wrote those words. I’m sure they were written from experience. My grandparents, Paul and Olga Woronoff understood how important hope is to life. If they had not had hope they might not have survived through the tumultuous years that their homeland of Russia threw
Greta Garbo, the glamorous Swedish American motion picture star of the 1920’s and 30s, was to be one of my mother’s first customers when she began work at Saks Fifth Avenue, the high end department store in New York City. It was the 1940s and, despite the outbreak of war,