France

And After That, She Never Learnt to Drive

I never saw my grandmother get behind the wheel of a car. Whenever we went out as a family, she always sat in the front passenger’s seat, no matter who was driving. It was a matter of respect. As the matriarch of the family, she sat in the front. Once,

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100 Year Old Nun in the Family

On 10 May 1990 my great Aunt Tata celebrated her 100th birthday. Beginning life as Countess Natalia Kleinmichel, older sister of my grandmother Countess Olga Kleinmichel, Aunt Tata saw in her birthday as Sister Mary of the Resurrection. The celebrations were recorded in this newspaper article from France, seen above

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Tatiana, Tot, Mama, Mom, Mum, Nana

My mother – she had many names over the years, and she grew into each of them elegantly and with style. Born Tatiana Pavlovna Woronoff on 9 November 1922 in Nice, France to Olga and Paul Woronoff, refugees from Russia, my mother was to live in various parts of France

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Thursday’s Child Has Far to Go

Does anyone still recite the nursery rhyme “Monday’s child”? I believe it was written to help children learn the days of the week. It goes:           Monday’s child is fair of face           Tuesday’s child is full of grace           Wednesday’s child is full of woe           Thursday’s child has

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The Woman Carrying Two Giant Easter Eggs

Among the many postcards my mother and grandparents collected over the years is one which definitely speaks of Easter (pictured above). It is of a lady dressed colourfully, with a small red hat on her dark brown hair, an upturned collar and what looks like a green scarf tied around

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What She Did Not Say – An Unfinished Memoir Part 2

For the most part it has been easy for me to find family documents. I am lucky to have inherited birth certificates, school reports, identification documents and death certificates, amongst others, for both sides of my family. Documents I haven’t inherited, I have found online. The difficult part is trying

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