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03 my story

I grew up watching my mother at her Singer sewing machine, where she made clothes for me and my sister; repaired my worn stuffed animals; and learned to quilt with all her leftover fabric scraps.

On forays to the Piece Goods Shop, where Mom purchased her Simplicity, McCalls, and Butterick patterns, I’d hide inside the kiosks that held dozens of fabric bolts. After buying her wares, she would find me there, rubbing my cheek with the softest material I could find.

I grew to be a defiant pre-teen and declared to my mother that I would never learn to sew. “That’s so boring,” I told her. “I’ll find my own thing to do.” She pressed her lips together, nodded — tolerant, but all-knowing — and didn’t say a word. And that was that, until some 40 years later, after I had established a successful career as an educator and author.

A few summers ago, I decided to dream up a new, exciting plan for a class research project, which had run its course. What would be interesting and relevant to my students? A genealogy! I applied for and received a grant through Ancestry.com to use its databases at our school. To guide my students along, I researched and wrote my own family history. And what I discovered taught me something about me that I’d never known.

I learned that I have textiles in my blood.

In the early to mid-1900s, my maternal great-great grandmother, Chaia, tended sheep for wool, dyed it, and sold it in the market square near her home in Kletsk, Belarus. Her customers used that colorful wool to make their clothing.

At the time, the Jewish people — my family included — endured anti-Semitic atrocities called the pogroms: violent mob attacks aimed directly at Jews. These acts of aggression, often backed with government and police support, were marked by damage to property, as well as rape and murder.

Chaia and her husband, Harry, bravely said goodbye to their children, who emigrated to safety in the United States. Their son, my great-grandfather, Sam, started his life anew in a ghetto of New York City as a sewing machine operator — the only work he’d ever known.

According to the documents I found, it is most likely that Chaia and Harry perished in a massacre at the hand of the Nazis in October of 1941 — in the same market square where she sold her wool.

Doing that research gave me a new sense of pride for my heritage. My family and I are alive today because of the courage, determination, and strength of my ancestors, who risked their lives and livelihoods to save generations of children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren that would succeed them — many of whom they would never meet.

Sweet One Designs was borne of that pride of family. It is my connection to my ancestors — my way to keep their memory alive.