From: BSalt < BSalt@aol.com >
Date: March 6, 1998
Subject: Grandma’s Story – Roots For Doron
Dear Doron:
This will be more than you need or even want to know, but you can use what is most interesting to you. It gave me the chance to remember some things I haven’t thought about for a long time.
My story is a bit different from Grandpa’s. My grandparents were the same ages as Grandpa’s parents, probably because Grandpa was the youngest child in his family and I was the oldest child in my family.
My grandparents were George and Annie (Norvick) Meyer and Sam and Lena (Hauft) Radman. All of them came to America in the 1890’s when they were 8-10 years old. George came from a shtetl near Pinsk. Annie came from the city of Kiev. Sam also came from Kiev and Lena came from Kharkov. All these places are in Russia. Each couple met in America and chose each other to marry.
George came with his father and two older brothers. His father’s name was Ephraim Meir Bokelchuk which got changed to Frank Meyer. They settled in Baltimore. His father and mother were divorced. George’s name was Hershel Zvi. He chose the name George because he thought it sounded very American. Annie came with her parents. She had a sister and three brothers. As a young child in America she worked in a clothing factory pulling out basting threads. She never went to school. This family also settled in Baltimore. George was a milk wagon driver and met Annie when he delivered milk to her home. They married on March 5, 1903. George was 18 and Annie was 20. Their first child was Leonard (my father) born in Baltimore on Dec. 3, 1903. In 1908 they moved to Richmond Virginia. They had three more sons and one daughter. In Richmond George operated a grocery store. He became a butcher and went into the meat business, buying big sides of beef, cutting them up and selling smaller pieces to grocery stores. All his sons eventually helped him in this business. George died in 1926 at age 49 from cancer. Leonard became the “Boss” of the business. One remarkable thing about George is that he taught himself to read and write through “correspondence” courses and had a very beautiful handwriting. A year before he died his arm had to be amputated because of the cancer. How very sad and painful this must have been for him. When he died the children were 15, 17, 19, 21 and 23.
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