Latvia

January first is, of course, New Year's Day in the Western world. Most people really focus on the night before and are hung over and/or lazy on New Year's Day itself.

For me, January 1st is my grandmother's birthday. Were she still alive, she would be 104 years old. In reality she died ten years ago in 1997 at the very respectable age of 94.

My family tends to live a long time. Many live into their 80's and 90's and several have lived into their 100's.

My grandmother, was born Celia Luban in 1903 in the small town of Rezekne, Latvia. For more on Rezekne itself, please see a previous diary I wrote about my attempts to find my roots and to preserve one small part of those roots. Her parents were an ill-matched couple whose squabbles spanned generations. Dora (Dweira) Luban was born in the city of Dvinsk to a rabbinical family who had hit hard times. How hard? When Dora's brother, David, turned 13 he was sent off to South America to find his fortune because their parents couldn't afford to support him. Dora and her sister, Ida, were sent off to live with relatives who had an inn "outside of town." I am not sure which town that was. Perhaps it was the town of Rezekne this referred to because later it was in Rezekne that Dora married. That inn was ruined by pogroms, though our family was warned by the Latvians in time to hide so that we wouldn't be killed because we were Jews they happened to like.