Dvinsk
Mon., November 3, 09:04 AM
Whenever I think about telling the story of my mother’s family or her early life, I get caught up in the elusiveness of the time and place. When I wrote about my mother’s birthday, I explained why there were no records of her birth. At any rate, that’s what she told me. I can’t be precise about the names or the dates.
I thought I could pinpoint the place; at least I could find it on a map. Mother always told us she came from Dvinsk, in Lithuania. Or maybe from a village near Dvinsk. (See, I get different stories from different people. No birth certificate.) Dvinsk is located on the western Dvina River. (Logical name.) And the city is still there.
Her U.S. citizenship papers call her country of birth Russia — short name for the U.S.S.R — which was true at the time she became a citizen. By the way, on my birth certificate she is listed as being from Scotland, because the doctor was misinformed, but I managed to grow up in spite of the error.
In the 1920’s there were enough Lithuanians in New York City to form large gatherings, and Mother remembered being taken to the annual Dvinsker Ball. My aunt has a newspaper photo depicting three very proper ladies at the Dvinsker Ball;
; the one on my left is my grandmother. Mother would have been in her early teens at the time, and that was what she remembered. Lithuanian.
Many years later my sister became friendly with a woman whose mother was from Dvinsk. In Latvia, she said. Mother was sure it was Lithuania. So I did a little research — not as easy without the internet — using the dictionaries and encyclopedia at my disposal. Y’know what? They were both right!
Dvinsk, now known as Daugavpils, has been claimed by many different powers. At one time it was an independent city. As Dünaburg, it was German. And, at the time my mother was born, it was Lithuanian, even if, politically, it was Russian. The people were Catholic rather than Eastern Orthodox; they spoke Lithuanian. Culturally, that’s what they were.
Jews, of course, spoke Yiddish. Dvinsk had a very large Jewish community. Like Jews everywhere, they also spoke the languages needed for business, and my grandparents spoke Russian. I have no way of knowing whether they spoke Lithuanian as well, though I suspect they did. My grandmother, who died around 1930, would have been just about the only one who might have spoken it with my grandfather.
Country lines were redrawn at the time of the Russian Revolution. Mother’s family had left by that time. When Latvia was created, Dvinsk was part of Latvia. That other lady was a good twenty years younger than Mother, so she was Latvian.
I thought the whole story was really fascinating. I told Mother about it. And she said, “who cares?” She had left more than fifty years before, she was an American, and she was no scholar. In the long run, it made no difference at all.
