12-01 Mille Littman Story-Part One

In this story, mother took a verbal account from her mother’s life to provide the family with a story of heroism and bravery. Mille Littman, our grandmother, was an incredible woman. Here is mother’s account of her early life, written as if spoken by grandma Halter herself.
“Sometimes, I sat under the table to do my sewing, to keep out of the way of the bolts of cloth that were being unrolled for measurement and cutting. I was eight years old, and had been sewing for about a year. When the floor was cold, I was encouraged by my seven older sisters and brothers to sit on the big table well away from the work that was going on.
As I sewed tiny stitches in the material that would soon be part of a covering for a chair or couch, I thought of the royal family that would be sitting on it. My family were upholsterers and our work was so good that it was suitable for the palace furniture.
Why then, I wondered, could I not have a pair of shoes to wear instead of rags wound round and round my feet?
My mother was a midwife in our little village in Romania and was called whenever a child or an adult needed help.
The rest of us all helped in the sewing, cutting, measuring, fitting and shaping of materials to make furniture functional, comfortable and beautiful.
But with all this work going on, we earned barely enough to live on. Food was scarce. I thought to myself—why am I always hungry?
Why, I thought, did we have to walk on the road, when the priests in their purple velvet cloaks passed by? Why did they hate us? And if we did not get off the sidewalk fast enough why would they spit on us!
I sat, head bowed, making tiny stitches as I had been taught, thinking as I sewed. That day the sun was shining and I longed to be out playing.
One day my mother came into the room breathless, telling the older girls about the newest baby that had just been born. She said she knew it would be a girl. As she took up the work to sew, she looked at me with love and compassion.”