05-01 Mille Littman

She was born in Lasi, Romania, the youngest of eight children of Hahama (Anna} and Froam (Frederick) Littman. She was our mother's mother. Mille was loved and admired by all her family. Aunty Anna, our mother's sister, bore her grandmother’s name, and I have Frederick as a middle name.
Mille Littman knew hardship in Romania as a child, and never had shoes, never had a day of schooling and was always hungry. But like all the Littman children, she was very bright. Her mother Anna smuggled the whole family out of Romania to England on a fishing boat, paying bribes to the Romanian coast guard.
She married Howard Braunstein at age 17, only after Howard’s brother Isaac agreed to marry Mille’s older sister Becky. This was something laid down by the father Frederick. Howard died a year later of a burst appendix when Mille was pregnant with her first child.
Mille met our grandfather Halter in New York. He proposed to her and brought her and the child to Toronto where they were married. Three months later while Mille was working for “Eatons” as an alteration tailor, her child died of diphtheria. Authorities buried the child without the mother knowing where.
Grandma Halter had two children a year and a half apart. And in the photo postcard, Grandma can be seen with our mother Belle on the right and her younger sister Ray on the left. The picture was sent to her husband Nathan Halter who was fighting in France in 1916.
The Halter children all had good singing voices, and at age 17, Aunty Rae was sent to study music at the London School of Music in London, England. She lived with Mille’s sister Alice who married a man called Yancovich. Aunty Rae fell in love with their son Jack, who had his own clothing manufacturing business. Jack changed his last name to Young.
When Aunty Rae and Uncle Jack came to Canada, our father made him a partner in John Bulloch Ltd. and together they opened their own manufacturing facilities to make officers' uniforms. It was 1942.
Mother's younger sister Anna was born in 1920 after grandfather Halter came home from the war in 1917 with severe disabilities that plagued him all his life. She was much taller than any of her 15 female cousins on the Littman side of the family. Her tall stature came from Frederick Littman who was six feet tall.
My dearest childhood memories were visiting grandma Halter, changing into my new shoes, and after inspection of my shoes, eating some gefilta fish. The final step in this routine was answering questions about my studies.
Grandma Halter had three goals growing up into adulthood. Her children and her grandchildren would have shoes, good schooling and never be hungry.