Three sisters

Today I'll pay a tribute to the 3 daughters of Alberto and Berta Peissahk. One of them is my mother.




Rosa, the elder, Marieta, the second one, and Ester, the younger, were born in 4 years intervals.
Their stories have misteries and facts we don't know clearly until now.

In this picture, Berta is with her 3 daughters in Brazil, as we see in a beautiful hand coloured studio picture.

Berta used to sew the daughter's dresses and we can conclude she also made her own gown. Marieta and Ester have the same model dress, clearly hand made.





In the pictures below, the three sisters Rosa, Marieta and Ester in different dates.
Wearing the same dress model...

Rosa, the elder, was born in London, in 30th June of 1926. 

A document  obtained in London archives tells that she was born at home and her name originally was Minnie, the same as her grandmother. She hated the name Minnie, and in some moment we don't know exactly when, she turned to the name of Rosa, wich means Rose. Ok, that's really better.

 Below, pictures of Rosa as a teenager, at her wedding with Salomao Coster, who was born in Poland and emmigrate to Brazil, at a birthday party with 2 sons and with her 4 sons at the beach house in the eighties.

Back to the forties.

Here, Rosa is with my mom, Marieta, in fancy costume and hats, walking in Rua dos Andradas, Porto Alegre's main street. What a charming couple! The picture was taken by a street photographer, very usual at that time.

My mother Marieta was born in Paris when the family lived there for a couple of years. No, this is not true, she was born in the ship that brought the family to Brazil.... 

There are two different versions about the place where Marieta was born, in December 12th, 1920, and we'll never know the truth.

She told me many times that she was born in Paris and came to Brazil as a toddler. In Porto Alegre, where the Peissahk family settled, she was registered as a brazilian citizen. But Rosa always said Marieta was born in the ship, in the middle of a long trip from Europe to Brazil....Ok, what now? I'll take the first version, the one of Paris, as we know our grandfather and grandmother really lived in France after they left London.

Marieta attended Paula Soares school when she was a child, and married my father Alberto Menda, who was born in Turkey, from a sephardic family, in March 1939 at the age of 18 in our sinagogue in Porto Alegre.

In this picture we see bride Marieta and groom Alberto Menda with Marieta's family: Rosa at left with her husband Salomao Coster at right, her elder son Jacob Coster and in the back, her parents Alberto and Berta Peissahk and her younger sister Ester.

Family picture of Marieta's family: son Nelson, daughters Vera and Susana and husband Alberto Menda. As the younger of the family, I wasn't born at this time.

At left, in the seventies, at our apartment in Porto Alegre with the family dog.
At right, Marieta and my father Alberto meet Rosa and Salomao Coster and Malka, in the middle, a family friend.


And the younger sister.
Ester Peissahk was born in 1925 in Porto Alegre. When her parents died, she was very young and single, and my mother invited her to live with my family.
My dad had an office and worked as a book-keeper, and Ester started to work in the office with him.
Below, a picture of Ester as a toddler and as a young professional walking in Rua dos Andradas.

Below, Ester at the time she was living with my family: here with Marieta and niece Susana and nephew Nelson at the park.

Ester married Luzer Manczyk in September 13th 1952.

There are no pictures of the bride and groom at the sinagogue because of a flood, only a few pictures of the civil marriage. That's the story: Luzer hired a photographer to take pictures of the ceremony. The photographer took a lot of pictures, and went home when the ceremony ended. That night Porto Alegre had a terrible surge, and the photographer's dark room located on a basement was completely washed out. The result: not a single picture of Ester and Luzer wedding survived, only 3 or 4 small pictures of the civil marriage. The girls that's holding the groom's arm in the right is Malka, his sister.

 Malka got married in 1960. In the picture above, in Malka's wedding, the three sisters are with their husbands. From left to right: Alberto Menda and Marieta, my parents; Luzer Manczyk and Ester; Rosa and Salomao Coster.

 Esther and Rosa in a party

Malka, Ester and Marieta at the beach in the fifties.

 Marieta and Ester with grandchildren Ana Maria Menda, Tatiana Manczyk and Adriana Hochberg.
Below: the three sisters in the fourties and in 1979, in Ester's place in Sao Paulo.
Probably this is the last picture they are together.

Posted by Mari Menda