Memories From Montreal by Rose Sirota Birnbam - Niece to Bubby Rose and Zaide Chaim Lerner; sister to Aunt Laura Sirota Lerner...

I remember my aunts and uncles on the Sirota side of the family who lived in Montreal.

There was Aunt Ruchillea, the eldest Sirota, who was married to Moshe Schecter. They were Cousin Sol Schecter's parents, and were very religious people. Her head was shaved in the traditional orthodox manner, and she wore a wig.

Uncle Yisroel Chaim Sirota was married to your Zaide's sister, Alta Lerner. Aunt Alta was a bright, clever lady. She was pretty and sweet, with a marvelous sense of humor. She was much more modern, and refused to shave her head or wear a wig. Her daughter, Esther, (who went to cheder with Uncle Joe), was a piano teacher. And Esther's daughter is a professor in music at McGill University in Montreal.

I remember the Lerner household. Mima Raizel had other priorities to housekeeping. She preferred to go out living. The boys had to wash up and clean up after dinner or they didn't get to go out. Auntie Rose always had a quick retort and invented funny sayings. For example, she liked to wear makeup. "Powder and paint, makes you what you ain't," she used to like to say.

I remember a time she arrived in Montreal after a long train ride. Talking to her on the phone, I explained I was having several ladies over for cards that evening. She was welcome, I explained, but I imagined she would be too tired. Her response? "What do you think, I dragged the train?"

Bubby Nessa Sirota, the mother of them all, and my grandmother, had her own little idiosyncrasies. She would walk down the opposite side of a street to avoid a church. Once I was with her when she saw a little boy on the street eating ice cream. She asked what he had had for lunch. "Chicken soup," he replied. "Oh my God, treff!" she cried.