A Dressmaker’s Threads

About the Book

“A Dressmaker’s Threads: The Life and The Legacy of My Russian Immigrant Mother” is about a remarkable woman, a dressmaker who, with a sick husband and an infant, escaped from the Czar’s Armies, landing at Ellis Island in 1920. Her courage, her fearlessness, her work ethic, her sense of humor and her love for education drove her to 18-hour workdays and success. To her “success” meant having the ability to take care of her sick husband (before the days of medical insurance) and sending her three daughters to college. She did it all with grace and joy, reveling in her children’s progress, learning English with an accent she could never forgive in herself, and enjoying life to its fullest. Her legacy lives on in her children, grandchildren, and even the great-grandchildren who never knew her.

About the Author

After graduating Simmons College (B.S. Journalism, 1947), I became a wife and mother. When I told my family I was going back to school and then to work, they cheered. Harvard University provided the program (M.S. Ed., 1966) and the Brookline MA Public Schools provided the jobs: teacher of grade 3-8, sabbatical at Harvard (C.A.S, Language Development and Human Development, 1976), then Vice Principal, Director of English, and Director of Personnel. Summers, my husband and I directed Camp Caribou for Boys in Maine. At age 67 we retired to Sarasota, Florida for intellectual stimulation and just plain fun. In a writing course with a gifted teacher I discovered an interest in teen sex, too early pregnancy, and the lack of sex education in our schools. Interviewing, research and travel culminated in two books: “Teen Moms: the Pain and the Promise”, Morning Glory Press, CA, 1997, and “Safer Sex: the New Morality”, MGP, 2000. The research proved that education and mentoring made the difference for troubled teens, so I initiated a right-brain reading program which ten of my professional friends/colleagues and I have been teaching for eighteen years. This book is about my Russian immigrant Mother, my first mentor, whose love for education motivated her to work 18-hour days at her sewing machine to put my two sisters and me through college. Her story, and the ripples she created over and through the generations, demanded telling.