Family histories are strange things some times. Just when you think you have a handle on where your people have come from, a spanner gets thrown in the works. In my family we've always known about my father's family to as far back as 16th century Portugal for his mother's family, and the days of Wallace and his gory bed for his father's family in Scotland.

My mother's family has always been a little more mysterious in that, although we know where in Europe they were living when they came to Canada, we don't know what path had taken them to that final destination but one. As Jews they had been on the move for generations. They were afraid to settle in deep enough to put down roots of belonging because who knew when the winds of change would whisper in the ear of the King/Prince of the city telling him it's time for the Jews to leave.

My mother's maternal line had settled in Poland just outside the city of Krakow. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Poland and Russia were in continual conflict over a piece of land that lay on the Eastern edge of Poland. That the Pale, which was the name of the area, also happened to be the only place in Russia that Jews were allowed to live meant that their poor Fiddler On The Roof type villages were right smack dab in the middle of a battle field.

My mother's maternal grandfather came to here to avoid being canon fodder for one side or the other for a fourth time. "Enlistment" parties would ride through the Jewish settlements, rounding up any male that could walk, and conscript them for whatever army happened to hold control over the village at the time. In 1911 he brought over his wife and four kids to settle in Toronto.

Like most of their fellow immigrants, they had lived in Eastern Europe for centuries prior to finally having had enough of the persecution and poverty and making good their escape. At the time it was an occasion for sorrow. Twenty odd years later they would consider themselves fortunate to have gotten out when they did before the doors of the camps were thrown open.

On her father's side of the family is where the mystery begins about my mother's family tree. Although we know they were living in Romania prior to coming to Canada, they were far more educated than would be normal for poor Jews (they spoke French on top of Yiddish, Biblical Hebrew, and Romanian), which has long made us wonder about where they had lived prior to landing in Romania.