The story of Samantha Ashley
In honor of my becoming bas mitzvah, my mother framed for me Great Aunt Jennie's and Great Uncle Joseph's ketubah. It is all in Aramaic, of course, and the margins are decorated with birds, and trees, and animals in gold ink. The ketubah hangs above my bed and every night before I go to sleep, I think of Jennie and Joseph, how in love they were and how sad it was that they never got to live happily ever after. But I don't dwell on the sadness. Doing that would mean Hitler won.
Besides the ketubah and memories, all Great Aunt Jennie had of her marriage to Joseph Perla were some photographs, a desperate telegram or two and letters, a whole box full of letters. One of my aunts found the letters during the week of Jennie's shiva. They were on the floor of her closet in a shoe box beneath some old sweaters...
