[question] That is an ignorant question you ask. Nobody would go back to what was there. Hardly anyone ever did, not like the Italian girls who dreamed of going back and marrying and having their families where they came from. We were so lucky to get away from the czar and all the terrible things going on there, they would come into the village and just take people, you have no idea—nobody had a dream of going back. With a little baby, nobody would go back on that terrible ship to return to that life. In America, you got a lot of chances. There were no chances left, back home. It was finished, all used up, for people like me.

[question] Yes, I was alone without my sister, and it was hard, but there was help, the United Hebrew Trades union helped me, and Local 25 of the Ladies Waist and Dressmakers Union, like I told you already, now we are repeating, you like that? You’re like that lawyer, Mr. Steuer, asking for the same story again. I was a member already, and they helped me, and then I got my grocery store, and sometimes you just go on with what you know how to do every day. You only know what you did was the best you could do when you look back. You got to have a positive attitude.

[question] Just because I never marry again, you think I am a wallflower? A lot of men took an interest over the years, I am not so lonely as you think, always I had very good legs, and I kept my figure, and I dressed nice. There was always someone to take me out, if I wanted to go out. But I am not going to give you gossip and tittle-tattle about what is private to me.

[question] Maybe if you live longer you will know why some of your questions don’t make sense. Not everyone lives according to the way you live, did you ever think about that? You look like a smart girl but maybe you spend too much time with books and not enough time just enjoying. [question] Yes, we laid them by in the same cemetery with my Sam, and my sister is there also. The Workmen’s Circle, a very crowded part of the cemetery, all filled up.

[question] No, I don’t go there, why would I go there? What sort of person goes to cemeteries all the time? I’m too old to go to a cemetery in Brooklyn just to see the names on the stones and to feel sorry all over again. I’ll go there when they put me in the ground where I have a place already, next to my sister. [description by interviewer of current deplorable conditions at the Workmen’s Circle cemetery] So good for you, you went there to see it. Did you feel like it was an accomplishment? [comments from interviewer] It is a sad place, yes, what else would it be? So there are weeds? Who is there left to watch out for the dead? Let the weeds grow, why not? They got to have a place, too. So why do you tell me Selma Pickel’s grandson was there when you went there to snoop around? I don’t know him. Why would I know him? I knew her a little bit to say hello, from the union, that was a long time ago, but I didn’t know she was there until you say it to me just now. Everybody has died and they put them someplace in the ground. I don’t make a significance.