This is a picture of a candlestick that belonged to my great-grandparents. It is one of a pair of candlesticks that were given to them as a wedding present when they married in May 1906. My great-grandparents were married in Long Branch, New Jersey, a small town on the New Jersey shore. My great-great-grandfather had settled there in 1892, shortly after he came to this country from Russia. He arrived in New York, but hated the crowds and noise of the Lower Eastside. Long Branch was an early stop on the shore line from New York and, at the time, was a fashionable summer resort. This is where my great-great-grandparents raised their family and where my great-grandmother married her husband, Louis Rembar, who had also emigrated from Russia. I believe the candlesticks were a gift from my great-grandmother's uncle. They look very Russian in design, with elaborate designs cut into the silver and a shaft that suggests onion domes. My mother has told me that when she was a girl the candlesticks sat on her family's dining room table and were lighted every evening when they had dinner. She used to like to snuff the candles at the end of the meal and enjoyed the smell of their sweet smoke when the flames were extinguished. The candlesticks are now on our dining room table, a reminder of a pre-revolutionary Russian past that is long ago.

– CK

Relationship:  Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more