Ovshie Saul "Shika" Freedman

I was born in Kishinev, Bessarabia. A city in what is currently called Moldava, a former state of the Soviet Union (USSR). My father was "Yosseleh the Shoemaker." We owned a store (shop).

I was drafted into the Russian army for World War I and when the war ended and Moldava was given over to Roumania by the Russians, the authorities planned to transfer me to the Roumanian Army so in 1918 I quickly went home and got my very pregnant young wife Rose (Ruchel) Carnam and we left by train to Hamburg, Germany. From there we took a ship to New York and then to Boston, Massachusetts in the USA. My wife's mother, father and sisters and brothers were already in Boston as was "Uncle Shmiel" (Cornblat) and his large family which had arrived even earlier. In Hamburg Ruchel gave birth to our first born son Herman. The name sounded American to us. My older brother "Hirschel?" went to Palestine as part of the Hashomer Hatzair Youth Movement. I never heard from him again. My son Natey thinks he may have been killed at Tel Hai. The rest of my large family that we left behind in Moldava dissapeared in World War II.

In America I worked as a laundry man picking up and delivering wet wash. During World War II I worked in the Boston Navy Yard. Later I had a dry cleaning "drop off" store in South Boston and a pick up route.

I was famous for never raising my voice and alway smiling. Although my nickname as a child and then through life was "Shika" which sounds like "Shicker" (in Boston they don't pronounce R's) and "Shicker" means drunk in Yiddish; I only drank at ceremonies and celebrations. My often red face (Rosacea?) confused things even more.

Shika is a dimunitive of Isaiah (Yishaiahu in Hebrew). It means "Gift of God" and Shika means "a Little Gift."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chairman of the Bessarabian Cemetery in Everett of the Bessarabian Society of Boston.