MSM 499 Carolyn Katz - Jewish Grandmothers - a podcast by USM Center for Oral History

To celebrate Rosh Hashanah, this week’s MSMO features Carolyn Katz discussing her Jewish grandmothers.  She begins by sharing her memories of how the small Jewish community in Kosciusko would always gather to celebrate traditional holidays like Rosh Hashanah.

Katz then recalls her great grandmother, Helene Mayer, a Jewish immigrant from Germany, who ran a boarding house in New Orleans to support her children after the untimely death of her husband.  Katz remembers her as a matriarch who was loved by many.

During the summers growing up, Katz would often travel by train from Durrant to New Orleans to visit her grandmother. She remembers Grandmother Carrie as fun-loving and untraditional except when it came to her Jewish faith.

Katz’s mother, Edna, quit school at the age of 16 to open her own stenography business in New Orleans.  She describes how Edna adjusted to small town life in Kosciusko.

 

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