On his grandfather, Jehudah Menasha Briss, and his father, Isaac Miller...

My late grandfather, Jehuda Menasha, arrived in South Africa around 1890, and went on to Johannesburg alone. After the Boer War began in 1899, the government suggested that all foreigners in Johannesburg be repatriated outside the war zone. My grandfather decided to come down and live in Wynberg. In 1901 he sent for two daughters he left in Birzh or Kvetki. One was my mother, Chana Fruma, and the other was Ziepa. My father, Isaac, chaperoned them from Russia to South Africa. He remained in Wynberg, although he was meant to immigrate to the United States with the rest of his family. He fell in love with my mother, married her, and remained in South Africa.

My cousin Annie quite rightly writes of our grandfather's custom on Friday evenings. After the Shabbat meal, we would all take a walk in the main street, examining the shop windows. On the way back home we were allowed to choose fruit or candy. As he made his rounds on Monday, he would pay for what he purchased for us. After the day's delivering was over, he had the job of shammes in the Wynberg Shul. He saw to it that the shul was clean and repaired where necessary.

On his uncle, Harry Joseph Briss...

I was born in 1908, and my brother was born two years later. It was for his briss that the oldest daughter, Hoda, now married to Israel Posvoletzky, came out to South Africa with their son, David. They brought with them my uncle Harry, my grandfather's youngest child. The Posvoletzkys went to Kimberley. Harry remained in Wynberg and became Bar Mitzvah and went to school there.

Uncle Harry, after his schooling, left to work in Kimberley. At that time it was a very popular area for the diamond fields. He eventually returned to Wynberg to live with us. He grew into a tall and good-looking young man, very popular with the ladies.

In 1920, he was asked to go to America for a religious custom according to Jewish law. He had a brother named Morris, who, shortly after marriage to my aunt Sarah, fell off a ladder while painting a house and was killed. Therefore the widow had to fulfill a certain religious custom before being allowed to remarry. The next youngest unmarried brother of the dead man had to either marry the widow or free her, in person, to marry someone else. I remember how we all went down to the Cape Town docks to see Harry off. His father was still alive. I remember the way they parted. My father presented Harry with a meerschaum pipe. The boat on which Harry left for London was of Union Castle Lines.

On his uncle, Itzchak Briss, and his cousin, Velfke Briss...

My mother's brother Itzchak was married to Masha in Russia. They had one son, Velfke. Masha was a good wife and a gentle mother, with rather a nervous disposition. Velfke was born after a seven-month pregnancy. He had a nervous tendency, like his mother, although was otherwise strong and had a good disposition. He did not complete his schooling, but left to help his mother and father make a living. After his parents died, he came to live in Cape Town and found a job as a packer in a clothing factory. He was honest and hardworking and very much liked by all who met him, but he never married. In earlier days, when he lived with his parents at Paarl, whenever we were together it was often said that we looked like brothers.

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