By the time I knew my grandfather as a child in the 1930s, the years had worn on him. He walked with a limp and wore a patch to cover the eye he lost in an accident. Some of the boys in town were afraid of him and would run the other way if they saw him coming. But for me, he was my zayde and I think I must have sat by his side as he related to my mother the latest news of births, deaths and marriages. 

Blessedly, Shloyme Perets died of natural causes and was laid to rest in his cemetery when I was six years old, so he did not live to witness the terrible events that would soon befall us.