Photo 40h-28K: Tita with coat and head scarf over what appears to be her school uniform; March 1940.	Photo 40e-28K: Likely taken the same day as 40h-28K, with coat and scarf removed, Tita puts her hand on what might be a 1939 sedan parked at Hoffman Brothers.

Photo 40f-40K: Ann and Tita in July 1940. On the back of the photo is written, "Don't know where this was".	Photo 40g-28K: Tita in Niles, Michigan, December 1940.

Photo 40d-24K: Same day and place as 40g-28K. Were Ann and Tita visiting someone at a school or some other institution in Niles? Tita seems pleased, whatever the situation was.	Photo 40c-32K: Mano and Tita with grandma and grandpa Hoffman, 1940. [This photo (40c) must have been incorrectly dated on the back. Mano (Marilyn Metzlaar) is closer to 2 than 4 years, so the year is probably 1938.]

Photo 40b-28K: Tita enjoying a wet day in front of the gasoline pumps and oil rack at Hoffman Brothers, 1115 East Madison, South Bend, Indiana on 6 March 1940.	Photo 40a-20K: Joseph Canter on the beach in Miami, Florida before he had met Ann Kushner.

Photo 41d-40K: Tita, Phillip Chavin, Joan Goffeney, Dorothy Heller in 1941.	Photo 41e-36K: Tita, with what appears to be a covered tennis racket, just before leaving for camp, 29 June 1941. She is now nearly nine and one half years old.

Photo 41h-28K: The back says, "Camp Tannadah. Alice Ackerman & mother, camp director & Laurette." 17 August 1941.	Photo 41g-20K: The back says, "Camp Tannadoonah 8/17/41." It's centered on Tita in the water, 17 August 1941.

Photo 41b-48K: The back says "Photo by W. LEE. 219 Middleboro Ave. Mish. Ind. Ph. 5-1766. APR 11 1941. Passover in family home South Bend, Ind." At the head table are Uncle Morris, Grandpa Nathan, Grandma Rachel Mary, Uncle Reuben. Seated to the left are Elsie and Mano, wife and daughter of Morris Hoffman. Standing behind are Ann, Tita, Stan Santow (Dottie's husband), Aunt Dottie, Dr Benjamin Lerner (Sarah's husband), Aunt Sarah, a very stylish and serious Joseph Canter, and Lillian (Reuben's wife).

Photo 41c-52K: The back says "Photo by W. LEE. 219 Middleboro Ave. Mish. Ind. Ph. 5-1766. APR 11 1941. Passover family home South Bend, Ind. Gert & Harry Feingold sitting on floor -- both passed away early." At the head table are Uncle Morris, Grandpa Nathan, Uncle Reuben. Seated to the left are Mano and Elsie. Standing behind are Ann, Tita, Aunt Sarah, Uncle Stan, Aunt Dottie, Grandma Rachel Mary, Joseph Canter, and uncle Ben now wearing his fedora. Aunt Lillian is seated extreme right. The others are unidentified -- we welcome all the help we can get!

Photo 41f-28K: The back says "Camp Tannadoonah 8/17/41. Laurette & friend."	Photo 41a-48K: Tita and Joseph Canter, 1941. The back says, in a child's handwriting, "Left Tita, Right Daddy".

When I was eight and a half I went to St. Mary's of Notre Dame and my grandmother was sure that I was -- that my mother was sending me to hell. Of course she realized that that wasn't going to happen after a while, when she noticed there wasn't any significant change in my demeanor. The non Jews were potentially the enemy for very good reasons. I have no problem understanding her position. But I had the love, I enjoyed the love of the enemy. My grandmother loved me intensely. They always said I was like her sixth child... I was a cute kid, and you know how grandmothers are anyway. I was the only grandchild she had for five years. So naturally she was going to shower me with a lot of love and affection, and also [accept] a lot of demands from me.

Did the Jewish religion play a large part in your life?

Well, yes, every day because it was a totally kosher, traditional home. I couldn't eat certain foods that other people might eat, which doesn't mean I needed it, it just means I was conscious of my differentness. I felt sorry for all the other people! That's a very interesting thing -- her love of her tradition, which my mother had ambivalent feelings about because of her problems with her mother, I had no problems with. I mean I was curious about the things that other people ate, but my grandmother's cooking was fabulous. The bread wasn't Wonder bread like everybody else was eating. I was laughed at and jeered at occasionally for being Jewish, once in a while but not often. I just felt sorry for people that they didn't understand -- I felt sorry for them. I know that came from my grandmother. There is no other way it could have come. It was a source of strength to me. When I was mistreated in some minor ways for being Jewish, it was a small price to pay for what I knew was the power of my tradition. [OH-8,9]

I adored school! I would never tell my mother I was sick because that would mean I had to stay home... That's why I'm a teaching junky. I've had wonderful teachers since I was four. When I was quite little I realized that teaching was the most nurturing thing you can do... By the time I was five I had the kind of kindergarten teacher that had me play the piano while the kids danced. I always had a position of importance in school. When I was six I was accompanying the class in singing. I had demands made upon me by those teachers, and I LOVED that. [OH-10]

If anybody needed an accompanist, at the age of ten or eleven I would play all day and all night for anybody. It was my social position. I loved it, besides. It gave me pleasure, enormous pleasure. I was a fabulous sight-reader. I would just devour life and devour the music. I ate too much, I loved too high, in a way. I also was neurotic. There was a lot of unhappiness in my household. My mother's second husband, who became my adopted father, loved me. She was too far gone as far as neurosis was concerned to make that marriage work. So they fought for forty three years, tooth and nail and bitterly. They were both losers in previous marriages. I don't mean they didn't love each other, but that's not an environment for a little girl to have.

She remarried, then, when you were nine and a half?

Nine and a half, and we moved away -- I mean within walking distance from my grandma, but we had our own home. I had a brother (Harvey Lee Canter) when I was twelve and a half. Of course he was the best thing that ever happened in the whole world. It was like having a child of my own. He was beautiful, and he was sweet, and I adored him. Of course that helped, but up to that time things were pretty rough for me. It was completely neurotic. I could say that a lot of things happen in families with problems. Of course the Depression impacted everybody until I was ten, but we were not starving. We always lived with dignity because my grandmother had a grocery store. That's one thing, grocery store owners and farmers, they always had enough to eat, and they had a roof over their heads. [OH-11]

At nine I started in the college [St. Mary's of Notre Dame]. I was taught by chance, you might say chance, by the head of the music department because my first teacher, Sister Judith... was being replaced -- you know, nuns do what they're told -- she was being replaced by the chair of the music department, Sister Monica Marie, who had more time. I walked in and said, "Where's my sister!" meaning Sister Judith. Sister Monica Marie was obviously attracted to this kid who was very exceptional. So she kept me, and I was like her musical daughter. She was from a quality family -- they all were because the teaching order there was a very high class order.

She introduced me after six months to the president of the college who became my mentor -- Sister Mary Madeleva is her name. There are many, many Catholic women, little and big, named after Madeleva because of her. She was a mystical poet, published by Macmillan, and when I got my bat mitzvah money I spent some of it on Shakespeare, some of it on French history and the rest of it on the complete poetical works of Sister Mary Madeleva. She was my buddy! She remembered the day she met me and reminded me of that shortly before her death. I really experienced love. [OH-16,17]