The conversation about slaughtering chickens continued: Lisa wanted to know more about where in their house his mother and grandmother plucked chickens. This went on to the size and configuration of the house and a description of some of its inhabitants. Lisa understood Max a little better.
LISA: Lisa, interviewing her grandfather, Max How large was the house?
MAX: Max, interviewed by Lisa or talking with other family members Large enough, it was large enough.
LISA: One story?
MAX: One story. And a boydem. Attic. Because with us lived my father's mother. Steady... So my mother had a mother-in-law.
LISA: Was it hard on her?
MAX: What do you think? Her mother-in-law can be different... mama was
LISA: Right! She lives her life one way...
MAX: Well, there are some women that they are a blessing for the house, and some women the other way around! I can't, at my age, be the proper judge to say which of the two women were the good ones, and which were the bad ones! You took it for granted, that's the way it has to be, and that's all! You gotta live together.
NARRATOR: Lisa, backgrounding/commenting. The less Max revealed about the particulars of shtetl life, the more I wanted to know. It is difficult to say whether he simply didn't remember details, or if he felt that my inquiries were of no importance to the matter at hand, his life. At first, with his short, reticent answers and blasé attitudes, it seemed as if he was just clowning with me. But in his last statement he revealed a prevailing sentiment of his character; that all of these facts that I found so fascinating were quite lacking in novelty. Avoiding a value judgment on how well the women in the household actually got along, Max disclosed his unwavering acceptance of this reality.
What was life in Wysokie like circa 1910? Max communicated the very close proximity of his family members, living in small houses, almost certainly extremely crowded by modern standards. We can guess that this family were fully acculturated to that existence, at its best providing an extremely strong web of support for each other and the family as a whole. Keep this in mind as we observe Max's descendants, as it spread out over a vast geographic area and yet managed to support Max at his need.