Posted below is a 1982 interview of Dolly Vernick Wasserman, the sister of Jacob Vernick and therefore the aunt of Seymour Vernick, Claire Vernick McGuire, and Rhoda Vernick Mindes. Dolly was born June 15, 1904, and died November 29, 1992.
The interview is about an hour and ten minutes long. It was conducted by Claire Vernick McGuire on October 20, 1982, at the residence of Jerry and Maxine Wasserman in Lexington, Massachusetts. Jerry Wasserman is Dolly Vernick Wasserman’s son, and is therefore the cousin of Seymour Vernick, Claire Vernick McGuire, and Rhoda Vernick Mindes. Jerry and Maxine Wasserman were present for the interview and Maxine asked some of the questions. The recording was originally on cassette tape, and is digitized here by Jim McGuire, Claire Vernick McGuire’s son, on January 20th, 2024. The interview describes Dolly’s life as a girl in Lypovets’, Ukraine, where she came from; Dolly’s (and Grampa Jack’s) escape from Ukraine six months before the outbreak of World War I in 1914 (check me on this at about 28:00), five years before a terrible pogrom; their arrival in the USA six (?) years later, after a few years in Russia and Poland, and their lives in Brooklyn after coming to the United States.
About an hour into the recording, at 1:01:38, Jim announces “OK, that’s the end of the recording.” That is not the case: false alarm. The recording resumes at about 1:02 and goes until about 1:09. When Claire asks Dolly where she is from, I believe she replies “Lypovets’,” which is a town in Vinnytsia Oblast in south-central Ukraine, near the city of Vinnytsia. Lypovets’ is about 130 miles southwest of Kiev, about 50 miles from the Moldovan border, and about 250 miles northwest of Odesa. Dolly said that her mother’s maiden name was Kirshner (not sure of spelling in English).