The old knit tablecloth

Emanuel Pastreich

“When I was a kid, I asked my father about the old knit tablecloth we had in the dining room. He told me this story. After the war my great grandmother had written to see if any family had survived in Hungary. After a few months, they received a response from some surviving relatives and a correspondence started up. The family sent the tablecloth as a gift to my great grandmother in Brooklyn at that time That was many years ago and my grandmother was still alive. The next time I mentioned this matter was when I was a recent college graduate. I had grown interested in Europe and was curious, after a trip to Poland, as to whether I might have family in Hungary My grandmother passed away when was a freshman in college so my father was the only one I could ask. My father had forgotten all about the exchange of gifts he had told me about. He only remembered that the tablecloth had been in the family for a long time.”