1918: Aizpute School

To get into the school you had to do a test in mathematics and the Latvian language. I passed this test and started fifth grade. I lived with my other uncle, Gusta, who had come from Russia. In Russia he had been the manager of an estate for a Russian boss. He was very nervous. In Aizpute he had opened a shop dealing leather for clog uppers or moccasins. In his free time he also made moccasins and clogs, which he sold in the shop. There was a large room with a stove, in which I cooked my own food. I remember cooking milk soup with dumplings, or a meat soup. Most of the time I boiled water to make herb tea, without sugar of course. The usual food was fried pork and rye bread. The food was brought from Digaini every two weeks. There was no electricity in my room. I would use a small petrol lamp with paper around it to reduce the glare. I did not even have a friend; I was very lonely.

After the war there was no set syllabus so the lessons were set by each teacher’s initiative and each teacher thought their subject was the most important. As such, the standard was forced very high. Languages also had to be learned: Latvian, Russian, German, and we also started English. The most difficult for me was Russian because the inspector’s Russian wife was the teacher and she did not speak Latvian. Nonetheless, I achieved a very high standard in the end. The other students at Aizpute had learned Russian in fourth year, so I had to catch up. There were stories, pages long, that I had to read, repeat, and write from memory. I learned by memorizing it all word-by-word. I was studying until twelve o’clock every night because I was determined to get at least mid-range marks. My clothes were very thin and I did not even have an overcoat or woollen jumper, so I had to run to school. My uncle Gusts started to go queer. He did not keep his shop open and was walking the streets talking incoherently that some woman, pretending to be a friend, had cheated him of a large sum of money. He was put in a mental hospital in Riga from which he never returned.

At school I made friends with Zanis Stalis from Aizputne. His family were renting a couple of rooms and a kitchen. My next school year was much better. I went to live with Zanis. I paid no rent as I shared a room with him. Some food was supplied from the farm and I ate much better. Also, I was not so lonely. Zanis had a sister, Alvine, who liked fun and was very ticklish. I finished school with good marks in 1924 and had great hopes of going on, particularly I wanted to get into a technical school. There was such a technical college in Liepaja, 70 kilometres from Digaini. I wanted to qualify as an engineer. At the end of the school year my oldest brother promised me that I could go.