My grandfather, Jacob Kalnin, began writing his memoirs in Latvian, his native language, in the late 1960's, when he was already some 80 years old. After he died in 1986, I occasionally thought to translate his words into English, if only to share with relatives and friends and as an interesting historical document. Like most of my projects, this has stalled far from completion. Unlike most of my projects, though, the fragments which I have completed are worth presenting to anyone interested in the subject.

Jekabs Kalnins was my grandfather's name in Latvian, and probably most of his acquaintances knew him as such. He anglicized his name when he fled from Latvia to the United States after the failed revolution of 1905, and I find it simpler to use the English version of his name in my translation.

I haven't installed Latvian-language fonts, and so none of the diacritics (garumzimes and mikstinajumi) are in my Word files. My use of brackets and parentheses is also inconsistent. The reader will have to decide if they are my grandfather's (e.g. ['if memory serves']) or if they are my notes from the translation process (e.g. ['What is he talking about?']). In the final version, of course, these will be cleaned up.

Peter Kalnin / Peteris Kalnins

Preface, Introduction
October 2004

Although the memoir is organized thematically, the titled sections vary widely in length. I include all of the original section titles in this translation, but organize the translated text using the page numbers of the original manuscript.

Feedback, submissions, ideas? Email pkalnin@hotmail.com.