At age fourteen, Sophie Kamler crossed the Atlantic alone, from Poland to America. At sixteen she paid for her siblings and mother to follow. At eighteen, a penniless wife, then a mother of three, she defied New York gangsters. At fifty six, a widow, she married again only to be widowed a second time. Matriarch to a sprawling but tightly-held family of descendants, hers is a story of ambition — of love given, withheld, slighted, sustained and disappointed.
This book is a moving tribute to a courageous woman, told here by her granddaughter, Barbara Kamler. Riveting vignettes, photographs and poetic reflections combine to tell an affecting tale of love, pain and determination. It is a story that will resonate with the experience of so many remarkable women, whose rich histories remain untold or defined by stereotype, minimising the complexity and vibrancy of their lives.