Sweet Notions: Rethink • Restore • Reclaim

Great Necklace, Special Story

This is the newest owner of a what has been a very special item to Sweet Notions, the coral necklace pictured. Being Jewish herself, she was most appreciative to know about its origins.

The Story: The necklace was given to me last year by my friend Lonia Winchester, who is close to 90. She is a Holocaust survivor who worked in the resistance movement against the Nazis in Poland--able to pass for a gentile because of her blue eyes and blond hair and therefore move among the Nazis undetected. She wrote a memoir about her life, "The Truth About Eyes," that she self-published, but I just found two copies on Amazon. Here is their review: "This is the story of a seemingly unremarkable girl who turned out to be a remarkable woman, who led not one but two heroic lives, very different from each other but having in common an uncommon instinct for survival."
 
I first met Lonia when she was just starting to write the memoir and showed up in a writing workshop I was teaching. She was over 80 at the time!  Since then, we've maintained a friendship through phone calls and letters, and I visited her every time I was in New York, a few times each year. Last year she gave me the necklace along with a bracelet. She couldn't remember how she acquired them, but had them for many years. I kept the bracelet as a memento, but am passing along the necklace to this wonderful organization, whose work I know would please Lonia. As of this writing, she recently entered a nursing home, very weak and failing.

Lucy-- Dallas, Texas

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