My earliest memories of the shul when I was about 5 or 6.  My mother, Tillie Sogoloff, would send my younger sister and I upstairs in the care of our older sister.  This was after women were allowed to sit with men downstairs, but children were still sent up.  I remember looking down at the service and the people feeling almost hypnotized. Then, a little older, perhaps 11 or 12, my 3 best friends would walk down to Peabody Square to the library or candy store and often took the shortcut down Oak St. to Sanborn St and walk past the shul.  My best friends were Linda, Bea, and Marianne.  Living downtown, I was the only Jewish girl but we would all look in admiration at the shul as we passed.  It was part of our beloved Peabody.  Then a little older, maybe 15.  It was Yom Kippur and when my mom came into my room and told me to get dressed, I said no.  I wanted to sleep.  She said that I would have to go to shul or school.  Since I was going through my rebellious years, I told her that I would go to school.  Busy and frustrated she told me to stay in bed.  The family left without me.  I made myself breakfast and was enjoying a leisurely morning.  Then the family came home.  They were distressed.  Being 15, I imagined that everyone was mad at me for not going to shul, but no, it was not that at all.  My dad, Hy Sogoloff, told me that they announced in the middle of the service that the news had come in that Israel had been attacked.  I felt so bad.  My sister was in Israel was in Israel at a Kibbutz.  My parents were terribly anxious about her status.  I wish that I had gone to shul that day.  A few years later when I no longer lived with my parents, I joined them on the High Holidays and sat downstairs in the shul.  But, I would sneak outside with a couple of the other woman for a cigarette before the “break fast”.  I now live on an island in southwest Florida, but the shul was an important part of my life and the life of my family.  I will always have fond memories of growing up in Peabody.

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