ALLA VLODOVA — OUR GRANDMOTHERS WERE SISTERS

Cousin Alla, 24 Oct 1935—22 Feb 2026, pictured speaking at her grandson’s wedding, was born in Kiev, Ukraine, and died in Brooklyn, New York. She never would have expected a blog post written about her life.

Alla first came into my life in 1994. After attending a genealogy program at the Jewish Community Center, I contacted someone there who found my cousin’s telephone number in Brooklyn. Well, it turned out to be her daughter Ella’s number, but it all worked out. (Click the link to read the article dated November 24, 1994, 'It’s a simha for her to search family’s roots,’ by Lisa Raff, MetroWest Jewish News, page 14, https://www.jhsnj-archives.org/?a=d&d=njjn19941124-01.1.14).

As the article tells, Alla came to our house in 1994 while our cousins (and Alla’s) were visiting from California. Cousin Esther’s aunt, Raya, lived in Ukraine and was married to Alla’s uncle. (Both Esther’s aunt and Alla’s uncle were my father’s first cousins).

Raya told Esther’s parents, Raya’s sister, Anna, and her husband, Harry, that Alla immigrated to America. Raya, however, did not have Alla’s phone number. Harry called and asked me to try to find Alla, as he knew from Raya that she had immigrated.

Two weeks after our first meeting, Alla was back with a hand-drawn family tree, charted by our cousin Shimon in Ukraine.Alla and Shimon were among the grandchildren of Grandaunt Etl, Grandma Sarah’s sister.

My grandparents were cousins before marriage. Raya was my grandfather’s niece. Raya’s husband, Moishe, and his sisters Feiga (Alla’s mother) and Masha, and their brother Gershon, were my grandmother’s nephews and nieces. Gershon was killed with his mother, my father’s Aunt Etl, during the Shoah.

Shimon’s mother, Masha, took young Alla in during WWII, when Alla’s mother passed away. To rehash, Alla’s mother, Feiga, was Masha’s older sister. Moishe, Feiga and Masha’s brother, was married to Raya.

In November 2009, Alla told me she lived with her father in Dresden, Germany, from 1946-49, and in August 1949 she moved to Kiev.  Her father had gone on vacation without her and left her with a Russian family in Germany because if she went to the Soviet Union, she couldn't have gotten back out.  While he was there, Raya's husband introduced him to his second wife.

In 10th grade, Alla went back to live with Masha, and then with Raya until she finished school. Then she moved to Kiev.  

Once we met, Alla soon became a big part of our lives. She never refused an invitation. In 1997, she came to our house with our mutual cousin, her longtime friend, Adel. Adel’s mother, sister, two nephews, and her grandnephew attended our barbecue that day.

That was shortly after Adel, her sister, and nephews immigrated to America. See “What If?” dated October 22, 2019, at sharonmarkcohen.com.

Adel’s paternal grandmother and namesake, Udel, was also the sister of my paternal grandmother, my namesake, Sarah. Udel and Sarah were both sisters of Alla’s maternal grandmother, Etl.

Alla is credited with “getting the ball rolling” with my work on the family tree. She brought an erstwhile chart of our ancestors recorded by Cousin Shimon, and over the years, I went about finding all the many relatives he had listed.

Even my cousin Lova, related on my grandfather’s side, came to our house from New York with Alla soon after he immigrated to America. A generation back, they were also related. Yes, our family history is complicated with cousins marrying cousins.

Adel called on February 23, 2026, to tell me Alla's daughter Ella asked her to call me. Alla passed away last night in Brooklyn on February 22, 2026. She said that due to a blizzard in New York, the cemeteries were closed. At that time, they didn’t know when the service would be.

Alla’s funeral service, spoken in Russian, took place on Friday, February 27, 2026, in Brooklyn. She was then interred at the cemetery in Staten Island. I drove to Brooklyn for the service and took Adel to the Staten Island cemetery. Alla’s beloved grandson, Marchel, attended from Italy, after the airports earlier in the week were closed due to the blizzard.

After the service at the cemetery for Alla, I drove Adel to the area of the cemetery where her mother and sister are buried. Due to the snow-covered grounds. we couldn’t get close to the graves, so we paid our respects from a short distance.

It was Alla whom I drove to the Staten Island cemetery from the Brooklyn Funeral Home when Adel’s mother passed away in 2016 at age 91. That day, I got to listen to Alla’s life story more intently without being home entertaining a crowd.

Cousin Shimon’s memoir, translated by Cousin Harry, includes much more information about our extended family. I incorporated parts of his memoir into pages of my family saga, Kitchen Talk/Sharing Family Tales.

Alla’s birthday was October 24, and her family will surely be thinking of her. That includes me, who gained so much from having my wonderful Cousin Alla in my life.