When my father went to Russia his first employment was with Mr. Allard, who had his own house in Kherson. The main business was running a washery by women standing in tubs with one end knocked out and with a large board in front of them and using the river water. To get to the washery (which was in the Dnieper river) my father and others had first to cross a small tributary “Kashevaya” in a rowing boat. He always patronised Abkcemvich Ubamurr Kobalencko and his small craft. Kovalenko tho’ illiterate was a clever businessman. He carefully thought out all the main points of his project and finally told my father that he had decided to buy a sailing “shalanda” and skipper it himself and hire a sailor for the purpose of loading unwashed wool from Allard’s ranch and Vassal’sat Golaya Pristan, 15 miles or so from Kherson, and taking it to the washery.
As he could neither read nor write he required help and offered the job to Roman Ivanich (as my father was called at that time) on the basis of 50-50. My father told Mr. Allard who willingly helped, so the new company of Kovalenko and Webster started with a capital of Rs 10 000 of Kovalenko’s money which he had accumulated by hard work. The Company prospered and when the Revolution first broke out in 1905, possessed 2 passenger steamers, Russalka and Turgenieff, one ocean going cargo boat, Piotr Karpov, 5 or 6 tugs and 50 barges suitable for the Black Sea.
On the death of his father Vania became my father’s partner in the shipping business, which had started many years before in his father’s time. It was always my father’s and his wish that Vania and I should marry. But to that I could never agree. I was very touched at his devotion - and had a striking tribute at a Golders Green seance when he appeared saying how glad he was I never married him as I should have suffered so under the cruel bolsheviks.
I heard from Auntie Enia’s sister how sad was his end, being degraded to filthy jobs, and sweeping streets etc. He who in his own town was always generous and kind to the poor. His end was tragic, living in a damp underground cellar where Tina visited him. She wrote of his crippled condition and misery. He always remembered me and his last words were about me whom he loved to the last. (Why, I can’t understand!)
My earliest recollection of Ubamurr Abkcemtubekur date back to the times he used to visit us as a student. It struck me, child as I was at that time, as most extraordinary on his part, to want to get married when he was what I considered a mere schoolboy. He outpoured to my mother and Aunt Amelia about the cruelty of his parents (seeing he was a man of 18!) in not allowing it with a Kherson girl.
The next time I was brought into contact with him was when, with my parents, I was invited to the wedding of his sister. I was about 16 then, but still quite the child. The bride was quite a portly dame marrying for the second time. I was very impressed by all the formality and gorgeousness of the proceedings. The ornate ceremony was very picturesque. I pitied poor Vania and the other young men who took it in turn to hold the heavy gold crowns over the heads of bride and groom. A proud privilege not altogether appreciated by them in the stifling heat of a summer’s day! After leaving the Church the bridal party repaired to a well known restaurant where a sumptuous repast awaited them. I was seated by Vania and greatly annoyed when healths were drunk - that his future wife’s and my future husband’s , he, were acclaimed with hilarious glee. As a matter of fact all the delicious items of food interested me far more than the silly talk, and Vania kept me well supplied, persuading me also to swallow a vast variety of intoxicating drinks ending up with fizzling Krass (a non-alcoholic fizzy drink) which I enjoyed more than all the rest - after which I became quite unconscious. I came to, lying on a couch in an adjacent small room, and found a number of “kind” guests assembled round me and laughing at me! I was highly indignant at them saying I was tipsy and had to be pacified by Vania.
My next alarming (!) experience was when I had returned with Aunt Amelia from Rio (leaving Uncle to follow later after winding up his Consular affairs prior to retiring). We were then in Jersey, when I received the alarming news that my mother was coming to fetch me home to Odessa to be married to Vania, and the honeymoon was to be spent at the famous Paris Exhibition of that year 1900.
My answer was that I could not possibly marry a man whose religion was not the same as mine, having a contempt at that time for any ornate ceremonial, such as the Orthodox faith has. Though assured he was a good devout Christian I remained adamant. My mother was relieved (!) but my father was intensely annoyed. So from Jersey eventually I went on to Riga and joined the family party at the seaside Strand with the Woodhouses, where my Mother, Elsie and her baby and others (Mrs. Reid and hers and Enia Woodhouse and her Alec) were assembled. It was a happy summer and I loved playing with the kiddies.
It was not till 1903 that Vania came to the fore again. I was with my Mother staying at the salt lake, Andrievsky Liman, outside Odessa, where we indulged in mud baths and I particularly liked swimming! in the salt water, where one couldn’t keep one’s feet down! so that was easy.
There was a good piano at the pension, where my music was greatly appreciated and notably by two priests who begged me every night before retiring to play Chopin’s funeral march! He, Vania, used to arrive generally attired all in white which he carried off well, being a tall well set up figure of a man. I rather admired him, in a way, at that time, but it never entered into my head that he still wanted to marry me after my refusal 3 years before. He came once or twice to the Liman and we wandered about in the park and then repaired to the dacha pension where I played to him, but not Chopin’s funeral march! That I reserved for the two priests who declared that they couldn’t sleep unless I playes it last thing at night to them.
When I returned with my Ma to town Vania came occasionally and as he only left Kherson as a rule on business, I naturally thought the visit was a polite gesture to my father, as his partner. He’d come to dinner and I played a bit. Well one day he astonished me by popping the question. I said “Oh!” I could not. This went on for about a fortnight (him coming and trying to persuade me). As the weather was warm we sat out in the evenings on the balcony overlooking the boulevard and the Restaurant opposite, where the band played. He would insist on kneeling to me until one day your Uncle Clayton came to me saying “For goodness sake, Marie, stop Ubaber Abkcemteburr from kneeling to you. All the Restaurant crowd are in fits of laughter watching you”.
Finally one day when Vania came to dinner, we were all assembled in the drawing room. Aunt Amelia said to me “Poor Vania looks so very miserable, do set his mind at rest or he won’t have any appetite for his dinner”. So very obediently I went up to him and holding out my hand said “xopomo” (all right) whereupon he took it and kissed it and we all marched into dinner. The engagement lasted for a month or two. I was generally bored and never attracted though his love making was very sweet and respectful. His name for me was “la petite fille froide de l’Albion” though why l’Albion I can’t imagine as I never lived there. He never came without flowers and gifts of some sort or other. He first brought me a lovely locket entirely encrusted with diamonds which, with a lovely chain, he hung round my neck. But when Aunt Amelia told him it was customary for an engaged girl to have a ring, he rushed off at once and bought a gorgeous one for Rs 1200! (that was money in those days!) It consisted of a huge diamond surrounded by small rubies. I hated wearing it! far far too resplendent for my simple self. And to my astonishment, Mrs. Reid remarked, at a later date, “With such a wonderful ring etc.” she could never have broken off an engagement.
When we became engaged it was inevitable that I should go and get acquainted with his people. His Mother was a dear old soul who couldn’t do enough for Mamma and me, when we went to Kherson for the day. His sisters were also very kind. We were received like Royalty and a grand banquet (I can call it nothing else) was prepared in our honour at which we were duly toasted and congratulated. At the end of the feast we all sat round the table with arms entwined ( fashion) drinking the brunderschaft (brotherhood) of love and friendship. After that I had to go and play to the admiring audience. His old Mamasha was greatly impressed (my technique was good in those days) and she said “How tired your hands must be, don’t they ache?” I laughed and said “No, the more I play the easier it is”. She then insisted on taking me to Vania’s private sanctum - study, where he was impatiently awaiting me and I was once more obliged to suffer his tender attentions! I was greatly amused when in the big drawing room I was made to sit in the apxupeukoe kpecio - a gorgeous high-backed armchair, with woodwork finely carved in delicate tracery, which was generally reserved for the use of any high Church dignitory on formal occasions. I was utterly sick of it all and was only too glad (after gushing farewells from Vania’s crowd) to depart with Mamma on board for Odessa, leaving a very sad looking Vania!
As time went on he seemed to get very depressing fits when he came to Odessa. I got highly offended at his constant excuses re coming to see me, so once or twice I also indulged in sulks and retired early to bed when I knew he was coming, so that he couldn’t see me! Eventually at a big dinner party we were having (at the boulevard house) he made a rather scathing but exceedingly witty speech, making everyone go off into fits of laughter, by making me out a very prudish and silly little person, always correcting him, and teaching him “poor !! ignorant man” etc. etc. I was furious but said nothing and played some music fantastically appropriate! He sat across the room looking very miserable. Next day he sent word he felt too unwell to come round, but I packed his lovely ring and diamond locket in a sealed packet and told our manservant to place it in his hands (at the nearby hotel where he was staying). Well! that brought him along post haste and again kneeling at my feet he begged my forgiveness. But I sat rigidly stiff and refused point blank to have anything more to do with him! After that dinner party a lady, who had been indignantly looking on, said to me “Why did you not throw his famous ring in his face?” I said “That would have been undignified”.
A week or two after all that I was very cut up when his old Mamasha came and wept over me. She said “He loves you so and is breaking his heart over all this, he won’t eat and strides up and down his bedroom all night”. I wept with her but could not give way, though it saddened me to have been the cause of his misery. Eventually he went off for a sea trip along the Mediterranean to get over the shock!!
In July 1908 I went with my father to Wildungen for his treatment and the operation after which he died. He got a very kind letter from Vania, again renewing his offer for me and he (my father) was grieved again when I refused! It was on his death bed he begged me to promise to marry Vania. It was a heartbreaking experience but I had to refuse. He said Vania had written promising to do everything for us. And he kept his word, very generously to Mamma in all business matters and attentive and kind, asking her if she’d influence me. But she assured him it was no use as I did not care for him.
It was not until 1914 when my dear Mother died that he came on the scene once more, arriving after the funeral but telling Amelia (Dora’s mother) that he would come along the following Sunday in a carriage with flowers and would take me to the cemetry to place them on my parents’ graves. I bless her to this day for what she did! knowing my despair at losing Mamma, she knew I was at my wit’s end as to my future and almost ready to accept Vania as a last resort. So off she went to John and told him, as she knew he loved me, to come and propose to me. He said he intended to do so eventually but didn’t consider it was suitable just at the time of my mother’s funeral. “Well”, she said, “if you don’t you’ll lose her as Vania is coming on Sunday to take her to the cemetry and you may be sure would take advantage of the oppurtunity to speak to her again”. So John decided to come at once - and - he held out his arms to me into which I crept weeping - and lived happily ever after - (with him!)
When Vania came on the Sunday for me Amelia told him about John, with whom I’d gone out. So he departed with his masses of flowers to the cemetry. When I went next, the caretaker told me how bitterly he wept over the graves. Was he a relation? “No”, I said, “he was my father’s partner and a very dear friend”.
(This account was written by Marie Wilhelmina Webster (1879-1981) for Ella Woodhouse Cordasco when Ella was gathering material for the family history in about 1966).
Back to Home Page | Back to Names Page