Marriage & Motherhood

“The fabric of my life is now spread out...And through it all...two golden strands appear and reappear...”

Solomon describes the two all-important strands in her life as her family and the National Council of Jewish Women. At the age of twenty-one she married businessman Henry Solomon, and the strand of family completely dominated her early years. She devoted herself to raising her three children- Herbert, Helen, and Frank. "My life was exceedingly full of household tasks...from the time of the coming of the children until they were well along their way, I had divorced myself from outside activities."

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When Hannah, in her mid-thirties, began to organize the NCJW, she had the strong support of her husband and children. As she remembered, "My husband's interest and cooperation in everything that I undertook was of the greatest importance to me." Henry often accompanied her on business trips, and the whole family came to Berlin for the International Council of Women Convention in 1904.

Even in her busiest years, family still came first for Hannah. Her autobiography contains more doting reminiscences of children's crayon portraits, her oldest son Herbert's chemistry experiments, and cooking her famous sweet and sour gefilte fish, than it does details of her career. When Herbert died in 1899, at the age of nineteen, Hannah was so saddened that she postponed the Council's Second Triennial for a year.

Notes

Next—"We Will Have A Congress"