The soup has many eyes : from shtetl to Chicago : a memoir of one family's journey through history

At home in her Pennsylvania kitchen, Joann Leonard makes soup. In her grandfather's pot, she improvises, using her great-grandmother's unwritten recipe. As she does, amid the fragrant steam rising from the pot comes a stream of memories, half-told tales, and departed ancestors asking that their stories be told. And what stories they are: of a family terrorized by Cossacks in its Eastern European village; of a man hiding twenty-eight days beneath a barn floor to avoid being murdered; of a tiny girl left behind with others for safety, lost for twelve long years and then miraculously found. Theirs is also the vivid story of new lives made from old in America, "the Golden Land," lives rich in humor, wisdom, and bone-deep faith. Written as a spiritual legacy for her two grown sons so that they may know their roots, and illustrated with old family photographs, this highly praised history of a remarkable family is a testament to the miracle of what happens when we invite the past into our lives.… (more)