'[Father] taught himself to read English almost perfectly. Mother somehow taught herself enough English to get the gist of the contents of English newspapers. Father, oddly, refused to read the English papers; I fancy he thought more highly of books. I dimly remember evenings, before mother became very ill, when she sat with him at the kitchen table while he ate his dinner, and with obvious delight read an English paper to him. She also of course read "Die Zeit", and letters in Yiddish from relatives left behind in Lithuania; these came more and more infrequently and finally died away. I suppose she never had time to read anything else'.