chanel perfume for women no 5 : Cake, Coffee, and Chanel No. 5: A Story of An American Woman

Two women sit down to talk about life. One is a granddaughter who is interested in her family background. The other, a daughter of Slovakian immigrants and a mother of nine children, is a strong and accomplished woman, who is ashamed of her family’s ethnicity. For the first time, she opens up about her Slavic heritage. “Well, no one cares about people from the East. We were from the East, we were Slavs.” They discuss her childhood and the morals she was exposed to, living through the Depression and World War II. What is profound is her acknowledgment of her parents’ Old World ways in not wanting to educate their daughters. Helena takes the steps to secure an education and career in nursing. She does not realize it as she explains herself to her granddaughter, but she created her own version of the American dream. “I got along well with my parents as a teenager. I had a deep respect for them; their ability to come to a strange country, to learn a new language and acquire a better life under many adverse circumstances.” This oral history is transcribed from conversations into a documentary memoir of an American woman’s experience. Helena tells her story in an honest and intimate manner.