Bess Kalb’s 2020 memoir, “Nobody Will Tell You This But Me,” is not a book I would have chosen for myself. It was recommended by a friend I trust, though, so I downloaded the audio version from Libby and gave it a listen. I’m glad I did.
The story is an ode to Bess’ grandmother Barbara. A family history (a ‘True (as Told to Me) Story’ is the subtitle) centered around Barbara, her life, her stories, and the bond between grandmother and granddaughter. It’s a good enough story – the stories of Barbara’s older brothers in particular made me laugh out loud – that a year after I listened to the audio book, I borrowed a hard copy and re-read it.
Nestled amongst the family stories, both the hilarious and the heartbreaking, is a story probably everyone should read in 2026. Call it the origin story of their family in America; Bess’ great-grandmother Rose’s flight from Russia. It begins in the 1880s in Belarus.
“She talked about herself as a little girl in a town call Pinsk in Belarus. It was the 1880s, after the first pogrom, when the tsar sent his marauders into the shtetls to drag Jewish patriarchs out of their homes and shoot them in the streets, while their neighbors cowered with their gas lamps off, awaiting the same fate. She told me how after they’d killed the fathers they’d arrested the sons on made-up charges and sent them to march in the front lines of the tsar’s army. Cannon fodder. Then they’d raped the daughters and left the mothers beaten and babbling and afraid of the night, waiting for the clomping of the horses’ hooves against the cobblestones again.
“That’s how it was, that’s how it is, that’s how it always will be, Barbara,” she said. “Every hundred years they find a new reason to hunt the Jews.””
Rose was barely 12 years old, her father and brothers gone. Essentially ordered by her mother to leave, with no room for discussion – “There’s no life here, Rose. Only death. You must go.” – she devised a plan to get to America, “the Goldene Medinah, the promised land, flowing with milk and honey.”
She made a deal with the milkman, rode with him on his rounds and sold rags that she’d made from her father’s and brother’s clothes. Part of the profits went to the milkman, but within a year she’d saved enough to buy passage to America. At 12 years old.
One morning, she finally asked the milkman to drive her to the train station. He’d been anticipating this moment, and sent her on her way with a bag full of tinned fish, and some life-saving advice.
Rose’s tale of her journey from Russia to America is a short, but powerful story. Well worth your time. Unfortunately, it’s all the more relevant at a time when the world has apparently found another reason to hunt the Jews.
“Nobody Will Tell You This But Me,” is also an ode to story, and the important role that stories can play in a family. How a collective family memory can keep loved ones with us, long after they’ve departed this life. As Bess closes the book, in the voice of her Grandmother; “And to leave the stories behind, to scatter them in the wind. The myths and the legends and the truth and the heart. And they’ll live on and so will I.”
Gather your kids and your grandkids around this weekend. Tell a few stories. Get a copy of “Nobody Will Tell You This But Me” and read Rose’s story aloud to your children. It’s important stuff.
P.A. Tennant – February, 2026
Soli Deo Gloria
———-
Photo: P.A. Tennant
Copyright 2026 Paul A. Tennant
Substack: https://storyroad.substack.com
Website: https://patennant.com
P.A. Tennant 