Jewish people who lived in Bolivia find each other in Wisconsin

After she retired from schoolteaching in North Dakota, my paternal grandmother Enid spent two years living in Cochabamba. She did this with the help of my mother's family who all live there. She had a good relationship with them. </p> <p>After returning from Bolivia, Grandma Enid moved to my hometown of Green Bay, WI, to be nearer to her son, my father, in the final part of her life. </p> <p>Eventually, Grandma Enid's declining health caused her to enter an assisted living facility. There were only two other Jewish people in her entire building. They turned out to be German expatriate married couple surnamed Pick. They survived the Holocaust. </p> <p>It just so happened, though, that this couple had come to Green Bay, via Cochabamba, Bolivia. They lived in South America for several decades after leaving Germany, although they lived there at a different time than did Grandma Enid. </p> <p>Just by chance, then, they made Grandma Enid's acquaintance in the retirement home in Green Bay, WI, half a world away from the other place they had lived in, where Jewish people are also exceedingly rare. </p> <p>When Grandma Enid died this past August, the sexton for the Jewish cemetery in Green Bay placed her grave--entirely at random--right next to her dear friends the Picks, who are also Jewish, and who also lived in and loved Cochabamba, Bolivia.