Ricki Segal’s first book, My Zayde and Other Memories of Growing Up Jewish, grew out of a short story that she began writing in 1995.

She wrote The Doll (page 96 in the 102-page book) as a tribute to her grandmother, Gertie Lazar, who was already suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

The short story is a semi-fictionalized account of her baba’s life as told in short vignettes.

Segal was inspired to write the story after someone she knew compared visiting an individual afflicted by Alzheimer’s disease to visiting a cabbage in a supermarket. “People who have Alzheimer’s still have souls,” she says, noting that many of her older family members, including her mother, Hilda Stern, have or have had the disease.

She said that $2 from every copy sold of My Zayde and Other Memories will be donated to the Alzheimer Society of Canada.

The first-born child of Sid and Hilda Stern, Segal grew up in Winnipeg’s largely Jewish north end and attended Peretz School and local high schools. Her first career was as an X-ray technician.

After marrying in 1967, she and her husband moved to Regina. During her 28 years there she raised three children and participated in the Jewish community.

“There were quite a number of young Jewish families in Regina at that time with children the same age as ours,” she said. “I was on the synagogue board and served as social chair for many years. I was also a member of Hadassah.”

After her children started school, Segal worked in sales for a time and later at the Regina Public Library.

She and her first husband separated in 1995, and she moved to Toronto, where one of her sons was living. Although she has been writing poetry and short stories all her life, she became involved in journalism professionally only after relocating to Toronto.

“I was a freelance writer and did a lot of work for a public relations firm,” she said. She also did some freelance work for the Jewish Post and News and The CJN.

She moved back to Regina in 2001 where she met and married her current husband, Harold Segal. The couple moved to Winnipeg last June to be nearer to her mother, who is a resident of the Simkin Centre, a personal care home.

“I finished the book on June 26, and we left for Winnipeg on June 27,” she said.

My Zayde and Other Memories is a compilation of Segal’s poems and short stories about different family members and events in her life growing up in Winnipeg. There are also several pages of pictures of the extended Stern, Lazar, Daiter and Schnoor family members.

“I felt that I had to write this book and these stories because I am the oldest of the Lazar grandchildren. I felt that I had to tell the tales.”

 Segal launched her book at the end of October at McNally Robinson Booksellers in Winnipeg. She also gave a reading at the Simkin Centre.