ZMIDEK FAMILY

Gabriel was the twin brother of Mary (Mirla) Together with his brother Colman, he founded the fancy cardboard production company, D Smith and Sons, in the 1940s. 

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Gabriel and Debbie had seven children: Tilly, David, Sylvia (Sylvia: Then and Now), Mary, Freda, Jack and Sara. Debbie died in 1970 and is buried next to Gabriel.   

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Marilyn Bar-Or (Debbie's niece) remembers that Gabriel was "...immensely elegant and dapper. [He wore] spats and those hole-y, smart, probably hand-made shoes, slender and pointy. He used to play cards with the other uncles and menfolk, wreathed in cigar smoke. Tilly, David and Freda shared his facial features; Debbie's were more rounded and soft, viz. Sylvia, Mary and Sara. Sara (Gabriel's youngest daughter) loved to watch him performing his toilet. He brushed his hair with two silver-backed brushes."

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Beverley Adelarr (Debbie's niece) also remembers Gabriel's cigar smoke. "I remember him sitting alone in a room, thick with smoke. No-one was allowed to disturb him." 

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In the late 1940s, Gabriel and Debbie separated and Gabriel moved to Steyning in Sussex with his partner, Daphne. Their daughter Anni was born in 1949. After spending a few years in India, the family returned to Sussex, where Gabriel died. He was buried at the Bushey Jewish cemetery.