The photo shows Natalya Arkadyevna Golikova, the mother of the writer Arkady Petrovich Gaidar.

Natalya Arkadyevna, née Salkova, belonged to an old noble family. She was born on October 6, 1881. She studied at the gymnasium. Contemporaries described her as a talented and charming woman with a beautiful voice, who sang and wrote poetry.

When Natalya’s father found out that her fiance was Pyotr Golikov, the son of a retired soldier who had neither funds nor land, he categorically forbade his daughter from seeing him. Natalya defied her father, cut off her braid in protest and left her parental house without his blessing at the end of the summer of 1899. On October 22, 1900, she married Pyotr Isidorovich.

At first, she assisted her husband in his work as a teacher, having a gymnasium diploma herself. In 1904, their first child was born, whom they named Arkady. A year later, their daughter Natalya was born. Natalya Arkadyevna completely devoted herself to the children. In 1908, their daughter Olga was born, followed by Ekaterina in 1910 in Nizhny Novgorod. At the same time, Natalya Arkadyevna enrolled in the midwifery courses of Dr. Miklashevsky, where she completed a one-year training course.

On September 29, 1911, Natalya Golikova submitted a petition addressed to the rector of Kazan University, requesting permission to take the exams for the title of midwife. The petition was granted, and on October 11 of the same year, after passing the exams “with very satisfactory results, ” Golikova was awarded the title of “midwife of the first category.” After successfully completing her studies, she worked for a while in a private orphanage.

In May 1912, the Golikov family moved to Arzamas. Natalya Arkadyevna waited a year to secure a position of a midwife at the Arzamas Zemsky Hospital. During World War I, due to a shortage of personnel, Natalya Arkadyevna was transitioned to the position of a paramedic in a military hospital. In 1919, she joined the Bolshevik Party and was enlisted as a volunteer in the first company of the second special battalion in the city of Arzamas.

In the autumn of 1920, Natalya Arkadyevna moved to Semirechensk. There, she headed the Przewalsky County Health Department. In the spring of 1921, she was elected secretary of the county-city revolutionary committee. In 1923, Golikova contracted tuberculosis and was transferred from Central Asia to the south of Russia, to the Black Sea, in Alupka. In 1924, Natalya Arkadyevna Golikova passed away.