She was very short, just 4' 7" , deeply religious and wore dark garments with a veil covering her face most of the time. She was born in 1843? in Rzhishchev, Ukraine. She, like her husband, Chaim, was very short (four feet, seven inches) and was very frame (religious). At the end of the 19th century, Chaim and Sure's son, David, moved to Ekatersinoslav (now Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine) where industry was booming and the job market was much better. The Tarnopolsky family followed David to that town. Chaim and Sure were the last to move there in 1918.

Sure moved to the U.S. several years after the death of Chaim, Sure immigrated to America by traveling from Ekatersinoslav (now Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine) to Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland), on the Baltic Sea where she boarded a ship, which took her to Antwerp, Belgium. She then boarded another ship, the Lithuania, which arrived at Ellis Island on September 10, 1924. Sure claimed to be 65 years old on the ship manifest, but she was actually 81 at the time. Sure probably did this to allay the fears of the ship’s officers that, at her advanced age, she might expire during the rigorous journey to America. According to Leon Paul, when Sure arrived in Philadelphia, she was greeted by quite a party at Max Paul's house. They danced and partied through the night. A known address for Sure is 2214 S. 8th Street. She was known as "Little Bubba".