"Now his uncle, he was a real talmid chacham—he knew Gemara backward." (Glinert)

"If one knew Tanach or Medresh Rabbah well or even all 4 parts of Shulchan Aruch relatively well, then is he a Talmid Chochum?" (source)

"After marriage and five years of kest (the equivalent of kollel that existed for promising young talmidei chachamim in pre-World War I Eastern Europe), he became rav in Kveidan, a town near Kovno, Lithuania, where he remained through World War I before he moved to America." (source)