Some People Really Are In Need Of Welfare’s Help

I appreciate generosity more than most people, I think, because I have received a lot.

We were living in Spokane in 1938 when my parents split. Mom and I received no support from my father.

Mom and her sisters sold their papa’s farm for $5,000 so Mother could have some money. We moved into a single “housekeeping” room at First and Madison.

There we were with $1,000 and Mother’s sisters sending food and helping as much as they could. When the money ran out Mom got a job as a housekeeper, despite crippling rheumatoid arthritis.

Mom’s pay was room and board for us both and $15 a month. I worked from age 14 to buy school clothes.

We moved from place to place.

After graduating from North Central High School, I got a full-time job and rented a flea-bag room to be near Mother so she could take an easier live-in job at Deaconess Nurses’ Home. The nurses were very good to Mother and she loved them. When Mother no longer could work, we moved to Los Angeles near one of her sisters.

I found a “high” paying war job so I could support her, but a woman’s pay was low compared to a man’s. Food and housing weren’t hard to swing (you saw that type of housing go up in flame during the Los Angeles riots), but doctor’s bills drained the paycheck. Mom had to go every week.

I worked even when I was sick, because in those days you lost pay for not being on the job.

In 1946 when Mother was dying she was at L.A. General. That’s where you go if you can’t guarantee the bill. The place was miles from my house and the trip was dangerous. Generous neighbors took me there every night for two months. They watched over Mother after I brought her home, because I was at work a block away.

I am now 70 and look back with gratitude toward those people, but not wistfully. I don’t think we should go back to the ‘30s and ‘40s, with little or no help for poor people.

I have not lived in grinding poverty since the days I spoke of. I’ve gotten more education and had a good job most of my life. My husband and I own a house and pay the same taxes as anyone else.

I am incensed with those who say welfare causes people to stay poor. There are very needy people out there due to circumstances they can’t control.

MEMO: Your Turn is a feature of the Wednesday and Saturday Opinion page. To submit a column for consideration, call Rebecca Nappi/459-5496, or Doug Floyd/459-5466.