Thanks for the Memories

I want to thank my daughter Lisa for adding her memories of Nanny in the comments on my "Tribute to Nanny" blog. That's why I love people to read my "memory" blogs and add their recollections of the same person or events. We all retain different parts of shared experiences - the whole story is enhanced when we put our memories together. I certainly will add her beautiful comments to my finished portrait of Nanny for "Grandma's Story".

But I must say something about Lisa's comments on Nanny's soft fluffy arms that she loved to play with. When I was about 10 years old, Nanny and Kiki would take me to Rockaway Beach on the subway. It was a long ride and I would rest my head against her soft arm like a pillow. It is a part of a prayer I composed to my God as "Grandmother God". "...... let me rest my weary head against your pillowy arm....."

Tribute to Nanny

This time of year brings back memories of my maternal grandmother: she was born in 1892 and died at age 90 on All Souls Day November 2nd. Nanny grew up in a tenement on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Her father was a furniture maker. The story goes that he got a splinter from some exotic wood he was working with, and the infection led to blood poisoning. He was stubborn and wouldn’t take the medicine the doctor prescribed; in fact he threw it out the window. And he died leaving my great grandmother with 3 small daughters. She was a hard working single Mom, who took in laundry to support her family. And they were staunch Catholics. Nanny spoke lovingly of “Third Street Church” (Most Holy Redeemer, which is still there, the German cathedral of NYC). Nanny attended MHR school, where she learned German. Her uncle was a priest and a monsignor, who we went to visit every year in his parish in Poughkeepsie, NY.

Nanny spoke of her mother as a stern disciplinarian. When little Nanny tore her apron, she would go to her aunt, who would mend it. They lived in poverty but did not think of themselves as “poor”; but there were regrets. Like having to walk all the way uptown because they couldn’t afford the streetcar. But the worst was that Nanny was not allowed to go to High School, even though she had a scholarship and graduated top of her 8th grade class. Her mother insisted she go to work in the garment industry to help support the family. Even in old age, Nanny spoke bitterly of her disappointment that she could not study to be a teacher. She encouraged us to become teachers. Only my daughter, who homeschools, became a teacher. I hope Nanny is smiling down at her today. I think she is.

I am grateful for Nanny’s presence in my life. She was my refuge, my anchor, my inspiration. Perhaps because of the contrast of her personality to my Mom’s, her daughter. Nanny evoked an aura of calm, quiet, orderly and slow, deliberate movement, while Mom’s space was chaotic, her pace frenetic, and the decibel level in our quarters – way up there. From my earliest memories, I would escape to my grandparents’ apartment on the 2nd floor of our three-story brownstone. Especially when it got too noisy or crowded at my place. I would creep quietly down the “private hall”, out the door, up the stairs and see the entrance to their apartment. It was a promise of peace and tranquility, still an image of heaven to me.

Nanny would be sitting at the table reading the Journal American, or doing the Word Jumble, while peeling an orange. Pop-Pop was dozing in his easy chair and Kiki, Nanny’s younger sister, was busy cleaning up in the kitchen. When my Mom tried to toilet train me at age 1, because my cousin supposedly was toilet trained, Nanny let me “go in my pants” behind the chair in her living room. She accepted me for what I was, just like most grandparents do with their grandkids. Like I try to do with mine.

I can see her walking slowly up the street with her shopping cart. She had her daily routine. Her unconditional acceptance of me and calm, orderly manner was what drew me to her – and to all older people. It determined my choice of career in aging services, work I love and treasure.

Oh yes, she had her anxieties and prejudices as well. But as I got older and exposed her to new fangled 60’s ideas, she grew as well. At first she was dismayed at my Puerto Rican boyfriend, but as time went on and she got to know the man I married, they became great buddies. Even when I got older and didn’t spend as much time with Nanny, I tried to support her, especially when Pop-Pop developed dementia. Later I tried again so hard to help my Mom take care of Nanny when she got Alzheimers. When Nanny died, I couldn’t mourn. I felt she had died long ago and I didn’t know when I had lost her. But I still miss her today. She would be 116 years old! Boy does that make me feel old!

Poverty and the Elderly - Part 2

The first part of my blog on Poverty and the Elderly is below - October 15th. The following is a continuation of excerpts from "Under the Radar: Poverty Among Older Adults in New York City" (May 2007 New York Citizens’ Committee on Aging, Inc.)

With such low incomes, many seniors have a difficult time covering even their most basic expenses. Nearly half of all renters age 65 or older in New York City spend at least 35 percent of their household income on rent. In addition, research shows that on average older Americans spend 19 percent of their total income on “out-of-pocket” medical expenses annually, with more than half of these payments going toward prescription drugs and dental care (despite Medicaid coverage for many). (Crystal, S.; Harman, J.; Sambamoorthi, U.; Johnson, R.; And Kumar, R. "Out of Pocket Health Care Costs Among Older Americans." Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences 55B, no. 1 (2000): S51–S62.) As a result, debt has increased substantially among the senior population. Debt held by families headed by a person age 75 or older increased to 40.3 percent in 2004; this is up from 29.0 percent in 2001.12 A recent study by the Food Bank of New York City has shown that nearly one-fifth (18 percent) of older people in the City are without savings and “would not be able to afford food for themselves and their families immediately after losing only one month of income.” (The Food Bank for New York City. “Hunger: An Aging Issue,” 2005.) Seniors disproportionately rely upon emergency food pantries and soup kitchens in New York City. While only 12 percent of the City’s total population, New Yorkers age 65 or older account for 24 percent of all emergency food participants.

Generally speaking, there are three groups of seniors who descend into poverty (i.e. experience a large and ongoing discrepancy between income and expenses). These three groups include: 1.) those who have been economically insecure throughout their lives and thus have few resources; 2.) those who had limited resources for retirement (such as pensions) but experienced a diminution of them; and, 3.) those who undergo a crisis or other unforeseen event that rapidly plunges them into poverty (such as the death of a spouse). For a good number of these seniors living in poverty, the prospect of a golden retirement simply does not exist. As a result of various factors, seniors most at risk of experiencing poverty brought on by one of the situations described above include: women; those over age 75; individuals with disabilities or chronic health problems; immigrants; ethnic and racial minorities; those who live alone; and those less formally educated. Moreover, individuals with more than one of these characteristics are at increased risk.

The Future Outlook
New York City’s elderly population, which stood at 937,900 in 2000, is projected to increase to 1,352,000 by 2030 – this represents a 44.2 percent increase. If poverty were to remain at the City’s current 20.3 percent level, (actually more like 32% according to the NYC Center for Economic Opportunity’s more realistic poverty measure) over 274,000 older New Yorkers will live in poverty by 2030 -- this represents a 70 percent increase from 2005. The problem of poverty among New York City’s older population must be addressed now to assure quality of life is protected and enhanced for both the current and future generation.

This report was completed by Board Members of the New York Citizens’ Committee on Aging: Jessica Walker, Senior Policy Analyst at United Neighborhood Houses of New York; with Mary Mayer, NGO Representative of the United Nations’ International Federation on Ageing and Former Deputy Commissioner of the New York City Department for the Aging.

I am happy to say that the organization I work for, the New York Citizens’ Committee on Aging, has made this a priority project – using our resources and reaching out to the community to help us make a difference in lifting NYC's seniors out of poverty. For a copy of our full report and information on how to get involved e-mail me at info@nyccoa.org or call 212-353-3950.

Poverty and the Elderly

Today is the day we blog about poverty, a world wide issue, even more scary in the current economic climate. In my retiree job as part time director of a small NYC advocacy organization, the New York Citizens’ Committee on Aging, Inc., we took on the issue of elder poverty when we discovered an alarming statistic. According to the data from the U.S. Census Bureau, "2005 American Community Survey", over 20% of New York City’s older adults were poor! And this in a city with such a high cost of living. We have made elder poverty our project for over a year, holding a May 2007 forum with seniors and key leaders in aging services, and following up with our colleagues to find ways to address this issue.

Needless to say, over the past year things have gotten a lot worse. Sometimes I feel that even older New Yorkers, like myself, lucky enough to have savings and a pension in addition to Social Security and Medicare, are just a step away from “poverty”, if that means being unable to afford housing, food and health care. So imagine how much harder the struggle is for our older neighbors on fixed incomes and such limited funds. What follows is an excerpt from our report, Under the Radar: Poverty Among Older Adults in New York City (May 2007 New York Citizens’ Committee on Aging, Inc.)

Poverty is more than a lack of financial resources; it is a serious threat to health and well-being, dignity, and the ability to participate fully in our society.(Economic and Social Council of the United Nations Commission on Population and Development. “Monitoring of population programmes, focusing on the changing age structures of populations and their implications for development, Report of the Secretary-General,” December 28, 2006.)

Unfortunately, in recent years the problem of poverty amongst older adults has become increasingly invisible. Many people believe that the vast majority of seniors are affluent – or at least receiving adequate assistance. The major cause behind this misconception is the success of programs such as Medicare and Social Security, which have greatly alleviated economic insecurity among older adults. In fact, poverty among Americans age 65 and older has fallen from one-in-three persons in 1960 to one-in-ten today. (Whitman, D. & Purcell, P. (2006). Topics in aging: Income and poverty among older Americans in 2005.)

These successes cannot be denied and our country should be proud of this progress. Work remains, however, for too many seniors have been left behind. While poverty among persons age 65 and older in the United States has decreased, it has actually risen in New York City. (New York City Department for the Aging. “Annual Plan Summary, April 1, 2007 – March 31, 2008, For Older Americans Act and New York State Community Services for the Elderly Program and Expanded In-Home Services for the Elderly Program,” September 2006.)

In 2005, the U.S. Census Bureau set the poverty threshold for
individuals age 65 and older at $9,367. (U.S. Census Bureau. “Poverty Thresholds 2005.”) If a senior’s annual pretax income falls below this amount then he or she is considered “poor.” While updated annually, this threshold is the same throughout the contiguous United States and does not reflect regional differences in cost-of-living. According to this measure, 9.9% of older Americans lived in poverty in 2005, which represents a continued decline of poverty among this age group nationwide. Yet, the poverty rate among older adults living in New York City was twice the national rate: 20.3%. (U.S. Census Bureau, 2005 American Community Survey.) This is a significant problem that is not mirrored in all urban areas. In fact, among the twenty most populous cities in the United States, New York is second only to Detroit, Michigan in the percentage of its seniors living in poverty.

New York City is home to over 943,000 people who are age 65 or older. Approximately 191,653 of these seniors live in poverty, but what is known about them? According to the U.S. Census: 68.3 percent of these seniors are female; 37.3 percent are male. 47.9 percent are age 65 to 74; 52.1 percent are age 75 and older. 59.8 percent experience one or more physical, mental or emotional disabilities.

Poverty is most prevalent among racial and ethnic minorities …. The poverty rate among the City’s Hispanic elderly population is three times the national average, while the rates for Black and Asian elderly are more than double that rate.

Disability can be either a cause or consequence of poverty. In New York City, the percentage of seniors who are both poor and disabled is over twice the national rate: 5.5% versus 12.1%

In basic terms, poverty results from the discrepancy between income and expenses. A person is “poor” when his or her income is woefully inadequate to cover expenses that meet basic needs, such as food, housing and transportation. In New York City these expenses are immense. In fact, New York City is the most expensive city in which to live in all of North America (NNMoney.com. “World’s Most Expensive Cities,” June 22, 2005.)

Since this is such an important topic, to be continued.....

Remembering Ramon

One week ago, my brother-in-law Ramon died. He was one of the first of my husband’s relatives that I met – so many, many years ago. And he won me over immediately with his warm smile and sparkling personality. He was a “people” person, always welcoming, always ready with a joke.

At his funeral, his many friends and family testified to a life well lived and a man well loved. I will miss him but his memory will forever make my heart happy.

My husband and daughters wrote much better tributes to Ramon. Click on to my daughter’s blog on the sidebar for her tribute. My daughter Lisa’s tribute follows.

Co-mess-TAH?

October 7, 2008

Pío, pío, pío my Tío Ramón sang, telling me the story of myself as a two-year old chasing chickens in Rincón by Agapito’s house. He danced and bent his knees becoming me for a moment, the room filling with squawking chickens and hot feathers and dust. His smile filled the room with light. His whole face beamed with joy, kind of like a Santa who had grown up on a tropical island. His cheeks stood out prominently and his nostrils flared above his thick mustache. His eyes moved fast drinking up your whole face under thick eyebrow awnings. I couldn’t help but laugh and remember with him even though it was only the faintest memory for me. I lived it again and again through his storytelling.

My Tío was always handsomely dressed. Quite dapper, GQ I would later say since taking a picture of him in a garden conservatory. He stood facing me, hands in pockets, long coat hanging off of his shoulders. He looked taller than he was in that coat. Muy guapo, Tío! He looked so strong, so powerful, so bigger than life to me. His words were quick and could bite if you weren’t ready, but always love flowed from him to me. He always greeted me with, “Como está?” but it always sounded like Co-mess-TAH to my ears, staccato and fast. I always answered, “Muy bien. Y usted?” and he would laugh and answer, “Bien. Mi que linda, Lisa.” My attempts at speaking Spanish were such a happy time for him.

When I got married, Tío was there watching out for me. My husband, Wes, told me later that my uncle came over to him and said, “Lisa is a very special girl. You take care of her.” Then he held up his index and middle fingers pointing to Wes’ eyes and raised one eyebrow as he said really slowly, “Marriage is for-EVER.” Tío smiled and walked away. Wes wasn’t sure who Ramón was, but he said he felt like he had just gotten a Puerto Rican hex by a little old man in my family. I laughed. We just celebrated eight years, Tío, so I guess your “PR hex” is working for us.

My last memory of you was the day before you died. I was in yoga class thinking of you. I had been looking at your picture for the past week and praying that you would be okay. We did a little prayer asking God to give us what we need because everything else was irrelevant. And when I laid down to rest at the end of class, I saw you surrounded by a bright white light. You were looking up a little to your right and had a little smile flickering under your mustache. Your eyes were black gems, like a charcoal drawing on a cloud. You were bigger than life and I sent all my thoughts and prayers and calm to you. You looked so happy and handsome, Tío.

Give Titi Carmen and Ramon Jr. a big hug for me. I miss you very much. Te amo mucho, Tío. Vaya con Díos! Make Him laugh too.

Lisa

The Great Depression, the New Deal and Today

I was thinking about the comment from Vicki on my blog about history affecting ordinary lives. How her mother-in-law won't eat spaghetti because that was what they got during the depression. Speaking of the depression, my Dad joined one of the New Deal programs - the CCC's (Civilian Conservation Corps)- when he was a young man. He was sent out west to Wyoming and Idaho, where he fought forest fires and planted trees - and developed a deep love of nature which he passed along to us. As I noted in my September 11th blogs, unexpected blessings can come from difficult times of pain and suffering, such as the crisis of the Great Depression. How wonderful that America had such a great leader in F.D. Roosevelt to push through programs that gave people meaningful work, helped build America's infrastructure and energy capacity (Tennessee Valley Authority), and had such an effect on ordinary lives. Maybe our current economic crisis is another opportunity for great leadership and creative programs to come to the rescue of the real victims: ordinary everyday people and their families.

History and Ordinary Lives

When I was in school, I didn’t like “history” class much. It was all about dates and wars and stuffy old men. Much later, long after I had graduated from college, I developed an interest in Medieval History. The books I read, books like A History of Their Own by Bonnie Anderson and Judith Zinsser, were mostly about ordinary life in those times, especially women’s lives. Of course, the wars, plagues and other disasters of the time affected ordinary lives in terrible ways.

A few weeks ago there was a news story about the Rosenberg trial of the 1950’s, how some evidence given by witnesses against Ethel Rosenberg may have been tainted. My daughter asked me to write about my memories of that time. And I was struck about how much that trial affected my life.

In those days, when I was about 10 or 11 years old, my family’s television set was still pretty new. I remember watching the McCarthy hearings and the comedians’ imitations of them. I sort of got the idea that “Communists” were bad but even that concept was mixed up in my 10 year old brain. I remember my Mom saying once that she was going to write to her congressman and I wondered why she would write to someone who was an enemy of America. Obviously, I got the two terms confused.

The cold war of the 50’s meant that we had air raid drills in school, where we would crouch under our desks or stand in the hall, saying the rosary. Once there was a sonic boom (probably a jet breaking the sound barrier) and my Mom came running into the room yelling “Those lousy Russians!”

But I certainly knew what the Rosenberg trial was about. It was a top news story in the early days of TV and the media milked it for all it was worth. What it meant to me was that a mother and father were going to be executed and that children would lose their parents. I was terrified, especially as the day approached for their death by the electric chair at Sing-Sing. I believe that this event contributed to my phobia about electricity. Shortly after the Rosenbergs were executed, I got a slight shock from an intercom in my house and spent a sleepless night thinking I would be electrocuted at any moment. It was downhill from there.

Now, of course I would have been plagued by phobias anyway. But it is interesting how newsworthy events change our lives, even in small ways. And who can deny how everyone’s life has been changed by the events of September 11th. Or Hurricane Katrina. Or Vietnam – but that’s another blog entirely.

Grandma's Story - Chapter 1 Part 2

Let me tell you what my house looked like on the inside. When I was five, I lived on the first floor of 1675 Linden Street with my Mom, Dad, sister Kathy and baby brother Jimmy. Later on I had two more brothers, Johnny and Jeff. Our apartment was called a railroad flat because all the rooms were connected in a straight line that looked like a train. There was a little kitchen off of the dining room, which was also our living room. My Dad turned the real living room into a bedroom because there were so many of us. I shared the big bedroom with my sister and brother for awhile. My Dad took all the doors off the rooms to get air and there was no privacy. I had to walk through all the bedrooms to get to mine. When we went to bed at 9 o’clock, I would talk and laugh with my sister and brother. That made my father very angry and we’d get a smack!

Our house had one great thing. My grandma Nanny, grandpa Pop-Pop, and great aunt Kiki, lived on the second floor. So if it got too noisy or crowded, I could sneak down the long entry way or “private hall” into the big hall and up the stairs to my grandparents house. It was so peaceful there. Nanny would be reading the Journal American, a newspaper, at the big dining room table and peeling an orange. Pop-Pop would be sleeping in his easy chair. He could fall asleep as easily as ‘Buelo. He loved to tell us corny jokes but he would laugh so hard, he would be crying and we couldn’t hear the end of the joke. Sometimes Pop-Pop would sit in the living room. My cousins, sister, brother and I would sit around him and beg him to tell us stories about Jack the Giant Killer. They were scary and we loved them!

I even remember my great grandmother, Granny. She was your great, great, great grandmother. She would show me black and blue marks on her wrinkly hands. She said the marks were from being old. I’m not so sure. She lived in Nanny’s house and died when I was five years old. I had to be very quiet, my Mom said, because Nanny and Kiki were very sad.

My other Grandma and Grandpa (my Dad’s Mom and Dad) lived down the block on Linden Street. Grandma had beautiful embroidery hanging on the walls with Hungarian writing. She had statues of Jesus and Mary on her dresser, with lighted candles in front of them. I loved to go to her house and stare at the pictures and candles and smell the delicious smells coming from her kitchen.

Grandpa was a carpenter. He built a wooden staircase outside our dining/living room window. When we wanted to play in the backyard, we would climb out the window and go down the steps. My Pop-Pop took care of the garden. His specialty was roses: white, pink, red and yellow rose bushes. My favorites were the yellow roses because they smelled so sweet and they were short, so it was easy to sniff them. Pop-Pop made us a dirt box at the end of his garden with a little seat. I loved to play bakery and make dirt pies and cookies and cakes. But I didn’t taste them!

There were no clothes dryers back then. There was a tall pole at the end of the yard and a clothes line attached. My Mom hung the clothes on the line from the kitchen window. In the winter, the shirts would come in frozen stiff with their arms sticking out, like invisible people.

It was lots of fun being five when I was a kid! (June 15, 2005)

Grandma's Story - Chapter 1 Part 1

Before you read this, go to "Grandma's Story - Introduction" (September 7, 2008).

Chapter 1 - For Sam, Age 5

Once upon a time, Grandma was five years old, just like you are now. I lived in a house that was very different from yours. It was in a place called Queens in New York City. My neighborhood was Ridgewood. It didn’t have big buildings and “too many people”. The streets were called blocks and had sidewalks and brick houses, three stories high, all stuck together.

I remember my block being a long, sunny street with three skinny trees across from my house. Each house had a gate and a stoop, four fat cement steps that led to the outside door. In the summer, we bounced our Spaulding balls (the best bouncing balls!) against the stoop. The big boys played stick ball in the gutter, where the cars drove by. Only there weren’t too many cars back then so we could even draw in the gutter with chalk and make games. I liked to play Potsy, which is like Hopscotch.

We didn’t have air conditioning either. On summer nights everyone sat in the gate on benches or on the stoop and waited for the Bungalow Bar truck to come with its ice cream pops. It was a white truck that looked like a little house and its bells were music to my ears.

It was fun living on Linden Street, my block. We rode our bicycles and scooters on the sidewalk or roller skated. Those roller skates were metal with metal wheels and you needed a key to tighten them to your shoes. I liked the feel of my tingly feet after I took off my skates. One time I was riding my bicycle and I saw a neighbor kid, Dennis W., coming up the street. It was too late to stop and I hit him and knocked him down. I fell off my bike. Later his big sister came to my house and yelled at my Mom. I was so scared. I learned a good lesson – don’t ride bicycles on the sidewalk.

When I was five, I started Kindergarten in the Catholic school down the street called St. Brigid’s. My Mom had also gone to St. Brigid’s. I was so excited to go to school. It had a sandbox and see-saw and jungle gym right inside the classroom. One day my cousin Joseph and I were playing on the see-saw with another girl. We thought it would be funny if we sat on one end and kept her up in the air. She didn’t like it at all. And we soon got tired of the game, so we got up. To our surprise, the girl came crashing down with a bang! She started crying and told the teacher, Sister Rita. Joseph and I got punished. We had to sit down and skip recess. We were also supposed to tell our mothers what we had done. I felt very sorry but I learned another lesson, a Physics lesson. I knew what happened when you take a weight off of one end of a balance. The other end comes down really fast. Oh yes. I did tell my Mom what had happened but Joseph didn’t tell his mother. I guess I learned another lesson that time.

Grandma's Story - Introduction

A few years ago I began a project for my six grandchildren called “Grandma’s Story”. In honor of Grandparents Day, I’ve decided to share this with you on my blog for several reasons. First, it will be another place to save my story and give my own family a chance to read all about it again. Second, it may give grandparents and older relatives another idea on how to share their own stories. It is also a wonderful opportunity for educating a new generation about ordinary life in extraordinary times: World War II, the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam, etc. Finally, I hope that by blogging I will be encouraged to continue writing – there’s a lot more to tell.

I began writing my story for children and tried to write in that style. I will post the introduction today and then continue with short segments from Chapter 1. I welcome your comments.

Introduction to Grandma’s Story (June 2005)

This book will be all about life in the times when Grandma was growing up. Since I was born in 1941, that was a long, long time ago! The first chapter will describe my adventures when I was five years old and since Sam just celebrated his 5th birthday, this is Sam’s chapter.

Later there will be special chapters for all my precious grandkids. And the best part is every one gets to share the whole story and read about how it was to be a kid 60 years ago! I look forward to writing chapters for Marina, Chase, Sierra, Jackson and Baby Punkin’ (who turned out to be Aidan!) Maybe you can give me ideas about what you’d like to hear about. Or even interview me. We will see.

When it’s all finished – a long time from now – you will all have a story to show to your children and grandchildren. A special story that you can add to with your own stories. The story of our family!