My mother grew up poor in apartments in the Bronx in the 1920s and '30s. While the family always had food to eat, it was a struggle.
During an IQ test when my mother was very young, she was shown a drawing of a cow and was asked what it was. She had no idea. She had never seen a cow. Taking pity on her, the examiner gave the hint "Where does milk come from?" She replied that the milkman delivers it in a bottle.
My grandparents were immigrants from eastern Europe. When my mother was a child, a cancerous growth appeared on her father's leg. The doctors said he would die if the leg wasn't amputated. But there was concern that with an amputated leg, he wouldn't survive a New York summer in their hot apartment. According to my mother, my grandmother told him "If you're going to die, you might as well die a whole man." So my grandfather decided not to have the leg amputated, and he went home and waited to die.
But he didn't die. Every so often ("every five years, like clockwork," according to my aunt) he got a bout of erysipelas. The cancer went into remission. He suffered much more from the erysipelas than from the cancer. My grandfather went every so often to Memorial Hospital (now Memorial Sloan Kettering) where he was part of a study of people whose cancer went into remission following a bout of erysipelas. My mother thought it had something to do with the cancer being killed by the high fever. I didn't know whether to believe this family legend, until I read "A Commotion in the Blood: Life, Death, and the Immune System," a book by Stephen Hall, published in the Sloan Foundation Technology Series in 1997 (see also https://www.mskcc.org/blog/immunotherapy-revolutionizing-cancer-treatment-1891). I wonder if his erysipelas that appeared "like clockwork" was due to Coley's toxins, an early experiment in immunotherapy at Memorial Hospital.
While he was at home waiting to die, the Great Depression hit hard and he could no longer find work. Welfare programs were just beginning, and going on welfare was viewed as shameful, and to be avoided at all costs. My grandfather lived another 30 years or so after the diagnosis, and died of something else in the early 1960s.
My mother did well in her math classes, and was phenomenally speedy at arithmetic. Her teacher wanted her to take the entrance exam for Hunter College High School, which was New York City's selective public high school for girls (the selective public schools for students interested in the sciences only admitted boys). My grandparents said that she couldn't go to Hunter High, since they couldn't afford the nickel each way on the subway. My mother continued to pester them. Finally, my grandmother said to my grandfather, "Let her take the test. She'll fail it. But then she can't blame us for not letting her go."
When my mother passed the test, my grandparents didn't have the heart to forbid her to go.
But how was she going to pay for the subway ride? To cover the fare, the school gave my mother the job of banging together the blackboard erasers to get rid of the chalk dust. Unfortunately, it turned out that my mother was highly allergic to chalk dust. This job was torture for her, and I cringe whenever I think of her breathing that dust.
My mother considered her years at Hunter High to be the best years of her life. She thrived on the intellectual stimulation of being among very smart girls.
In her senior year she got into Hunter College, and planned to enroll in the fall. To earn money to help support her parents and siblings, she took a job over the summer. Toward the end of the summer her parents told her, "You're earning $15 a week [or was it $10? My mother is no longer here to tell me]. That's a good salary. There are grown men who aren't making that much. Hold onto the job. You can always go to college at night."
As my mother told me, "Well, you can't `always go to college at night'. Well, you can, but you probably won't graduate." My mother's biggest regret was taking her parents' advice.
I debated whether to title this story "Let her take the test. She'll fail it" or "You can always go to college at night." It depends on whether the glass is half full or half empty.
During an IQ test when my mother was very young, she was shown a drawing of a cow and was asked what it was. She had no idea. She had never seen a cow. Taking pity on her, the examiner gave the hint "Where does milk come from?" She replied that the milkman delivers it in a bottle.
My grandparents were immigrants from eastern Europe. When my mother was a child, a cancerous growth appeared on her father's leg. The doctors said he would die if the leg wasn't amputated. But there was concern that with an amputated leg, he wouldn't survive a New York summer in their hot apartment. According to my mother, my grandmother told him "If you're going to die, you might as well die a whole man." So my grandfather decided not to have the leg amputated, and he went home and waited to die.
But he didn't die. Every so often ("every five years, like clockwork," according to my aunt) he got a bout of erysipelas. The cancer went into remission. He suffered much more from the erysipelas than from the cancer. My grandfather went every so often to Memorial Hospital (now Memorial Sloan Kettering) where he was part of a study of people whose cancer went into remission following a bout of erysipelas. My mother thought it had something to do with the cancer being killed by the high fever. I didn't know whether to believe this family legend, until I read "A Commotion in the Blood: Life, Death, and the Immune System," a book by Stephen Hall, published in the Sloan Foundation Technology Series in 1997 (see also https://www.mskcc.org/blog/immunotherapy-revolutionizing-cancer-treatment-1891). I wonder if his erysipelas that appeared "like clockwork" was due to Coley's toxins, an early experiment in immunotherapy at Memorial Hospital.
While he was at home waiting to die, the Great Depression hit hard and he could no longer find work. Welfare programs were just beginning, and going on welfare was viewed as shameful, and to be avoided at all costs. My grandfather lived another 30 years or so after the diagnosis, and died of something else in the early 1960s.
My mother did well in her math classes, and was phenomenally speedy at arithmetic. Her teacher wanted her to take the entrance exam for Hunter College High School, which was New York City's selective public high school for girls (the selective public schools for students interested in the sciences only admitted boys). My grandparents said that she couldn't go to Hunter High, since they couldn't afford the nickel each way on the subway. My mother continued to pester them. Finally, my grandmother said to my grandfather, "Let her take the test. She'll fail it. But then she can't blame us for not letting her go."
When my mother passed the test, my grandparents didn't have the heart to forbid her to go.
But how was she going to pay for the subway ride? To cover the fare, the school gave my mother the job of banging together the blackboard erasers to get rid of the chalk dust. Unfortunately, it turned out that my mother was highly allergic to chalk dust. This job was torture for her, and I cringe whenever I think of her breathing that dust.
My mother considered her years at Hunter High to be the best years of her life. She thrived on the intellectual stimulation of being among very smart girls.
In her senior year she got into Hunter College, and planned to enroll in the fall. To earn money to help support her parents and siblings, she took a job over the summer. Toward the end of the summer her parents told her, "You're earning $15 a week [or was it $10? My mother is no longer here to tell me]. That's a good salary. There are grown men who aren't making that much. Hold onto the job. You can always go to college at night."
As my mother told me, "Well, you can't `always go to college at night'. Well, you can, but you probably won't graduate." My mother's biggest regret was taking her parents' advice.
I debated whether to title this story "Let her take the test. She'll fail it" or "You can always go to college at night." It depends on whether the glass is half full or half empty.