Not too long ago, I read about people in poverty and I said to myself I also was a person in poverty back in the 1930s.

 

My father was 55 years old when I was born and had a lower-paid job of night watchman at the Premier Furnace factory on Railroad Street.

 

Also, my mother was 38 years old and I was the first and only child she ever had.

 

My father, who had been married, had two sons and two daughters and his first wife was deceased.

 

My mother was a widow, but had no children by her first husband.

 

I must tell you my half brothers and sisters were quite a lot older than me, and I was Uncle Charlie to three of my half brothers’ children who were older than me (how about that?).

 

I guess we were considered poor folks.

 

We had no cars, no house of our own and rented the house we lived in from Thomas Callahan, who had a plumbing business on Front Street, where his son later on had a hamburger take-out there (It still is a place to eat now).

 

We rented this house for the first 12 years of my life.

 

If I remember, we were the only family in the neighborhood where once a month a government surplus truck stopped at our house and gave us canned meat, flour, sugar, cheese and maybe some canned vegetables.

 

I suppose today our situation would put us in the category of getting food stamps.

 

I guess now food stamps are being outdated and have been replaced with a credit card (a special one) like I use our Visa or MasterCard.

 

I guess folks who are real bad off can still get food at some churches.

 

Also, I guess if one is really bad off, you can go to the welfare office for help for their rent and fuel.

 

One thing I remember we never had to go to welfare for ADC, but I’m sure we would have gone if needed.

 

Now that I’m 83 years old and my situation is a complete turnaround from the 1930s, I’m sure people who know me would never have thought of me as a poverty person, huh?

 

 

“Cardinal Charlie” Gill writes a nostalgic weekly column about growing up in the Grand Old City.

 

Email him at cardinalcharlie@hotmail.com.