Anna And Rosie: 8 - Anna And Rosie
...He says you went to live with two spinster sisters who were dressmakers in your village. But he says that they were very hard and mean and when there wasn’t anything to eat, they sent you out to beg for food...
Jean Day, presenting an exchange of letters, brings understanding of what life was like for an immigrant family in the United States in the early days of the Twentieth Century.
Christmas 1910
Dear Aunt Anna
Pa was mad at us for complaining about how we never have much money and he told us a story about you. He said that when he left Poland he was eight but you were only six and you couldn’t even walk.
He says you went to live with two spinster sisters who were dressmakers in your village. But he says that they were very hard and mean and when there wasn’t anything to eat, they sent you out to beg for food. But you were ashamed to do it and would press your face into the bakery until it closed without having the courage to go in.
At last the baking lady called you in and asked if you were hungry and you told her how you didn’t get anything to eat. So the lady said each night you were to come when the store was closing and she would give you the leftover baked goods to take home.
So now I don’t complain anymore about money or not having enough food. I think of what a hard time you had.
Pa told us that when you were grown up and finished school, you went into the fields and did farm work or helped in the barn. Sometimes you had to spend the whole day digging potatoes. So now I don’t complain anymore about the hard work I have to do either. Because you had to do a lot more and you didn’t even have a family to help you.
Love
Rosie
