Poor but Proud

    My mother grew up fatherless, her father having succumbed to tuberculosis when she was a baby.  Times were tough back then for a widow with 5 children, in the time before social security of any type, not to mention Obamacare.  The oldest child was a boy, and as a young teen, he became the support of the family.  What other support was there, except the dread Poor House? After he died in an accident on the job, the younger brother had to leave school to find work, as did my mother, a few years later. 
    My mother was strong, capable and willing to work.  She found a position as a mother's helper, or household worker, in the city, where she lived in with the family.  The lady of the house would sit on her front porch in the pleasant summer evenings, and would ask my mother to sit with her, to keep her company.  One such evening, not too far into this job, after the supper dishes were done, Mrs. X asked my mother to join her on the porch, which she did.  They were sitting there, chatting I suppose, woman to young teenaged girl, when Mrs. X peered up the street, turned to my mother, and sweetly said, "Oh, Mary, I think I see my friend Mrs. Y. coming down the street.  Would you mind  going to  sit on the back porch so we can talk?"  
    That would be the last time my mother was in any proximity to either the front or back porch of that house, except to walk out the door and down the steps of one porch or the other.
  Hmmmm....