Comments on: The Life of Mary Louise http://donaldearlcollins.com/2012/10/28/the-life-of-mary-louise/ Just another WordPress.com weblog Sun, 12 May 2013 19:17:17 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: decollins1969 http://donaldearlcollins.com/2012/10/28/the-life-of-mary-louise/#comment-5787 Tue, 30 Oct 2012 00:01:57 +0000 http://donaldearlcollins.com/?p=2998#comment-5787 Thanks, Cath for this. Wow. 18 years apart in age. Not exactly the greatest of times, either. Hope you and Mary and rest of family are/remain safe as we wait for Sandy to pass over East Coast, but especially in your state of NJ. Godspeed.

Donald

]]> By: Catherine Lugg http://donaldearlcollins.com/2012/10/28/the-life-of-mary-louise/#comment-5762 Sun, 28 Oct 2012 15:24:34 +0000 http://donaldearlcollins.com/?p=2998#comment-5762 And my mom turns 83 today. Her parents, one the son of a coal miner, the other the daughter of tenant farmers, became teachers in the 1920s. They married on Christmas Eve of 1928, grandpa died on August 15 of TB (very common in coal mining families), and mom was born on Oct 28, 1929, with the stock market crashing the next day. Her mom never remarried. BUT she was a public school teacher. And though she NEVER was paid a living wage, the fact that she was a public employee (and had health insurance from 1946 on), meant that both she and mom escaped the poverty that marked ALL of mom’s cousins on her mom’s side.My mom had a hard childhood, but it was not the HARD childhood of her cousins. And because both of her parents went to normal school (and later college), mom attended a state teacher’s college, though she would eventually drop out to marry my dad.

This is why I go WILD on the endless attacks on poor people and public employees. Public employment, in particular the civil service and teaching, has been the great pathway to a solidly middle class, if for too many, a lower middle class life. Public employees have, generally, worked much harder and endured more to get where they are than any trust fund kid (*COUGH* Mitt Romney *COUGH!*). But since the Carter era, the US has busily destroying any semblance of social mobility.

So, the best to you and your family on your mom’s birthday. There are so many coincidences and critical differences my head is totally spinning.

]]>