Being Mortal

(Martin Jones) #1

withvaricoseveinsthatleftherbedbound.MissS.was
“unusuallysick”andhadaseventy-two-year-oldbrother
with diabeteswho,in thiserabeforeinsulintreatment,
wasfastbecomingcrippledandemaciatedasthedisease
killed him. Mr. M. was a sixty-seven-year-old Irish
former longshoreman who’d been left disabled by a
paralytic stroke. A large number had become simply
“feeble,” by which Nassau seemed to mean that they
were too senile to manage for themselves.


Unless family could take such people in, they had
virtually no options left except a poorhouse, or
almshouse,asitwasoftencalled.Theseinstitutionswent
backcenturiesin EuropeandtheUnitedStates.Ifyou
wereelderlyandinneedofhelpbutdidnothaveachild
orindependentwealthtofallbackon,apoorhousewas
your only source of shelter. Poorhouses were grim,
odiousplacestobeincarcerated—andthatwasthetelling
term used at the time. They housed poor of all
types—elderly paupers, out-of-luck immigrants, young
drunks,thementallyill—andtheirfunctionwastoputthe
“inmates”toworkfortheirpresumedintemperanceand
moral turpitude. Supervisors usually treated elderly
paupers leniently in work assignments, but they were
inmatesliketherest.Husbandsandwiveswereseparated.
Basicphysical carewaslacking. Filthand dilapidation
were the norm.


A 1912 report from the Illinois State Charities
Commissiondescribedonecounty’spoorhouseas“unfit
todecentlyhouseanimals.”Themenandwomenlived
withoutanyattemptatclassificationbyageorneedsin
bare ten-by-twelve-foot rooms infested with bedbugs.

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