The Lustig Family

The Lustig Family by Dorothy Day, New York Call, Nov. 1916

This is a partial transcript of one of the articles in The New York Call with Dorothy Day's byline.

Wolfe Lustig – it’s a husky sounding name.  But the man is a rattling bag of bones.  Day and night he lies in his bed and wonders why God doesn’t kill him quick.  For the first time in weeks, he propped himself up in bed yesterday to have his picture taken.  Look at it.

Pauline, the eldest child, is six.  Jakie comes next.  He’s four. Little Maurice, with the schmoochy face, is three and the cuddly baby with the big dark eyes was sentenced to life only five months ago.  Her name is Yetta.

Lustig was operated on two years ago. He doesn't know why. But he does know that the operation didn't turn out right and he has been in bed ever since.

His Wife - Sick Too!

His wife is sick, too, but she has to drag herself around and rub him with alcohol and make beef tea. Her face is puffed with neuralgia. The cold, stale air of the room is maddening. Daily, she goes out to peek at the push carts, hoping vaguely that prices have fallen. She comes in and her face and her heart hurt.



The United Hebrew Charities pay her rent, $10.50 a month and she receives 10-cents a day per person – United Charities uses the term “per unit” -  for food and clothes.  Of course, Yetta, the youngest, has not yet reached the age when she demands cabbage and potatoes and other unreasonable nutritious necessities; Mrs. Lustig nurses her. But when things don’t go around, Mrs. Lustig goes without and the baby suffers too.

You can’t see in the picture the horrible decayed teeth of the children and the scrawny legs.  You can’t see the empty cupboard on the other side of the room.  You can’t see the single bed where the mother keeps her brood of four warm.  If you could peer behind the sick figures in the picture you might perhaps see the pot of broth boiling feebly on the stove.

Poverty, Always Poverty

Four dollars per week. And Mrs. Lustig has to buy medicine, and alcohol – alcohol is dear, too – and food and clothes for them all.  Four dollars a week and bread and butter and potatoes and meat are all out of the reach of this housewife.  The gas bill and fuel for the little stove make another hole in the four dollars.

Wolfe Lustig lives at 328 Henry Street. As yet the mayor’s committee of investigation, which has reported that the East Side is prosperous, has not visited the sick man.

The Lustigs are only one of the thousands that are

Wedged by the pressure of Trade’s hand

Against an inward opening door

That pressure tightens evermore.

Sidney Lanier, 1875, The Symphony: