A Long Way from Chicago Poverty Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #4

"You take her food every week, don't you Grandma?"

"Generally a good big roast chicken. She can gum that for days." Grandma turned down the lane. "It keeps her out of the poor farm, and it gives me a quiet day in the country. That's a fair swap." (3.144-145)

Even though Aunt Puss is mean and terrible, Grandma Dowdel still brings her food every week because she doesn't want the old woman to starve. And besides, she knows what it's like to be poor and desperate.

Quote #5

They were hollow-eyed men who couldn't believe their luck. Two or three of them, then five or six. They didn't thank her. She wasn't looking for thanks. (3.155)

Grandma isn't like the other townsfolk, who just want the vagrants to get out of their town. She sets up a table with plates of food so that she can feed the men, and Joey and Mary Alice help her, too.

Quote #6

"She's gone for good," Grandma said. "Off to double up with her sister at Palmyra. Bank's foreclosing on her house, so she lit out, not wanting to watch them dump her stuff in the road. After Wilcox died, she left the farm and bought that house in town. But she can't keep up with the payments." (6.5)

Poor Effie Wilcox is yet another victim of the Great Depression. When she stops making payments on her house, the bank swoops in to repossess it…and that means that she has to leave town altogether.