Letter: Story has reader recalling her own poverty

Thursday, Aug. 10, 2006 | 7:35 a.m.

Las Vegas Sun reporter Marshall Allen is a wonderful writer. In his July 23 story on the Butterworth family, which is struggling with poverty and the father's drug problems, Allen sure captured the sadness that this subject provokes. His article brought me to tears.

When I was in fifth grade, in the 1940s after World War II, my mother and father could not find any suitable or affordable housing. They were forced to place my siblings and I in a home in Illinois named "St. Joseph's Home of the Friendless." In those days even the name of an institution could leave a stigma on a young child for life.

We were in this institution for almost three years. We were always told that if our parents did not get us out after a certain date we would be placed in an orphanage. It was years later when I realized what these days and nights of longing for our parents, and not being in a proper family, did for my self-esteem.

While I was there I did learn how to make 30 or 40 beds each morning before Mass and breakfast. I remember how we could only see our parents once a month because at that time they were concerned about germs! I was grateful, though, for the kindness that several of the nuns showed us.

I can still tell you what we had for dinner on the first day home when my mother was able to find a place for us to be together . It is hard to tell this, but I related to Allen's article because my father drank and so, of course, it took longer than it should have to find us a home.

Life can get so messy. And it can do so much harm to children. The Butterworth children are so beautiful, and, luckily, too young to really know what they are missing now.

I pray that this family can find the right kind of help to ensure that the parents and children can all live together.

Dorothy A. Asplund, North Las Vegas