When Mary Van Beke was growing up in the 1920s, she lived in Newark, N.J., and was the oldest of four children. Her parents were immigrants from Europe. And as Mary tells her son, Charles, her parents managed a modest life for the family, until an accident changed everything.

Mary‘s father, William Luis, was just 29 when he died; Mary was 5.”He worked for an electrical company, and he was standing in water — and someone dropped a wire and electrocuted him,” she tells Charles.

When William died, Mary‘s mother was pregnant with her youngest sister.”And so my mother had to go out to work, wash clothes and clean house to try and feed four children,” she says.As for clothes, the children wore whatever Mary‘s mother, Eva Hornyak, managed to bring home from the households where she worked.

“I don‘t ever remember going to the store to get a pair of shoes, ‘cause Mama couldn‘t afford it,” says Mary, now 94.Still, her mother, who had grown up in Czechoslovakia, taught Mary and her siblings to take pride in themselves.”I‘m not saying that we looked dowdy,” Mary says. “She said, ‘You don‘t have to be dirty to be poor.‘ I always remember that.”

翻譯：

在20世紀20年代，瑪麗·范·貝克成長生活在新澤西州的紐瓦克市。她是四個孩子中的老大。她父母是歐洲移民。正如瑪麗跟她兒子查爾斯說的一樣，她的父母一直樸素地生活養家，直到有一天，一切都改變了。

瑪麗的父親，威廉·路易斯29歲就去世了，當時瑪麗只有5歲。她跟查爾斯說，“他在一家電氣公司工作，當時，他站在水中，掉下一截電線，把他觸死了。”

威廉死時，瑪麗的媽媽身懷六甲，腹中是瑪麗的小妹妹。她說，“從此，我媽不得不出去工作，替別人洗衣服、打掃房子，以養活我們四個孩子。”瑪麗的母親，伊娃·霍亞克從戶主那里討來什么衣服，她的孩子就只能穿什么衣服。

現年94歲的瑪麗說，“在我的記憶中，我們從未進商店買過一雙鞋，因為媽媽買不起。”然而，在捷克斯洛伐克長大的媽媽還是教導瑪麗和她的姊妹們要以自己為榮。“我是說，我們看上去并不邋遢，”瑪麗說道，“媽媽說過，‘雖然窮困，也須整潔。’我對此念念不忘。”