"Two years ago we, my husband, myself and the two daughters, arrived here from Warsaw. My husband was a healthy, strong man. My daughters were dressmakers. We had a little money. We rented these same two rooms and a few days afterward, through the influence of friends, both children found work at their trade. Only my husband remained idle. They did not want to take him into the Union. A few weeks he walked around without work, then he went to a leather finding factory where he had to cut out pieces of leather. It was piecework. They worked in a cellar, sixteen or eighteen hours a day. At the end of the week he had two dollars. It was very hard on him. He had never done physical work, still he returned there the next week, hoping that he would do better, having a week's experience. He went away at five in the morning and returned at eleven at night, yet he could not make more than forty cents a day.
"His daughters made the first week six dollars each, working nine hours a day, and he, the father, working twice as hard and twice as many hours made two dollars a week. He took sick. We called the doctor. He gave a potion and left. My husband got worse and worse every day. We went to a hospital. There it was found that he had cancer, and must be operated on. But just as we were ready to go and do it we found out that there is a law that we had no right to use a public hospital before we have been here five years. We applied to the Jewish hospital. My husband was operated upon.
"My daughters worked. On account of the illness of their father they had no opportunity to buy clothes, American clothes. They were still in their greenhorn dresses, and the whole shop made fun of them. They simply had to buy clothes. The money we brought here was long since gone, so when their father was brought home after the first operation there wasn't a penny in the house. The visiting doctor gave me a letter to the charities and told me that they would help me. I went there. I don't want to tell you through what I went at their hands. Enough to say that when I came home I felt as though I had committed the greatest sin. I felt guilty towards myself. I felt like a criminal awaiting his day of judgment.