File:Beauty for ashes (1914) (14783676782).jpg

Identifier: beautyforashes01baco (find matches)
Title: Beauty for ashes
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Bacon, Albion Fellows, 1865-1933
Subjects: Working class Tenement houses Poor
Publisher: New York, Dodd, Mead and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
cktenement row we carried a bunch of lilies to a womandying of cancer. She looked up gratefully. Icant eat, you know, and the flowers are so refresh-ing. We didnt realise, until we found a motherand father, strangers, alone in the city, weeping inan attic room over their dead baby, how much a fewflowers could mean. One after another every one oftheir children had died, they said, and this was thelast, a beautiful, golden haired child. Just to knowthat they had a friend, that some one cared, and thattheir baby wouldnt have to be buried without aflower, was a comfort. They had been fearful that itmight have been diff^erent — and then we came. We could not go to our largest tenements withouthaving an unlimited supply of posies. At Old St.Marys the children of the forty-eight families cametrooping out to meet ug, and as soon as each littlehand was filled they would slip away to their room and put the flowers into a tumbler of water. Thenthey would fall intp line again, for another turn.
Text Appearing After Image:
V > un3 **BEAUTY FOR ASHES 91 At one big tenement, when we had given all wehad, the children clamoured for more, coming afterus like a pack of ravenous wolves, till the twins,watching wide-eyed, climbed onto the carriage seatsin fear. I hadnt expected the tenement children tofollow us out, and, though I generally took the twins,they always sat at a safe distance, outside, unless,at some clean and safe place, where there was nocontagion, I took them to the door, to speak to ourfriends. When they were old enough to carry littlebaskets, I took them into the hospital wards, and Ishall never forget the way the old mens eyes lightedup, to see the bright little faces. Margaret and Al-bion took turns going with me; sometimes they wentalone, between times, to special and safe places. Ourflower girls went to the cases of the district nurse, andto others that we found, to those in distress, to theshut-ins, and to the charity wards of the hospitals.Often we found a stranger, lonely and away fr

Note About Images