Audio Dikongsi

During the Great Depression, my great-grandfather lost his job. My great-grandmother moved back in with her parents with their baby son… but they refused to let him come with them. So he ended up alone — sleeping on benches, waiting in bread lines, and taking any job he could find, just to send money to his wife and child. The reason was something so old-fashioned it sounds unreal today. Before they were married, they had a child out of wedlock — which, in their Irish Catholic family, was consid