Bowed by Age, Battered by an Addicted Nephew and Forced into....
N.R. Kleinfield.
- New York Times, 2004.
- SIRS Enduring Issues 2006. Article 43, Family, 1522-3213; .
Articles Contained in SIRS Enduring Issues 2006. Originally Published: Bowed by Age, Battered by an Addicted Nephew and Forced into..., Dec. 12, 2004; pp. 1+.
"They went out late. It was ugly weather. Six below zero in the Brooklyn night. Wind took garbage into the air. A blizzard was in the forecast. It was Lincoln's Birthday, 2003, in Brighton Beach [Brooklyn, New York]. Not a night for humankind, but the sisters, one 73 and the other 70, didn't get holidays off, didn't get snow days. In years of miserable low points, it was one of the lowest. As they had done the day before and the day before that, Lillian and Julia hobbled out to Coney Island Avenue, a lineup of chromatic storefronts, to beg from strangers in their cars. They were known out there, regulars among the mendicants. The money was for their bilious nephew and his crack habit, their own blood who was smoking up their lives. He had already cost them their house, their savings, their dignity. 'I need one more,' he would tell them when he desired a hit, 'one more.' Not comply and he would fly into crazed tirades, blacken an eye, bruise their ribs. It had been this way for years, since their lives stopped being comprehensible." (NEW YORK TIMES) The author relates the story of these victims of elder abuse and of the police detective who eventually saved them from their plight.
1522-3213;
Abusive men Begging Poor aged Older people--Abuse of Older people--Crimes against Older people--Economic conditions Sisters Victims of family violence