North Knox woman ekes out spare living/Disabled single father struggling to keep Christmas merry

Imagine living in a house with no indoor plumbing, no hot water and only a half-hearted coal stove to keep you warm in the winter.

And imagine that it's Christmas, and you're too proud to ask for what you really want but in too much pain to refuse it if offered.

Most of us have to stretch to imagine such things, but for one client of the Knoxville-Knox County Community Action Committee, these are everyday realities.

The Empty Stocking Fund Please send contributions to: The Empty Stocking Fund or The Milk Fund P.O. Box 59038 Knoxville, TN 37950-9038 or via the Web at www.knoxvillecharities.org

She can talk all day about life before time and circumstances left her alone in the house in North Knoxville where she's lived since she was 2 years old. Even when it was new some 70 years ago, the house was inadequate by most modern standards. It's now a place that is, literally, falling down around her.

"My best Christmas memory," she says, "is of the cakes my mother used to make us. She didn't have any beaters and she cooked over a fire, don't you know? But she'd put all kinds of different colors in them and that was our Christmas morning treat. Oh, honey, what I'd give to get a piece of that cake now."

In her younger days she worked in a dry cleaning shop, starting at 50 cents an hour and working up to $83 a week in her prime. Her husband, who died of cancer in the mid 1980s, was a shoe repairman.

Neither of them could drive a car, even if they had been able to afford one. Every morning, rain or shine, they walked six miles in from the country to catch the bus to their jobs on Central Street.

"People can't believe it, but we did," she says. "Every day for years, until finally one day the preacher came along and saw us trudging through the rain, and he stopped to give us a ride. When he found out we walked every day like that, he said, 'Well, I just can't let you do that,' so from then on, he picked up us every morning and drove us to work. But we still walked the six miles home from the bus stop, on account of us living so far out in the country, don't you know."

Her only daughter died at age 33 of a heart attack, and two granddaughters never lived past their 30s. "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away," she says. "We don't know the answers to why. We just have to trust, and believe they go to a better life than on this side.

With no furniture to speak of, she keeps her belongings stacked in boxes that line the walls of her house. "People give me things," she says, "my neighbors are so good to me, bless their hearts. Everything you see here has been a gift, and I just can't throw away anything people give me. I just don't have the heart."

But it isn't "things" that this woman needs for Christmas. At least not the kind of things other people wrap and put under the tree. What she needs are the basic necessities.

Thanks to the generosity of people who cannot imagine life as she knows it - or people who have known hard times but who can now afford to help those who haven't been as fortunate - the Empty Stocking Fund will provide her a Christmas basket, filled with food and other basic needs. The fund will also help her on her way to getting the dental work she so desperately needs.

"I don't like to smile on account of having such bad teeth," she says, though she can't help but laugh aloud in telling stories about better days, when she and her husband grew watermelons so big you could hardly pick them up and enough vegetables to can up in glass jars and last the winter.

"Now it's just me and Kimmy," she says, nodding towards a yellow tabby cat that keeps her company and lets her know when someone's at the door with a "meow" so loud you can hear it a mile away.

"People are good, you know," she says. "I got this one neighbor who brings me a piece of pie when she cooks one, and honey, it tastes so good. She's a good cook - and a good pray-er. I always just say, 'Thank you, Lord' or something simple like that, but, honey, she can pray the most beautiful prayers you ever heard outside church."

She says she can't imagine not saying a prayer over food. It's a gift from God, she says, no matter whether you cooked it up yourself or somebody gives it to you. And this Christmas, she promises to say a special prayer over her Empty Stocking basket.

Maybe, she says, she'll get that neighbor to come over and give one of her special blessings.

Please send contributions to: The Empty Stocking Fund or The Milk Fund P.O. Box 59038 Knoxville, TN 37950-9038 or via the Web at www.knoxvillecharities.org

http://www.timesnews.net/article.dna?_StoryID=3146366

Disabled single father struggling to keep Christmas merry Sunday, December 01, 2002

By Walter Littrell Times-News

Making it through the year is tough for Lee, not his real name, but the holidays are an especially tough time of year for the single father and his five children.

Lee was awarded custody of his children, who range in age from 16 to 9, when he divorced several years ago. His job at the time allowed him to earn a comfortable living, but two years ago he became disabled. He worked sporadically around his disability but was soon unable to keep a job and ended up squeaking by on a monthly disability check and food stamps.

With just over $800 a month to pay rent, buy groceries and pay bills, the family was left with little but the necessities. He recently managed to enroll his children in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program at the Lee County Department of Social Services and after a lengthy wait has made it to the top of the list for rental assistance.

However, he said recently, the first TANF check has not yet arrived, and rental assistance won't be starting until next month. So he'll have little money left to buy gifts for the children this Christmas.

Also, he said, the money he'll be getting for rent and from TANF will lower the amount he can collect in food stamps, so those programs won't leave the family much better off.

Lee has been paying $350 a month for rent. With rental assistance, that will drop to $100. But he still has to pay between $55 and $60 each month for water and sewer service, about $100 per month for electricity, and because money is so tight he occasionally has to pay a late fee here or there.

When he needs transportation to the doctor, the grocery store, or anywhere else, he either has to borrow a vehicle or pay someone to take him and/or the family.

Fortunately all the children are in good health, so doctor visits are rare, and they are paid for through the Medicaid program.

But nonetheless, he said, "The holidays are a pretty tough time. I try to have a present for each of them under the tree, and I would like for them to have more, but I guess any father would feel that way."

Lee said the children appreciate what they do have and all work together to keep the house and yard immaculate, yet they manage to keep their grades up and stay happy.

"You really couldn't ask for better children. One makes straight A's in school, one gets A's and B's, and the others are average students. They don't have much, but they know they've had less. We are a happy family where we all take care of each other," he said.

Lee and his family are representative of the many needy families throughout the region who will benefit this year from the Times-News Rescue Fund. Tax-deductible donations can be sent to:

Times-News Rescue Fund P.O. Box 970 Kingsport, TN 37662

A receipt will be mailed, and donations may be placed anonymously or in someone's name. All donations will be listed in the Times-News.

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