When I was in college my father moved my 85 year old grandmother Reidhead and her 87 year old sister, his Aunt Mabel up to our home in South Carolina. They had been living in Lake Worth, Florida, but had reached a point where they were basically unable to care for themselves properly. The move was a family hardship. My father’s business was in the process of slowing to the point of a near-death experience. I was going to Clemson. My younger sister was getting ready to go to nursing school in Atlanta the following year. In order for the family to be able to pay for the little cottage my parents wanted to build and afford full-time nursing for the ‘girls’, I was not able to move into the dorm, but was forced to live at home.
Those days were not happy ones. The following year, when my sister went to nursing school, I perceived the financial situation to be so dire that I quit college and went to work for a nearby department store. The following year, due to another situation, I was forced to move into an apartment in Atlanta with my sister. A few months following our move, my father’s flour mill went up in flames, a victim of an explosion in one of his grain silos brought on by a buildup of highly explosive grain dust.
The day his business was going up in flames, a young salesman pulled into the yard and made his way through the fire trucks and fire-fighters. He had a business proposition for my father that eventually made both men fairly wealthy. Not long after that my grandmother Reidhead died. Two years later my sister was married. I moved back to South Carolina and began working in my father’s office. A year after my sister married, Aunt Mabel died. I may have shortchanged a few years, but by that time she was 96.
Throughout those last remaining years, Gram and “Mibsy” had on this earth, my parents provided everything to keep them comfortable. In fact, my mother turned them into what she now calls “hot house flowers”. They had their little house. They had a nurse-housekeeper who made the best peanut butter cookies I’ve ever tasted. The ‘girls’ stole our cat and turned her against us. (The summer of the kittens is yet another story). My parents provided all their clothes. They paid for their food, electricity, and phone. They paid all medical expenses. And – these were years that weren’t exactly a financial bonanza for the parents.
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Article comments
1 - SallyVee
It's about time someone said all of these things. Relatives are only book chapters to Obama, in his never ending, ever changing, ever "evolving" autobiography.
How anyone could cast a vote for the 100% polyester frankenstein is beyond me. How anyone could take the fake freak seriously for two seconds is beyond me. And here he is, poised to seize control of the free world.
This is the worst Halloween trick in history. I'm afraid it says a lot more about the American people than it does about the imposter candidate from who-knows-where.
2 - zingzing
something makes me think the relationship is a little more complex than you make it out to be. how well does he really know this woman? he barely knew his father, so what makes you think he knows his dead father's half-sister? some people just aren't that close to their families... especially when there has been a divorce.
i've got many doubts about this relationship as you describe it. in fact, i bet you do too.
3 - Dave Nalle
Regardless of how little contact they have, he ought at least to have kept her from being deported.
Dave
4 - zingzing
was she deported? either way, how is he supposed to step in and get that done? and if he did... that wouldn't look too good. i'd hope he would do what he could to help her out, now that this has become such an issue. but what could he do, really?
5 - Glenn Contrarian
Dave -
My dad left when I was two and I never saw him again - and I don't even know the names of his siblings.
So frankly, I can well understand why Obama didn't have much of a relationship with his dad's sister or did anything about her status.
6 - Dr Dreadful
"It appears that Barack Obama, who calls us selfish, has not bothered to help his impoverished family members."
Uh, yeah, sure. And if he had helped his aunt, people'd be all over him for aiding an illegal immigrant.
He's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't - just like with the J. Wright palaver.
7 - Franco
#6 �" Dr Dreadful
And if he had helped his aunt, people'd be all over him for aiding an illegal immigrant.
True Doc, so I can understand your defence. But that is like saying if he knew about her and didn't what to have anything to do with her for just that reason, IMO it dose not wash when it comes to family.
If he has family that he dose not know about, then that is his own issue. If he was not in public life it would not be anyone else's business, unless the woman is suffering.
But he is in publim life, and it is something that does bring up a question on how he feels about his own family in light of this opinnion piece, and also about how he feels about illegal immigrant if in fact her knows about her.
I would say that he must not know about her. I mean that is the only thing that washes. Because if he knows about her and he has stayed away for the reasons you sight Doc, it then becomes something else again.
Dose anyone know if he knew about her?
8 - Dr Dreadful
As I understand it - from the BBC News website report, which seems to lay out the facts such as they are in the Beeb's usual level-headed manner - he was aware that she had returned to the US because she called him a couple of years ago from Boston, but had no idea she was still here. It doesn't sound as though they're all that close.
BTW, something that SJ doesn't mention in her article is that the Obama campaign has now returned Auntie Zeituni's donation. As they should, since it is illegal to accept campaign donations from foreigners.
9 - Mark Schannon
She's an illegal?
Dump her back where she belongs.
Obama's being a true American hero by ignoring the Afro-trash who darken our doors. Maybe it's his half-white side.
Let's keep up the brilliant investigative reporting of the dark underside of this subversive Muslim communist out to destroy America by force, violence, a pretty smile, and the largest ears since Dumbo the Elephant.
Oy, do we not have anything better to do with our time?
Apparently not.
(Dr. D. You're Alive! Welcome back. How was it on the other side?)
Curmudgeon-At-Large
In Jameson Veritas
(And well Jamisoned, I'll tell you that!)
10 - bliffle
this is one of the least informative articles I've ever read on BC.
1-why such a furor over $265?
2-why is it called "widows mite" a term used to describe the meager pension of a widow?
3-why is Obamas proposed tax plan a burden to SJRs parents, when it doesn't even exist yet, nor is it proposed?
4-why do SJRs parents have to sell property to pay Obamas (imaginary) taxes? Do they make over $250k per year?
...etc....
The article raises more questions than it answers.
11 - Cindy D
I am incredulous. I hate to diminish one's fanciful recall of the past--that is if it were unecessary. But you seem to be guilty of some confabulation. Some of your recollections seem to be those of a young person who was not supplied with all the details. Since your recounting of your youth is designed to contrast sharply with another person--whom you disparage--I think it is fair to question you about some details.
My parents provided all their clothes. They paid for their food, electricity, and phone. They paid all medical expenses. And �" these were years that weren’t exactly a financial bonanza for the parents.
So these two ladies came from Florida destitute? No social security? No assets? What did they live on in Florida (a park bench)?
In order for the family to be able to pay for the little cottage my parents wanted to build and afford full-time nursing for the ‘girls’, I was not able to move into the dorm, but was forced to live at home.
This sounds horrifying! They had to scrimp and save to build a separate cottage with a staff member? You were forced to live at home? Did you have to walk miles to school in your barefeet? Uphill? Both ways?
My parents spent something like 9 years without a break.
They needed a break with a full-time live-in nurse housekeeper?
They have spent a lifetime paying astronomically high taxes.
They have spent a lifetime paying astronomically high taxes even though business was bad? How can that be?
If they do not sell several large chunks of property in the next few weeks, and Barack Obama goes ahead with his tax plans, they may be looking at the work of a life-time, confiscated, so the “middle class” can get a tax rebate.
Obama is requiring senior citizens to sell their property? I must have missed the "confiscate the wealth of seniors by forcing them to sell their assets" part of his tax plan.
Do they make more than $250k in income? Are they senior citizens? Isn't 50k tax free per senior income enough of a balance? And if they did have to sell "several large chunks" of property (which frankly, the assertion smells to high heaven) my heart bleeds for them. Not quite as much though, as it bleeds for seniors who are missing their medications and buy them 2-3 pills at a time because they can't afford their prescriptions (a practice they will continue under McCain).
Regarding your comment about "socialized medicine": You know what I hate? I hate the huge surplus of socialized police forces where I live, all of them buying new police cars with my money. When there isn't enough crime to justify more than an Andy Griffith and Barney Fife team for most jurisdictions.
How many [donations to Obama] are illegal, how many are via stolen credit cards and identity theft?
What the hell is your implication with this comment?
"Studies have shown that liberals and Democrats give less to charity and are not as happy as conservatives and Republicans."
Your "study", as opposed to the plural, by Professor Arthur Brooks was an analysis of data; said analysis has been questioned by other experts*.
See: The Boston Globe article - Who gives: A new book appears to show that religious folks, mostly conservatives, are more charitable than secular liberal types--until you look closely at the numbers.
It could be that he simply can’t conceptualize the fact that other people give, and give until it “hurts.”
And some people don't understand what the word "hurts" means. As a young woman, I became used to living very well. During a very low income period I once complained to my mother that I couldn't even afford to do my dry cleaning. My mother called me on it on the spot. And soon I was laughing at the shallow absurdity of my self-pity.
12 - Lisa Solod Warren
Another brilliant rebuttal, Cindy.
13 - Cindy D
Oh and SJR,
You forgot to tell us why conservatives were found to be more happy than liberals.
Liberals, claim New York University psychologists Jaime Napier and John Tost, have a tougher time rationalising social and economic inequality than conservatives.
The recent surge in home foreclosures, for instance, is due to poor economic choices on the part of borrowers, a conservative might think. Liberals, on the other hand, seethe at predatory lenders and lax government regulation of the mortgage industry.
The result: conservatives mix a martini and hit the country club, while liberals write angry letters and stage protests.
The "rationalisation of inequality" was the single variable that directly correlated with happiness--not income, not education, not religion, and not as George Will asserts that, "liberalism is a complicated and exacting, not to say grim and scolding, creed."
Correction to my assertion above of one single study. There was one single study regarding the political division of charity, not happiness.
14 - red state insurgent in a blue state
Ship his aunt back to Kenya!!! She is the epitome of what Obama stands for... Living for free, leeching off of the government during a period of her life when she is perfectly able to work. My mother, nearly the same age as his aunt, works 40 hours a week. She is a tax paying citizen of the United States. Obama's "auntie" is a perfect example of why we need immigration reform in this country. She sets a bad example for those longing to become a part of this great nation.
15 - Condor
Obama really wants YOU, the American taxpayer to foot the bill.
And all the other people who Do NOT qualify for welfare but expect a handout... or have been waiting their entire lives for this president to come along and make it happen.
Figure 10 percent of Americans actually have a diability which prevents them from working. The rest are just waiting for eagle-shit day... and REALLY want a redistribution to happen. Making the eagle-shit day even better.
Now that just doesn't give me a warm-fuzzy. I'll hire 'em and put them to work... and fire those who don't... but I'm not giving them squat. I'll adjust my workforce and deferr the additional taxes first. So will other small businesses. Just watch.