Decline
Alice lived off the interest from the money left by her grandfather but the principle was lost in the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and now at age 63, she had no income. She began to sell off her silver, art works, and furniture to get enough money to buy food and fuel. She then took out a mortgage on the house which was taken by the bank in 1945. She sold her remaining possessions for $600 to a second-hand dealer from New Jersey and called her friend Loring McMillen from the Staten Island Historical Society to take the photos. He stored them at the Third County Courthouse in Richmondtown. She then moved to an apartment then a nursing home. On June 24, 1950 she was declared a pauper and was admitted to New York City Farm Colony, Staten Island's poorhouse.
Read more about this topic: Alice Austen
Famous quotes containing the word decline:
“The decline of the aperitif may well be one of the most depressing phenomena of our time.”
—Luis Buñuel (1900–1983)
“But only that soul can be my friend which I encounter on the line of my own march, that soul to which I do not decline, and which does not decline me, but, native of the same celestial latitude, repeats in its own all my experience.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements, and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping. We see our past achievements as the end result of a clean forward thrust, and our present difficulties as signs of decline and decay.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)