“I never thought it would happen, and you wouldn’t think it to look at me, but I’m on food stamps.
When I grocery shop I travel to a different neighborhood from where I live. I’m ashamed. It doesn’t help when I wear the fur coat that was given to me almost 30 years ago.
I know people look at me – a woman wearing a fur coat using an ACCESS card. But it keeps me warm. And they don’t know my story.
In 1999, after 15 years of marriage, my husband finally went to jail. He had always been very abusive. One morning he began chasing me all over our thirteen room house – hitting me, pulling phones out of the wall so I couldn’t call anyone. Finally I screamed out the back door for help. The police came and took him out.
He had lots of money. Before we got married in 1984, I had done executive office work. But after the wedding he said he didn’t want a wife who worked.
I knew I had gotten into a bad marriage from the beginning. I felt bad about leaving him because he had Parkinson’s disease and no other family. I was willing to take care of him. But he was always very controlling.
So throughout our marriage I didn’t work. When we separated in early 2000, I was 50 and didn’t have any money. I got a part-time job as a sales rep and tried to piece together other part-time work, but it wasn’t enough to pay the bills so I went on food stamps.
I had to go to court repeatedly to get alimony – $1,000 a month – which he often wouldn’t pay. And any time I pushed harder for divorce or to leave he’d threaten to stop any funds altogether.
I couldn’t afford rent on a part-time salary and I couldn’t try to buy a house because I didn’t know what amount I was going to get from a settlement or when.
I fought and fought to keep him out of the house, but both our lawyers said he had a right to move back in. He lived upstairs, I lived downstairs.
He tried to run me over with his car one night when I was taking out the trash. I ran and hid in a Co-Go’s.
I had to live with him for five more years. He would sleep all day and then roam the house all night. I had to stay awake to be on guard. I got a new lawyer and spent a lot of time at a local law library myself.
In 2006, I found out my son had a brain tumor. My daughter in North Carolina began taking care of him. I told my lawyer that was it – I just wanted out. I wanted to go be with them.
I finally got a settlement. I gave up a lot of money and made no claim to his retirement benefits. I got $100,000.
I was able to get off food stamps, but the money was gone pretty fast, because now I had to start over. I had to buy a car. I bought a house in the city in really bad condition. It had been on the market for 18 months and had nobody in it, which I wanted so I could move in immediately. I’ve had problems with everything in the house.
Later that year, my son died, and I lost two other family members as well. In 2008, my daughter was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimers and is now in the last stages. I also was down-sized from my job that year and wound up going back on food stamps.
Last April, I had a stroke. A lot of my short-term memory is gone. I have no health insurance and I’m not old enough for social security. I’ve spent months researching and dialing 800 numbers. I’ve made my way through the system and spent a lot of days on the phone.
I wish it was easier to find help for people who wind up in my situation, and for those even worse off. I’ve finally gotten some assistance – $189 a month in food stamps, $100 a month in disability, $641 from social security, LIHEAP and CAP for my heating and electric.
It’s not a lot, but I don’t know what I would do at this point in my life without it.
Now you know my story. The next person you see shopping with food stamps, no matter how they look, has a story you don’t know.”
–Rose Mary Wenrich, South Side
A version of this story appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on February 24, 2014
No comments yet.