Somewhere in her little corner of heaven, Bea Gaddy must have peered through the clouds this holiday weekend and asked a poignant question: When does it end?
Gaddy was Baltimore’s patron saint of the hungry and the homeless. For a couple of decades, until she died in 2001, she ran regularly to the area’s deep-pockets people, badgering and begging and giving them all kinds of guilt, until they handed over massive amounts of food, or big money for food, or both, so that Bea could put out her wondrous Thanksgiving dinners for those who had none of their own.
Since her death, her children have carried on the tradition. They were at it again Thursday, helping to feed an estimated 70,000 people over in Southeast Baltimore, and it was heartwarming to see, and also, frankly, enough to make you weep with frustration.
When does it end?
Bea Gaddy was never in the business of making people comfortable with their poverty, or their aimlessness, or their frustrations, or their longing. She didn’t want to be anybody’s permanent welfare mother figure, and she had no patience for slackers.
She was there for those in trouble, but she wanted to shake something loose in them, to make them strong enough and smart enough, to take care of themselves.
But there were 70,000 people there Thursday, and they have little money, and many wore secondhand clothing, and some were homeless, and a lot of them are out of work.
On Thursday, Gaddy’s children, Cynthia Brooks and John Fowler and Sandra Briggs, were there to continue their mother’s work. As they looked around the Patterson Park Recreation Center at all those people, they had to feel wonderful about helping so many troubled souls.
But they had to ask their mother’s question: When does it end?
We all know about the miserable economy. But there is a permanent underclass that lingers through good times and bad. It was a summer day nearly 20 years ago when Bea opened her North Chester Street shelter for homeless women and children.
And there’s a picture of that day that’s still vivid. Bea was standing in a kitchen area, next to a young woman who held a baby in her arms. Bea was showing her how to rinse out a bottle properly. The woman was in her 20s. She looked as if she were hearing such instruction for the first time in her life.
“When was the last time you lived indoors?” Bea asked.
“Early summer,” the woman said. This was now late July. “At my sister’s house.”
A moment later a shriek could be heard through the house. Bea ran to a corner bedroom and found a child leaning out a second-floor window.
“Get that baby out of that window,” Bea cried to the child’s mother.
Then she whirled around and saw an infant on a bed with a toddler trying to stick a baby bottle in the infant’s mouth.
“What’s the matter with this baby?” Bea asked.
“Baby’s so spoiled, you can’t do nothing with him,” the mother said. She was maybe 19.
“Well, who did it?” Bea asked.
“Did what?”
“Spoiled the baby.”
“Not me.”
“Yes, you. Responsibility, young lady. That’s what we’re talking about.”
She wanted to wrap her arms around them all, but only to slow down their world long enough to explain things to them, to nurture them a little and then move them along. She majored in tough love. A sign on a wall made it clear: “You must get your education. You must get job training or seek employment.”
There were a few dozen women and children in that first shelter. And on Thursday there were 70,000 seeking Thanksgiving help.
When does it end?
Bea Gaddy went through her own homelessness. She knew all about life’s unfairness, and the cruelties of the marketplace. But she also knew that, ultimately, people have to help themselves.
Somewhere in her little corner of heaven, she must have been looking down Thursday, and feeling quite lovely about people getting a wonderful meal and maybe some stuff to take home. Her legacy is a gift to all.
But she’d be shaking her head, too. She’d look at all those rootless people, and so many of them children, and the line never seemed to end on Thursday, and now the holiday weekend comes to an end but the hungry and the homeless go on.
And Bea Gaddy’s question lingers in the air: When does it end?
