The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-09-22
MOTHER DICK, GOOD
SAMARITAN, DEAD
Rivington Street Mourns Loss
Of Woman Who Befriended
All Children.
\ GENEROUS LANDLORD
Came From Austria With Son
and Daughter, Prospered
on East Side.

yesterdays stranger In Rvington
street would not have understood 1t at
all How could her Was he ever one
of the sombre eyed throng of children
that gathered of nights around the am
pie figure of Mother Dick, who held
Talmud Torah on the stoop of ss-71-79
Rivlngton street? Did he ever see the
holidays approaching darkly and know
that there'd be lights to burn and
food to eat and coal to shed warmth
simply because Mother Dick was Just
across the way?
No: about the only fact that your
stranger would have gathered. unless he
asked any one or two Of the great crowd
that stood in Rivington street, would
have been that great calamity had be-
fallen the East Side. For Mother Dick
was buried in Mount Zion.
Ninety-flve years old she was and full
Of good works. Twenty-Five years ago
she came to New York from Tarnopol,
Austrta-she and her son Max and her
daughter who is now Mrs. Title Miner.
They settled IN Rivington street, where
Max prospered, and Rebecca, his mother,
saved pennies and started a savings ac-
count that soon blossomed forth into
mortgages and sagacious loans until
came the chance to buy the great steep
starred tenement at 69-71-78 and Re-
A Friend of Babies.
On the ground floor Rebecca Dick
not yet known to Rivington street as
Mother-established herself and her
family. The rest of the many rooms
were let out. It was about the time
when landlords were inserting into their
leases the mo babies'' clauses when Re-
becca Dick became Mother" Dick Came
into Rivington street young wives to tell
sorTowful stories OF hard hearted land
lords who had turned them out or had
refused to shelter them because little
Rosika cried of nights or Mozart scuffed
the varnish of the doors with his first
coughed with the Group and disturbed
the day slumbers of old man Roshka
Lifschitz. who played the bass fiddle In
Tomashefsky's Theatre.
without the children we shall become
nothing" cried Rebecca Dick to her son
Max. Greater Is he who protects a
child from evil than he who shall destroy
many cities IN the name of Cod"
Rebecca Dick was paraphrasing her
Talmud.
ITO all who are in need we shall be
friends and minister's" went on Rebecca
Dick to her son Max. "Our home shall
I shall go forth and seek such tenants"
And that's exactly what happened.
Max Dick went so far as to offer prizes
to mothers who had the greatest number
OF children. and upon the birth of a
new baby-such rejoicing there was.
And never have rents been boosted at
69-T1-73 Rivington street.
Thus it came that Rebecca Dick gained
the name of Mother Dick, and her
house became known the length of Riv-
ington street as -The House of the
Babies" Came times, to be sure, when
rents were not forthcoming; when a
mother of many children would throw
herself upon the broad breast OF Mother
Dick and weep forth her tale of pow
erty and sickness and the coming of the
stork SO often and beg that she be not
evicted.
Whereupon Mother Dick and her son
Max would become very angry and warn
the frightened creature that never again
should she lose her faith, and Mother
Dick would leave her tenant in high
dudgeon and hasten to the nearest
strictly cash grocer and have food and
wood and a bucket of coal sent straight
way TO the insolvent mother of many
children
"Mother's" Coed Work to Go On.
On Saturday night Mother Dick did
not come out to the stoop with her bulky
Talmud. The usual throng of two hun
dred and more children had clustered
around the front Of THE House of the
Babies as usual to hear the good
words of Mother Dick. but they went
away when the doctor and Max came
hurrying down the street and leaped up
the stone steps.
For earlier In the evening Mother Dick
had called to her bedside Max and Mrs.
Title Miner and had said:
Tonight 1 shall die. Call together
the neighbors and tell them. ! go un-
afraid and at peace. To you, my chill
dren. leave my work among the poor.
You will be good to them always and
ever ready to help those less fortunate
than yourselves"
While the neighbors gathered Mother
Dick died.
SO It Is not to be wondered that yes
terday's stranger In Rivington street
could not understand the weeping and
prayerful throngs that filled the street
and followed afoot the long line Of black
carriages that went rumbling on to
Mount Zion, for 1t is the Jewish custom
to bury dead within day after the
demise.
There were 1900 persons at Mother
Dicks funeral, not to mention the hum
dreds who had come to look for the last
time upon the face OF a good woman.
Came, too, representatives of the vari-
GUS societies and synagogues OF which
Mother Dick was a member-the Down
Town Talmud Torah. the Israel Orphan
School, the Home OF Sons and Daughters
Of Israel, the Warshaucr Synagogue and
the Rumanian Synagogue Shaari sho-
moyin-
AVOID HANDSHAKE,