The Parable of the Three Beggars

In May of 1920, my maternal grandfather, Joseph Riegel, left Europe on route to Ellis Island and a new life in America. He had departed from a small German speaking community centered around the town of Kula in Serbia, having grown up on a farm near the banks of the Danube River. Reminiscing about his departure, he always began by saying, “The flowers were in bloom.” Born in 1900, his age would advance with the years of the century, but in the spring of 1920, he was still a nineteen-year-old young man. Leaving for the new world, though, he had already completed his apprenticeship as a carpenter, served in WWI, married a woman two years his junior, and survived a near death experience of a wagon wheel running over his chest.

With my grandmother, he travelled to Cleveland to live above a store owned by a relative. One of the first things that he did after settling was to get a library card, most likely to read westerns and biographies of the great German composers. In the national prosperity of the 1920s, he bought land on the near westside of town, built a home, and fathered three daughters. He had always wanted a son, but with the arrival of my mother, the third child, he gave up and instead made her his namesake, calling her Josephine. My mother idolized her gentle, hardworking father, and it is through her telling of it that I learned the following story, which for me as always seemed to beg for a moral, so I call it a parable.

When America entered the Great Depression, my grandfather’s family, like so many, struggled to survive. My grandfather would work long hours in any weather, and, unlike some proud craftsmen, he would take any manual labor job available, even if it required no skill. During that time, it was not unusual for unemployed men to go door to door looking for handouts, and my mother remembered when one such man knocked on their door.

He explains to my grandfather that he is out of work and hungry. Could my grandfather spare any money? Now my grandfather was not a saint. He brought with him to the new world the prejudices of the old and added to them the prejudices of his adopted homeland. But he was a man who was kind by inclination, and, as a regular church goer, he took his Christian charity seriously. So he gives the man some money. Later, though, he walks to a store nearby and sees the man drinking in a bar. That is not how my grandfather wants his hard-earned money spent.

The next beggar who knocks has the same story: he is unemployed, hungry and looking for a little money. My grandfather says to him, “Wait a moment.” My grandfather makes a sandwich in the kitchen and gives it to the man. Later, though, he is disgusted to find the sandwich discarded in the gutter near his house.

The third beggar knocks and also pleads destitution and hunger. This time my grandfather says, “If you’re really hungry, come in and eat with my family.” As my vexed grandmother sits quietly fuming, the grateful man joins the family at their supper.

Later, after the man had left, my grandmother, who was the domineering force in the household, says angerly, “Joseph! You invite a bum to our table!” I can see my grandfather sitting through her criticism, as growing up I had seen him sit through many a wifely harangue, with his legs apart, his rough workman’s hands spread on his knees, a weak smile on his face. Then, in reply, he would shrug and wait for the storm to pass.

How do I interpret my parable? I think my grandfather was trying to be a good man. To me, the message of his actions is that a good man does what he needs to do to be a good man. And a good woman, the same, of course. Then I would take it one step further. My grandfather was always the first in line on voting day, and I’m sure that he always voted for the most conservative candidate. He would not sanction my liberal interpretation. Viewing the story in a broader perspective, though, I would add this: a good society does what it needs to do to be a good society.

The End