We can already tell that she has had a rough childhood,. She was worked way too hard, abused, and worried about her race. Since she was a Jew, she was treated unfairly by the world, and unfortunately, she was exposed to this harsh discrimination as a young child. She wasn't allowed to do a lot of things, according to Tateh. She and her older brother Sam had to run directly home from school to work in the family grocery store. Their homework had to be done while on the job, during any downtime they had. Sam was worked especially hard because he was the oldest. He eventually ran away to Chicago when he was only 15 or so, and ended up dying in the military during World War II.
My least favorite character by far is Tateh. I could write an entire blog post about how much I don't like him. I think the main reason I don't like him is because he doesn't love Mameh. He doesn't just not love her though, he is completely awful to her! A great example of this is on page 197. "The way Tateh treated her, they'd call her an 'abused woman' today. Back then, they just called you 'wife.' And a man could do anything he wanted to his wife in the South. Especially if she's a Jew who's crippled and he's a so-called rabbi. He can yell at her, make fun of her, curse her, slap her. He can even go out with another woman right in front of her face" (McBride 197). This and the way that he treated his kids makes me so angry with him. I mean, if two of your kids run away before they're even 18, I think your parenting style is wrong. But that's just my opinion.
This is a picture of Ruth McBride Jordan, because I was curious what she looked like...
