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Writings, June 1989, to my sister Dawn Marie Austin from Ralph Hausrath,
nephew to Elizabeth ("Libby"). "Aunt Libby" as Elizabeth was widely known
to the people of the neighborhood also took on the added chores of raising
another nephew, Birdsall Austin, and later raised a niece, Ethel Mae Austin,
because of the early deaths of the Mothers of these two children. These
added responsibilities were taken on while the Libby's crippled Mother
was still alive. She had found it necessary finally to hire help to aid
her in caring for the household and so had hired a German immigrant girl
from the nearby village of Breslau, which is now known as Lindenhurst.
Though Elizabeth had visions of somewhat different life when she went to business school in Brooklyn and then subsequently took a job for a time as a school teacher in Copiague, she had been forced into this housekeeping role after her Mother's fall. And after the old woman's demise in 1913 and after the nephew and niece had grown and left her and after she had moved into her new house, she continued a life of serving others. She kept house for Melvin until his death, later provided a home for me, (Ralph Hausrath), for several years when my parent Were in Chicago, then lived on alone into World War II when she could no longer care for the big new house and so sold it. A devout Christian, she read her Bible daily and continued to make the best of whatever fate brought her, roomed with various relatives in her old age and finally went into the County Home and died in the Central Islip State Hospital in 1952. More About Elizabeth M. Austin:
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