Lighting the Lamps

About the Book

Lighting the Lamps is about growing up poor in New York City in the '20s and '30s, with a Scottish-born mother who took in illegal immigrant "boarders" and a father who came up from a Southern chain-gang. It's about getting polio yet participating fully in the tenement and street life of the Depression; encountering "the Desert Experience" in many NYC faith communities; and meeting extraordinary people through a great variety of jobs (from the days when a skilled buildings-engineer supervisor might be illiterate and "manual labor" included amazing feats of skill).

About the Author

Fred Garel has worked as a printer, short-order cook, oiler, elevator operator, janitor, hospital orderly, maintenance supervisor and community service worker. His volunteer service has included cooking for Catholic Worker houses and a psychiatric reach-out program for homeless people. His educational experiences include a one-room public "cripple school"; the Institute for the Crippled and Disabled; studies with the "labor priests" Fathers Corridan and Carey; and classes at the Institute of Theology. His essays have appeared in The Westsider, The Catholic Worker and the small voice. Fred and his first wife, Bernice Miller Garel, raised four children in public housing in West Harlem. He now lives with his wife Mimi in Manhattan. cover photo: Squatters' Shacks in Central Park, c. 1933, photographer Nat Norman. By permission of the Museum of the City of New York author's photo by Maria Feliz Fridman