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  3. Not long ago, Ted Gup opened a battered old suitcase from his mother’s attic

Not long ago, Ted Gup opened a battered old suitcase from his mother’s attic

游客2023-12-07  22
问题     Not long ago, Ted Gup opened a battered old suitcase from his mother’s attic and discovered a family secret. Inside was a thick sheaf of letters addressed to "B. Virdot," all dated December 1933, all asking for help. Also inside: 150 canceled checks signed by the mysterious Virdot.
    Gup, a journalism professor at Boston’s Emerson College, quickly got to the bottom of the story: His grandfather Samuel Stone had used the pseudonym to slip money to impoverished people. "At the time, he caused quite a stir," says Gup, who chronicles the story in A Secret Gift: How One Man’s Kindness—And A Trove of Letters Revealed the Hidden History of the Great Depression.
    Stone wasn’t a mogul, but as the owner of a chain of clothing stores, he was fairly well off. Just before Christmas, 1933, he placed an ad. in his local Canton, Ohio, newspaper, offering money to 75 people who wrote to "B. Virdot" explaining their need. The letters poured in and were so heartrending that he ended up giving 150 people $ 5—close to $ 84 in today’s money. "I read all the letters multiple times," says Gup, who was astonished by the raw anguish of the Depression. Then he tracked down the recipients’ descendants. "Most people I contacted wept when they learned about the letters," Gup says. "When they read the letters, they sobbed, and I had to give them room to collect themselves. It brought home what their parents and grandparents had endured"- no money for food, shoes, rent, let alone anything to give their kids for Christmas. "There were instances in which the calamity of the Depression was so great that $ 5 barely made a dent," Gup says. "But there were others for whom it really did make a difference. It provided Christmas dinner, a few presents under the tree...and at least as important, it signaled that somebody cared. In 1933, the New Deal was a glint in FDR’s(Franklin Delano Roosevelt)eye; it was just beginning. There was no net to catch people when they were free-falling. "
    Some whom Gup contacted finally understood why their parents had been able to serve a fancy meal for just that one holiday; others learned harsh truths. "The children of several letter writers were unaware that their parents had gone to jail," driven by desperation to steal to put food on the table. "That did not diminish their respect or love for their parents," he says, "but it enhanced their understanding."
    Gup found out that his grandfather had his own dark past. He’d been born in Romania, not—as he’d claimed—Pittsburgh; his birth certificate was phony, and he’d invented his biography. Gup speculates that, having escaped a childhood of poverty, hunger, and religious persecution(he was Jewish), his grandfather lied to escape bias against immigrants.
    That Stone wasn’t a saint, that he’d done whatever it took to escape adversity, helped explain his motives: He understood despair, Gup says, and that "nothing was more precious than a second chance. "
    On November 5, the descendants of the people Stone helped are scheduled to gather at the Canton Palace Theatre in Canton to share stories and read the original letters. As for Gup, he views the legacy of the Depression as "a real appreciation of family, of collaboration and sacrifice, of respect—what we tend to think of as American virtues. The hard times were brutal, but they did create an awareness that saw us through the Second World War and helped usher in a period of prosperity, an awareness I fear was being lost in materialism and self absorption prior to the recent great recession. "No one in his right mind would welcome such times," Gup says. "My family and neighbors have felt the sting of this recession. But our identity as individuals and as a nation is the product not just of good times but also of bad times. They give us our spine, our strength, our gumption, our grit, all those things we take such pride in. "I think B. Virdot’s gift is a reminder that we should all be emboldened to make an effort, no matter how modest, to extend ourselves. That’s what makes the difference in all our lives. " [br] The author’s main purpose of writing this article is to claim that
选项 A、everybody has his dark side.
B、being helpful is a valuable virtue.
C、economical crisis is terrible.
D、adversity teaches people a lot.
答案 D
解析 主旨题。通读本文，可以发现作者在文章的末尾点出本文的主旨，作者想要表明的意图是：艰苦的岁月能锻炼人坚忍的意志，克服困难的勇气，坚持不懈的进取心，我们要为此自豪，因此[D]正确。
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