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Epilogues: 'Caught in the web of poverty' by Barbara White Stack, photos by John Beale, ran Nov. 1 Sunday, December 20, 1998 Barbara White Stack, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Lennette and Clair Kistner, the Fayette County couple who live with their four children on a combination of social security disability and welfare cash assistance, have not been able to take the step they hoped would move them closer to self-sufficiency.
When the Post-Gazette wrote about their struggles in November, the Kistners were trying to get a mortgage so that they could buy a farm. Several possible loan deals have fallen through. The Kistners are now awaiting word from another mortgage company which has told them that their application is in the final stages.
"He told me it could be another week," Lennette Kistner said last week of the loan officer, "but I have heard that so many times I don't pay much attention to it anymore."
The story told of how Lennette, who suffers from lupus and depression herself, cares for a myriad of dependent family members. Her husband is a recovered alcoholic who suffers from mental illness. One son is emotionally disturbed. One daughter is mentally retarded.
Lennette allowed her brother to move into the family's coal patch house in Melcroft earlier this year on the condition that he stop drinking, and she's helping him get medical assistance so that he can get surgery on his jaws that he has needed for years. And she's preparing to take in her father, whose legs were amputated, when he's released from a veteran's administration hospital. The father, who abused Lennette when she was a child, also is a recovering alcoholic.
Since the story ran, the Kistners have received many gifts and offers of assistance. One man sent a $25 check to the Post-Gazette and asked that it be forwarded to Lennette's son Edward to buy a new shirt. Among the photographs that ran with the story was one of Edward refusing to put on a yellow shirt before school because, he told his mother, classmates mocked him and threw stones at him the last time he wore it.
Workers from several Pittsburgh companies and from the University of Pittsburgh and students at Boyce Middle School in Upper St. Clair organized a collection of items to be given to the Kistners. Many people sent clothes and wrapped gifts to the Kistner children. Several individuals set up a fund in the name of the family at Parkvale Savings on Forbes Avenue in Oakland. The fund could be used to buy a washer and dryer if enough money is collected, according to the organizers. Lennette now uses a hand-operated wringer washer and clothes lines.
She said she was overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers. "I never thought I would get this kind of response," she said. "I never thought I would get a response at all." Some people contributed anonymously. To everyone else, Lennette sent Christmas cards to thank them.
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