Economists today will tell us the poor job market experienced by so many people over the past five years has happened several times over the past century. Like those days, less money strained household budgets and forced workers to find creative ways of earning a living.

One such economic downturn happened during the 1920s, when work went "slack" at Bethlehem Steel Corp. after WWI. Many immigrants were forced to find ways to stretch or supplement their wages needed to pay rent, and feed and educate multiple numbers of children. Hungarian immigrant Joseph Samu was one such Bethlehem Steel worker. He lived with his wife, Gizzela, and their seven children at 1541 Columbia St.- the eastern section of South Bethlehem in the working-class neighborhood of Northampton Heights.

Joseph's untimely death in October 1922 hurled Gizzela into a state of destitution without an income or moral support. While she stood at Joseph's gravesite in St. Michael's Cemetery, she remembered those prophetic words her husband uttered on his death bed, that " . . . she would be coming [joining him] in a few months."

Without her husband's weekly paycheck or a marketable skill of her own, Gizzela heroically chose to support her brood by herself. She started a business in her kitchen; she became a laundress.

On the first of March 1923, Gizzela established her typical workday routine. At 7 a.m., she built a fire in her kitchen stove to boil water in a huge galvanized tub atop the iron range. All around the kitchen, she carefully piled sheets and clothing to be boiled.

On this particular day, Gizzela grew impatient for the water to boil and discovered a way to accelerate the flickering flames. She lifted a gallon can of kerosene and poured it into the stove. The volatile fuel instantly exploded in flames that leapt out and showered Gizzela with bits of burning coal, which penetrated through her apron and dress-right through to her stockings.

The cacophony of screams, the calamity of flames and smoke in Gizzela's kitchen prompted neighbors to pull the alarm at fire box number 314, located around the corner at Bessemer and Thirds streets. Under the leadership of Fire Chief A.E. Anderson, all Southside fire companies responded to the kitchen blaze.

By mid-morning, a semi-conscious Gizzela lay in bed at St. Luke's Hospital. At her bedside, nurses carefully removed Gizzela's charred clothing from her badly burned body and discovered burnt remains of $92 in cash she had collected and stuffed in one of her stockings - worth $1,180 in today's money.

Gizzela showed little improvement into the afternoon hours; by 10 that evening, she was dead. Undertaker Marcella McGovern "was given charge of the remains" by the hospital.

The following Monday at 9 in the morning, a viewing took place in the home of Katie Donchez, 1621 E. Fourth St. Afterwards, Gizzela's coffin was taken to St. John Capistrano Hungarian Roman Catholic Church where a Requiem Mass mourned her passing. After Mass, the coffin was transferred up East Fourth Street to State Street at St. Michael's Cemetery where Gizzela was interred in the plot where her husband Joseph was buried just five months earlier.

As Fire Chief Anderson prepared his report on the tragic fire at Columbia Street, he found a fire insurance policy purportedly issued to Gizzela Samu by the Home Fire Insurance Company.

Upon close examination of the document, he discovered the policy was effective Feb. 12, 1923, and was signed by agent, T. A. Ganey - but the policy had expired a week after it was issued, one month before she died.

All efforts to locate the agent of the company were in vain, which lead the chief to assume that Gizzela "was duped in the belief her property was insured for a longer period of time."

The day of her mother's funeral, 8-year-old Gizzela (named after her mother) became seriously ill and was sent to St. Luke's Hospital for treatment. By Thursday, 15-year-old Rosie, was notified that her sister Gizzela had pneumonia. Rosie " . . . continuously sat by the bed of her sister until the breath left her little body . . . " By Friday morning, little Gizzela was dead.

Within one week, Rosie had lost a mother and a sister (both with the same first names). She was now in charge of her five orphaned siblings - four sisters and one brother. Through the efforts of relatives and friends, the children were taken care of with food and shelter.

By her own efforts, Rosie chose to care for her youngest and only brother, William. She found a job and left William with friends who cared for children of steel workers.

One day, when Rosie finished work, she arrived at the house to fetch William, only to be told that her brother had broken his neck while at play and died of his injury. Once again, the venerable Rosie saw to the burial of yet another family member at St. Michael's Cemetery.

Tragic events that seemed too unfair for one family tested many immigrants and children like Rosie. Although commonplace among the immigrant population who lived during rough times and worked in an industry rife with dangerous conditions, immigrant workers eventually overcame their hardships. Through perseverance and tenacity, they survived adversity - that same kind of hope we desperately need today to overcome our own economic hardships.