Dorothy (click here) was born in Brooklyn, New York, on 8 November 1897 to Grace Satterlee Day, a New Yorker, and John Day, a Tennessean. Dorothy had two older brothers, Donald and Sam Houston. A sister, Della, and another brother, John, later joined the family.
When Dorothy was six years old, her father, a sports writer, took a job in California and moved the family to Oakland. He lost his job when the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed the newspaper plant. Dorothy's memories of the quake and of her mother and the neighbors helping the homeless remained stamped in her mind. The family then moved to Chicago where they lived for the next twelve years. Dorothy grew up in a conventional middle-class home in the period before World War I. The Days valued reading, education, and writing. Her parents seemed to create a caring home. Nominally Protestant, the Days seldom attended church. Dorothy remembered being interested in religion and recalled reading the Bible, encountering neighbors praying, and at age eight being "disgustingly, proudly pious" (Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of Dorothy Day, p. 20)....
When Dorothy was six years old, her father, a sports writer, took a job in California and moved the family to Oakland. He lost his job when the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed the newspaper plant. Dorothy's memories of the quake and of her mother and the neighbors helping the homeless remained stamped in her mind. The family then moved to Chicago where they lived for the next twelve years. Dorothy grew up in a conventional middle-class home in the period before World War I. The Days valued reading, education, and writing. Her parents seemed to create a caring home. Nominally Protestant, the Days seldom attended church. Dorothy remembered being interested in religion and recalled reading the Bible, encountering neighbors praying, and at age eight being "disgustingly, proudly pious" (Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of Dorothy Day, p. 20)....
