Bella’s husband Emanuel was reduced to an amiably patronized outsider in his own home

Evidence

The father, of course, was the outsider. It was not that anyone was actually rude to him, relatives and friends would recall. His family’s attitude was, rather, amiably patronizing. In the words of one visitor, “It was the kind of thing where, when Emanuel said something, the kids would say good-naturedly, ‘Oh, Dad! Oh, Father!’ And then they’d go right on with what they had been saying. It was as if everyone, including him, had sort of accepted the fact that he had nothing to contribute.” After he moved to New York, Emanuel Moses did a lot of reading. “Reading,” he would often say, “is the solace of old age.” — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 155

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Bella Moses’s family judged her marriage to Emanuel as beneath her. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 123