I thought you were asking why didn't they help keep Pixie from being poor and 'alone.'
Not particularly. I was wondering why she was dumped on top of a bunch of other paupers in an unmarked grave because after her debts were cleared, there was no money for a grave or coffin. She didn't even have a memorial service and all her personal belongs, letters, manuscripts, art etc was sold off to pay for her debts.
I assumed that would take quite a bit of money to help not only Pixie but other poor and aging former members of splinter groups within the GD. I mention the Freemason's buildings, because generally it takes monetary resources to be able to care for the needy - like the Freemasons sometimes have done - in part because they have quite extensive holdings. The GD was a small order in which most members never went beyond the first initiations. The breakup was acrimonious and many members resigned and walked away from all further involvement. It never occurred to me that they 'should' seek out Pixie to take care of her.
Freemasons swear an oath of fraternity. They help each other out. They don't normally seek each other out and act as carers, however if one was unemployed for example or needed a loan in order to start a business, other Freemasons may as an act of 'brotherhood' loan them money and send business their way in order to get their business up and running.
I am aware that in comparison to the Freemasons which has been running since the 14 Century at least, the Golden Dawn was relatively new. However, its members were often famous artists or rich Victorians many of whom, were Freemasons who have an extensive core network.
Could you explain what you mean by being 'fraternal' and 'looking after each other'?
Of course. Fraternal means a 'brotherhood'. Frater is Latin for brother. To treat someone else as your own brother. A fraternity is a group of people who get together for mutual benefit. The benefit of the group depends upon the reason for the foundation of the organisation.
Are fraternal societies expected to take a former member into their own homes if that person became mentally or physically ill or too elderly to care for themselves? Who decides which person(s) would take on this burden?
That would depend upon why the fraternal organisation was formed. If a group of people got together in order to mutually care for each other when one or the other got ill, then yes. I suppose the people who start the fraternity decide who does what, if that is their sole cause.
In a fraternal organization, would someone be expected to leave their own home in London and move to Bude, Cornwall to look after an elderly woman? Remember they had just been through two world wars with tremendous destruction and hardship for all the British people.
I was not really talking about people moving from the comfort of their own homes, into the home of an 'old woman' and caring for her. As you can see from my actual post, that isn't what I said. The Freemasons swear an oath to help each other, to treat each other as brothers. So for example, if one of the Freemasons was too poor to eat, the others might rally around, find them work or help them start a business or lend them money for food until they got back on their feet.
Since the Golden Dawn were in fact a fraternity in a similar vein to the Freemasons it would not be uncommon if they helped a fellow Golden Dawn member out. That does not necessarily mean moving in with said member and acting as a round the clock carer but in other ways.
Being English I am aware of the costs of war, the recession that followed and the hardship. However, my remarks were mainly concerning her burial in a paupers' grave. Obviously I should have made that clearer. I was also surprised that, having belonged to a fraternal organisation, she was left to eke out a destitute existence and more help either in kind or some other way wasn't forthcoming.
Here are the questions I asked in my original post:
Does anyone know if she fell out with the Golden Dawn a la Crowley or did they just conveniently forget about her?
I wanted to know what happened to her association with the Golden Dawn and more importantly Waite. We know she joined the Order in 1901 and the Waite deck was produced in 1909 so that is at least eight years that we know she was in the order or its various factions. Waite continued in various off shoots of the Golden Dawn and continued to write and research mysticism until his death.
Does anyone have any more information on her life apart from this
I wanted to know if there was any more information on her life apart from the quote I provided and I also wanted to know if anyone knew of a decent biography.