Flowers When You're Dead

By Daniel Delfucho

In 1900, King Hubert of Italy was assassinated. The country

was new yet weak. The people were poor. The economic and

political future of Italy was uncertain. Two patriarchs with large

families emigrated from Italy to the United States in pursuit of the

American dream. Both men hoped for better lives for their children.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Mulberry Books
• Release date: Jun 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781952864346

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LA FAMIGLIA MANONERO

Alonzo Manonero, grandfather: October 16, 1873 – October 16, 1973

Philomena Testa Manonero, wife: May 12, 1884 – February 18, 1960

Married: September 10, 1899

Gaetano Tomaso Manonero, son: October 21, 1905– July 14, 1980

Isabella Perrone Manonero, wife: April 20, 1911 – August 18, 1999

Married: June 24, 1934

Thomas Manonero, Jr., son: April 4, 1937 – October 11, 1979

Alonzo (Lonnie) Manonero, son: May 1, 1940 – August 2, 2016

Gia Diana Manonero: daughter: March 10, 1952

Bernardo Alonzo Manonero, son: June 12, 1908 – February 11, 1960

Florence Patricio, wife: June 1, 1908 – June 19, 1978

Married: April 6, 1935 to February 11, 1960

Delores (Delly) Manonero: March 22, 1944 – December 1, 2018

Sabina (Sabby) Philomena Manonero, daughter: September 20, 1912– December 6, 2003

Thomaso (Tom) Giodoma, husband: October 1, 1907 - November 23, 1972

Married: October 8, 1932 to November 23, 1972

Stefano (Steve) Giodoma, son: December 29, 1937 – January 10,

1982

Angelica (Angie) Elena Manonero: daughter: March 8, 1912 – May 17, 1983

Paul Allito, husband: August 4, 1911 – died May 1, 1997

Married: April 16, 1932 to May 17, 1983

Franco (Frank) Allito, son: January 29, 1933 – July 7, 2020

Sylvia (Syl) Allito, daughter: June 8, 1942 – May 20, 2019

Susan Allito, daughter: August 10, 1953 - unknown

Guglielmo (Billy) Giuseppe Manonero, son: August 8, 1913 – May 10, 2006

Florence (Flo) Battaglia, wife: August 1, 1913 – July 12, 2009

Married: May 20, 1950 to May 10, 2006

Alonzo (Lonnie) Manonero, son: February 8, 1953

William (Wil) Manonero, son: July 15, 1957

Ambra (Amy) Manonero, daughter: February 4, 1915 – January 5, 2005

Danelo (Dan) Delfucho, husband: December 12, 1919 – March 23, 1996

Married: October 16, 1942 to March 23, 1996

Alicia Delfucho, daughter: July 8, 1943

Daniel (Danny) Delfucho, son: April 16, 1951

Elvira (Evey) Maria Manonero, daughter: November 9, 1918 – February 12, 2000

Alfred (Alf) Brogan, husband: May 1, 1911 – April 17, 1970

Married: December 17, 1937 to April 17, 1970

Jonathan (Johnny Boy) Brogan, son: November 5, 1937 – July 1,

2008

Alfred (Al) Brogan, Jr., son: January 4, 1942 – living

Fiona Anna Manonero, daughter: December 24, 1920 – October 6, 2019

Julius (Jules) Bonaventura, husband: July 22, 1920 – March 12, 1962

Married: May 19, 1945 to March 12, 1962

Benjamin (Ben) Bonaventura, Jr., son: January 3, 1947

Claude Bonaventura, son: May 19, 1949

Angela (Angie) Bonaventura, daughter: August 8, 1955

Jeremy McGrath: second husband: August 1, 1932 – August 10, 2017

Married: June 18, 1966 to August 10, 2017

Anastasia (Stacy) Delores Manonero, daughter: February 12, 1922 – June 14, 2008

George Paglia, husband: August 28, 1919 – July 31, 1969

Married May 24, 1947 to July 31, 1969

George Paglia, son: May 3, 1950

Dahlia Paglia, daughter: June 13, 1954

Constanza (Connie) Manonero, daughter: July 29, 1926 – March 23, 2003

Salvatore (Sal/Sally) Amicola, husband: May 1, 1923 – March 24, 1993

Married: August 7, 1949 to March 24, 1993

Salvatore (Sal) Amicola, Jr., son: May 3, 1950

Alonzo (Lonnie) Amicola, son: April 2, 1952

Xavier (Ex) Amicola, son: May 17, 1954

Matthew (Matt) Amicola, son: June 7, 1956

John (Johnny) Amicola, son: September 16, 1959 – February 15,

1988

Flowers When You’re Dead

Flowers When You’re Dead.

Copyright © 2021 by Daniel L. Delfucho.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher and author, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review.

This publication contains the opinions and ideas of its author. It is intended to provide helpful and informative material on the subjects addressed in the publication. The author and publisher specifically disclaim all responsibility for any liability, loss, or risk, personal or otherwise, which is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the contents of this book.

ISBN-13:

978-1-952864-35-3 [Paperback Edition]

978-1-952864-34-6 [eBook Edition]

Printed and bound in The United States of America.

Published by

The Mulberry Books, LLC.

8330 E Quincy Avenue,

Denver CO 80237

themulberrybooks.com



For the many people who carried me on their shoulders.

For my mother, who did everything right.

For Bernie.

For Edith Wharton, who proved it is never too late.

For R.B.



Boy, when you’re dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddamn cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you’re dead? Nobody.

— Holden Caulfield, from Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

PROLOGUE

The stories, occurrences, and situations in and of my life constitute a memoir which took more than fifty years to commit to paper. I have attempted these words in the form of poetry, as a play, as a film, and as a novel. All these false starts sat in a file folder which hung in the big drawer of my desk. Scraps of paper and words on napkins were placed there. Scribblings on the edges of old newspaper in my handwriting were there, too.

All these bits were rescued from a cardboard box I had thrown them in over the years. I have reviewed all that was written prior to today. In itself, that was a lengthy process of edits and disposal. Today is Day One of my final effort to create a story that will captivate and be fun to read at the same time! This is it, all for you.

Most of everything between 1951 and 1958 are memories shared with me. They came from my mother, my sister, and others. Numerous aunts and uncles, their spouses, and their children, too. Of course, I was there and lived it while all of it happened to and around me. The problem is, there is little color to these early memories because they are not my own. More detailed recollections, graphic and otherwise, will follow.

The Manonero (pronounced man-oh-neh-ro) family on Mom’s side and the Delfucho (pronounced del-few-co) family on Dad’s side had eighteen children between them. A true joy of my life is this large, immigrant family created by my parents’ marriage. All my blood aunts and uncles are unique individuals in regard to behavior, talent, education, and character.

Their spouses, the in-laws often referred to as the out-laws, brought shades of light and dark to the fabric of all our lives. There is much to say about the relationships between me and my elders, my cousins and friends, and the impact they made on my life.

Somewhere between age seven and age eight, I trust all recollections are fully my own. Since then, I have been fascinated by dates, times, occasions, and places. I am a true historian of births, deaths, marriages, divorces, and other events which have occurred in La Famiglia Manonero and La Famiglia Delfucho. I verified all stories told to me in regard to date, time, and place to every extent possible. I feel secure what is offered here is likely ninety-nine percent accurate. A family deserves to have its history written down. Proudly, I have selected myself to record the history of mine.

There are some darker moments under the umbrella of other events in the history of these two Italian families. I came to learn about, or actually experience, some of these moments in my pre-teen and teen years. It was sad, and a little scary, to discover a beloved uncle was a pedophile. A cousin took someone’s life. There are some questionable circumstances around a couple of births in the family, too. All of these situations occurred in the pursuit of the American dream by my grandparents, their children, and their grandchildren.

There is also recognized honor in military service on both sides of my family. A significant contribution to medical procedures exists through the efforts of a Manonero cousin. Certain advancements in the fields of chemistry and photography were made by an uncle. Several people have contributed to the artistic world, as well. An educational scholarship endowed for high schoolers as well as political activism can also be acknowledged.

My writing style is a bit off balance and not particularly sequential. I write in images as well as conversationally, the way most people actually speak or tell a story. It is how we would talk to each other if seated on the opposite sides of a table or side by side on a bus. Words can produce a picture like paint does on a canvas.

I will often start a story thread, switch midway to pertinent additional threads, and then weave them all together to form a piece of cloth. Or perhaps think of my writing as a jigsaw puzzle. Pieces of a similar color piled here, another pile of a different color there. By the end, all the pieces fit and the whole image is revealed. To indicate where I switched I placed an recognizable marker. Not to brag so early on, but I think no one should have a problem with the flow.

I am excited to share stories of those who emigrated to America from Italy and those who were born in the USA as an American. So many citizens and citizens-in-waiting of this country live a similar experience. Immigration is a headline story today, both in America and around the world. So is ancestry and DNA, with its many uses in health care, disease control, and even criminology.

The patriarch of both my families took the risk of emigration. They did it for the benefit of their children’s future lives in America. Some of their dreams were realized while others were dashed. There were some major triumphs along the way and a few failures, too.

As warranted in an autobiography, even a limited one, I am at the center of all explored here. I share my reactions, interpretations, and responsibilities. To offset less pleasant aspects, I have added twenty Italian and Italian-American family recipes within these pages. There is a glossary at the back of the book which indicates the page number for each recipe.

No matter what, good times or bad, food was integral to all our lives, all the time. Marriages and births, baptisms and birthdays. Deaths, too, have not occurred, been celebrated, or mourned without food. My hope is you enjoy what lies ahead. All of it; the best and the worst parts, leavened with a bit of humor and great flavors.

Buona lettura e buon mangiare!

I wish you a good read and good food. Shelve this book in your kitchen and please try some, if not all, the recipes! Now, just let me finish my cannoli …

PART ONE

In 1925 F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was published by Scribner’s. Virginia Woolf published Mrs. Dalloway and the Worlds’ Fair opened in Chicago. Artist Diego Rivera resigned from the Communist Party. Babe Ruth needed five weeks to recover from ulcer surgery. Lou Gehrig began his four-digit consecutive streak of hits, too. Not famous in the least, my maternal grandfather purchased two fourplex brownstones on North 10th Street in Newark, New Jersey.

Grandpa Manonero made renovations to each of the eight apartments and added eight single car garages at the back of the property. Between the brownstones Grandpa constructed a wide concrete driveway. He was a successful concrete mason who poured and leveled the driveway himself. By the time twenty-six years had passed, two of Grandpa’s sons and three of his daughters came to live in the buildings with their spouses and children. Actors Jack Lemmon, Hal Holbrook, and George Kennedy were born, too. It was 1951.

My grandparents lived in the brownstone on the left side of the driveway. My parents and sister lived in the brownstone on the right side of the driveway. One apartment was leased to a distant cousin of Grandpa’s and one to an unmarried German professor. With my grandfather as the padrone, La Famiglia Manonero of North 10th Street became a proud, successful Italian-American family in the middle of the Twentieth Century. I joined them. Not born clairvoyant, I could not know what would befall me and ultimately shape my future at those brownstones.

There were moments of note on the national and world scenes in 1951. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted as Russian spies. They were sentenced to death and executed. The United States and Japan signed a security treaty which permitted American troops to be stationed on the former enemy island. Libya gained its independence from Italy, my family’s homeland. Congress ratified the Twenty-Second Amendment that placed term limits on the presidency. American scientists Glenn T. Seaborg and Edwin H. McMillan won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for their discovery of plutonium.

In 1951, color television was introduced in the United States. Truman Capote wrote The Grass Harp, Herman Wouk wrote The Caine Mutiny, and J.D. Salinger wrote The Catcher in the Rye. Radio personality Alan Freed coined the phrase rock and roll. Yolanda Betbeze of Alabama earned the Miss America crown. Ben Carson, Eric Holder, and Al Franken were born. Charo and Robin Williams came into the world, too. On the one hundred sixth day past the midpoint of the Twentieth Century, Daniel L. Delfucho was also born.

In the words of W.C. Fields, I have arrived!

Let me say, in Italian, Buon giorno!

The history which follows was told to me by my mother, sister, aunts, and other Manoneros once I was of an age to understand. Each version was told a little differently here, a bit altered there. So many of these stories were based on the tellers’ opinions of my father. Most recollections cast Dad in a bad light. Quite a few as an outright villain. Such was not the case whenever one of Dad’s four sisters told a Delfucho family story. It always happened when any story was told by one of Mom’s six sisters!

My own memories began at around age seven. About prior years I rarely heard exactly the same story from any two people. Shared memories of others held an uncertain validity with me. The inconsistencies applied not just to the story of my birth, but to almost all that happened since.

We were the Manoneros and the Delfuchos, star crossed families thanks to my parents’ ill-fated decision to marry in 1942. I had to take it as it was told until I got old enough to see, hear, and think for myself.

My original due date was the seventh of May, 1951. This was the day and month Gary Cooper, Eva Peron, Anne Baxter, and Robert Browning were born. My mother had a closed cervix and for the second time delivered a child by Caesarian section. The doctor felt it would be best to take the baby a bit earlier, perhaps the medically accepted standard at the time.

This was not known with my firstborn sister, Alicia. She was a wedding night baby and arrived eight days under nine months on July eighth, 1943. Alicia’s attempted natural birth warranted the decision to deliver her surgically to ease my mother’s painful thirty-hour struggle. Mom told me once the birth was like murder. On that very day, Sir Harry Oakes, an American-born British entrepreneur, was found beaten to death in his home in the Bahamas! I find stuff like that pregnant with coincidence.

When pregnant with me, Mom was given a choice of dates. She settled on the sixteenth of April, a Monday, to have me. An Icelandic singer, Romanian writer, and French photographer share my birth date. Actors John Hodiak and Barry Nelson were both born on that same April day in different years. I never heard of the singer, writer, or photographer in books, movies, or on television. Nonetheless, they each have a Wikipedia page! I guess they must have made some sort of contribution to the world. Also, that day in 1951, the British submarine Affray sank in the English Channel. Whatever, it is not necessary to care about any of that. I just enjoy references to history and special dates. I love dates. The kind found on a calendar and the kind you eat.

My parents did not own a car then. Dad worked at the Jersey shore for Grandpa Manonero on that spring day. He left early by train. He assured Mom he would be back in the evening and would come to Columbus Hospital to see how things turned out. His hopes for a firstborn son had been dashed when Alicia was born.

This time it was que cera cera as far as he cared. I never found out why no one else was available, but apparently Ambra Manonero Delfucho, pregnant woman, walked the streets of Newark alone to Columbus Hospital for Caesarian surgery. When first informed of this, it killed me.

I was born very soon after Mom settled into the maternity ward. Nine-thirty A.M. is stamped on my birth certificate. Grandpa Manonero was first to arrive at Mom’s bedside. He walked, too. World War II required strict careful use of gasoline. Ever since, Grandpa would not drive his 1938 black Ford coupe if he did not need to do so. Another war was already underway in Korea, despite the promise the prior one was supposed to end all wars forever. Gas conservation seemed a wise thrift to him.

Grandpa wore a dark suit and bold tie, Mom remembered. He was a prominent contractor in Newark. As an Italian immigrant, he enjoyed the role of successful American businessman. He owned a second construction company, too. It was located at the Jersey shore and eventually was operated by his sons, my uncles Gaetano and Guglielmo Manonero. Grandpa, Mom said, looked handsome all the way from his brushed cashmere fedora to his glossy patent leather shoes. Nothing about Grandpa stopped people, however, the use of guinea or wop or dago to describe him. He always held his head high above such dispersions, Mom said.

Grandma Manonero wore a plain cotton housedress that day and waited outside Mom’s room. When I heard about the births of Mom’s many siblings, I thought fourteen pregnancies a quarter century earlier likely exhausted her. Her last child, a seventh daughter, was born in 1926. Mom said Grandma knew her place. It was behind Grandpa at all times.

Her roles as wife, mother, homemaker, and grandmother transformed Philomena, often called Minnie, into a very old lady. She did not own bright or fancy clothing although Grandpa could certainly have afforded to buy her such things. Italian immigrant wives and mothers were not seen as equals to their husbands then. Mom explained this to me when she shared the story of my arrival. I did not understand it then and would not stand for it today.

Mama preferred the background, anyway, Mom said. She was not cut out to be on Papa’s arm. She liked to be in the kitchen to almost anywhere else.

I thought perhaps a bedroom with the midwife took up a lot of her time, too. Grandma probably would have considered herself lucky if Grandpa allowed her into the back seat of his shiny black coupe at all, Mom said. If he did not offer, Grandma certainly would not have asked. Since they walked instead of drove, the point was moot. She was simple and quiet and preferred herself that way. Anyway, when Grandpa took his first look at me, he said these words.

Il mio nipote, la rana! In English, My grandson, the frog!

He waved Grandma into the room to pet Mom’s hair and coo over her softly in Italian. He stood like a puffed-up peacock in the doorway of her room, Mom said. She was not happy with his words.

My eyes were big and my head was small. I had a thatch of dark hair and weighed only five pounds, four ounces. My hands were the size of half dollars and my fingernails the size of lentils. Mom told me she got upset with Grandpa for his mean remark. However, she agreed he was pretty accurate. She took another really long look at me.

You were all eyes! Your nose was tiny and it looked as if you didn’t even have a mouth, Mom said whenever I asked about my birth.

There is no need to worry about the size of your mouth anymore!

In the afternoon my aunts came to see me and congratulate their sister. Two of my father’s sisters came, too. My mother’s best girlfriends, Margerie Pagaliano and Erma Pollonek, visited that day. With Dad at the shore, my uncle Bernardo Manonero, called Bernie, picked up Alicia from First Avenue School. Alicia was three months shy of eight years old then and quite delighted to be with her favorite uncle. He was Mom’s most compassionate and favorite brother. For very personal reasons, Alicia was quite happy I finally arrived. She would tell me why many years afterward.

The next day Dad told a murky story about broken winches and missed trains to explain his failure to come to the hospital. He came empty-handed from the Tuesday morning train to see us. He carried no flower, card, or box of anything for his wife. Mom thought it funny. The same clothes she saw him wear the early morning before bore no signs of work-related dirt. She made no mention. The tension of that moment between them was broken by my arrival in the arms of the nurse. She gently placed me into my father’s arms after a nod of approval from my mother.

Danelo, Mom recalled, at last! Your son!

Although I was the first boy, I was still in second place. My presumption was a second-place finish undermined my status. Initially though, Mom said my father was excited.

My son! he exclaimed. Il mio bel figlio!

I was listed as Baby Boy Delfucho. Mom wanted to name me Alonzo, after her father, as others of her siblings had done. I might be just another boy called Lonnie among cousins Lonnie Manonero (son of Guglielmo and Flo) and Lonnie Amicola (son of Constanza Manonero and Salvatore Amicola). Dad terminated the idea quickly. Should I not rightfully be named in honor of my father’s father and be called Vincente Delfucho? My mother eliminated the name with a quick suggestion. I should be named Danelo Delfucho, Jr. after my own father. I found out later why she did not want me to be a namesake of her father-in-law.

Yes! I will have my junior. But! He must be a man of his own, my father firmly declared.

Mom told me Dad left her room after those words. He walked around the hospital block and back to her bedside. Dad returned with my name decided.

It is done! He will be Daniel Delfucho, Jr.! He will be Daniel, not Danelo, because he is born in America.

Mom was grateful it was not Alonzo or Harry, as in Harry James, my father’s favorite band leader! There was also a certain professional baseball player in the running.

This boy is mine! I know how great he will be one day!

Mom laughed aloud at her suddenly theatrical husband. Dad caught her face with a painful backhand slap to her left cheek in return. I was not yet twenty-four hours old.

Daniel Delfucho, Jr. it was to be. The time came when it no longer pleased me. For a long while I was Danny Boy, which I grew to dislike as much as junior. Over the course of many years, I considered the option to change my name legally. For professional reasons. It was really for personal reasons. I never did get it done. Not legally, anyway.

I chose aliases here and there, fitted to the environment I was in at the time. I loved them, in their necessary moments, and remember all of them. Dano. Guy. Bo. Lee. Chris. Even Jimbo at a job once. Delfucho as my surname was what I wanted to change most in my teens. In my heart I was a Manonero. I considered and dropped the idea in the same moment. It would not work while Dad was alive, and he would be in the picture forever it seemed at the time.

After nine days in the hospital, Mom and I came back to the brownstone on North 10th Street. Uncle Bernie came to pick us up. He shushed my mother when she asked why Dad was not with him. Mom told me of her shock and surprise at the reception we received. The driveway was filled with checkered tablecloths on folding tables and a lots of chairs, too. Frank Sinatra’s music blared out of my grandparents’ apartment window.

Mom’s sisters hid in the garages at the back of the brownstones with their husbands and kids. Included were the four sisters who did not live on North 10th Street. My three Manonero uncles were there with their wives and children, too. Dad stood in the middle of it all with Alicia. She stood on a chair to see and shout at me.

Mio fratello! Mio fratello! Mio bellissimo fratellino!

Alicia, I was told, could grab a moment of attention out of any situation at the drop of a hat. Everyone applauded Alicia’s eagerness to meet me, Mom said. The last new baby in the family was my cousin Salvatore Amicola. He was born eleven months earlier. The Amicolas, however, did not live at the brownstones.

I want to share my thoughts of the present about things from the past. My perception and attitude today in regard to yesterday, if you will indulge me. I can make these thoughts easy to identify by using italics. Yes, it is a vanity, but I won’t worry about that for now.

It was the nicest thing your father ever did in the whole time I had ever known him, Mom said when she shared this homecoming story with me. I couldn’t believe it! I couldn’t believe your Aunt Evey didn’t spoil the whole thing with her big mouth!

We laughed at that because it was true. Aunt Elvira, who was called Evey more often, could not keep a secret. It became a real problem about a decade later when the issue at hand was far more personal than a surprise party for a baby!

Platters of food filled the tables. There was ice cream and cake for the kids. Grandma Manonero took charge of me so Mom could sit at the center table with Alicia. The widowed old Italian woman did a little jig to the Sinatra record and other music. She often danced by herself in the driveway, with or without music.

This was the day my father anticipated since he married. To have a son was the reason he married. No one could think of a time when he was happier. Dad had his long-awaited son, albeit second-born. There it was and always would be. That second- place finish.

Dad never came to see us again at the hospital. Alicia was watched by one of Mom’s sisters or sisters-in-law during our time at Columbus Hospital. She spent some nights with our maternal grandparents across the driveway. Someone told Mom of this situation. She wondered why Alicia was not in our apartment with Dad in the evenings. In the hustle and bustle of our homecoming and changes to routines, the question was never asked. It remained unanswered, almost forever.

A large black and blue on Alicia’s left calf was not noticed at the brownstones. By our return home, the red mark on Mom’s cheek subsided. As always in an Italian family, everything was about the new baby. Things were overlooked amid the exuberance. Years went by before what Dad was up to for more than a week was discovered. Alicia’s bruise was not explained. Not even by her.

The last days of April and the entire summer remained all about me. Everyone came to see me, Mom recalled. Everyone adored the bambino. My father seemed happy, yet somehow distracted, too. After a time, the hullabaloo of my birth wore off. Out of the blue, Dad wanted his wife to get back to work by the start of September.

Before we all wind up on the street, Dad shouted at Mom one evening, according to Alicia.

Our parents’ savings were in the hundreds of dollars, not thousands. That fact did not stop my father from the purchase of baseball bats, baseballs, and gloves for an infant son.

Occasionally, Dad was able to put a few dollars together at a game of dice with his construction worker pals. Dad was lucky at cards and games, Mom said. She preferred more food on the table than sports equipment unable to be used for at least four or five more years. So, he played for pennies and she should get back to work. Was Dad a man or a boy?

Mom did go back to work. After Labor Day she returned to the factory job she held when Alicia was younger. She asked for and got an afternoon to evening shift. I became the charge of Uncle Bernie’s wife, my Aunt Florence. Like my mother with six sisters, Aunt Florence was one of nine girls in the Patricio family. Bernie and Florence were the parents of my cousin Delores.

These females took care of me between the early afternoon and early evening. From the time Mom left for work and Dad came home from the Jersey shore, I was with them. I was bustled from apartment to apartment in the brownstones. Every afternoon when my parents were at work, a female was my babysitter. Even Aunt Florence’s sister Columbia took an occasional shift, Mom said. Alicia was in the mix, too, as young as she was.

Anything for you, the little baby, Aunt Florence, my favorite, often told me.

In the afternoons, Alicia came straight home from school. She was a latch key kid at eight years old and even earlier. My sister put her things away in our apartment. Sometimes, she started a bit of her homework. Then Alicia crossed the stairwell foyer to our aunt and uncle’s apartment, my most usual location at that hour. There, she played with me, Delores, and Aunt Florence.

By early evening after his train ride, Dad got off the bus at the depot on Bloomfield Avenue. He walked the short distance home. We three came back across to our apartment where Alicia took over solo care of me while Dad read the newspaper or watched television. Mom left a pre-prepared dinner for them, often macaroni and beans.

RECIPE # 1

PASTA E FAJIOLI

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon butter

1 finely grated onion

2-3 crushed garlic cloves

¼ cup red wine

5-6 cups home-made chicken stock

1 teaspoon each dried basil, oregano and thyme

3 cups white cannellini beans, pre-soaked

¾ cup finely diced pre-cooked ham (when available)

salt and pepper to taste

2 ½ cups elbow macaroni

grated parmagiana reggiana

Heat olive oil and butter in a cast iron pan on medium heat. Add onion, garlic and (ham) and sauté 3-4 minutes. Deglaze pan with red wine. Add chicken stock, dried herbs and beans. Bring to a boil on high heat. Add salt and pepper. Return to medium heat. Let pot simmer for 12-14 minutes. Add pre-boiled elbow macaroni at slightly under al dente stage. Cover and boil mixture 8-10 minutes. Serve with grated parmagiana reggiana.

By late fall, Dad finished his last shore job with his in-laws. He was back in the city again. He worked on Newark construction projects run by the Manonero men there. As stone masons, they made sidewalks and anything else constructed of concrete. Dad was a grunt laborer. There was no hope or expectation of a higher position in Grandpa’s company. There were two sons, Mom’s brothers, perpetually in front of him. Mom’s father did not like her husband, anyway. Over the years, I got that from just about everybody.

Dad was the only son-in-law of seven sons-in-law to ever work for Grandpa. Not another one of those men ever worked a day in the Manonero family business. My father thought his father-in-law might throw him a financial bone here or there. Some overtime on a job, perhaps. Maybe even a raise. It never happened. At times, Dad would imagine a slight or a deliberate impediment on the job where none existed. Mom knew early on this was a fatal flaw in her husband.

-o{0}o-

Mom was just four months shy of twenty-eight years old when she married Danelo Delfucho. She left high school after her freshman year to help the Manonero family through the stock market crash of 1929. Factory work was open to women. Mom took that type of job in early 1930. She was fifteen and lied on the application.

Mom met a lot of young women in their teens from Newark and nearby towns at the factory. A few, like Margerie Pagaliano, Veronica Bellini, and Erma Pollonek, remained her girlfriends for decades. They dubbed themselves the Party Girls.

Today party girls has a different connotation. For Mom and her girlfriends, it did not mean alcohol or loose behavior with men. Their activities were picnics or