Megan's Story

By Claudia M. Vitello

Although most of the book is true, the author blends in some fiction to add to the intensity of her story. It describes the life of a girl growing up after World War II, her abusive father, marriages, life in a retirement community, and her contact with prisoners.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524644840

Claudia M. Vitello

This is the first book for Ms. Vitello. It contains joyful reminisces of her early life—all the magic of a romantic story, mixed with hideous serial crimes, and the numerous personalities of her retirement years. For many years, she had her own business, and then she became a successful contract engineer recruiter. Now she is living in a retirement community just north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

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MEGAN’S

STORY

CLAUDIA M. VITELLO

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AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2016 Claudia M. Vitello. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/12/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5246-4485-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-4484-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016916946

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and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

1 The Early Years

2 The Middle Years

3 The Later Years

4 The Retirement Years

5 The Prisoner Years

Alternate Ending

Alternate Ending

1

The Early Years

I t was a very dreary June morning when Megan came into this world on the east side of Pittsburgh; an event that would set the mood for the rest of her life. She was the third child in the last four years of Catherine and Joseph’s marriage and they lived in an attic in a small mostly Protestant community even though they were devout Catholics. The Protestant children showed a great deal of discrimination towards Megan’s family. So at an early age she became aware of what it was like to be ostracized because of your religion. The children would say, Move to another neighborhood, you damn micks.

They had to work extra hard to be liked by the children in the neighborhood. Megan’s family shared the bathroom and kitchen with the first and second floor tenants. Although Joseph was an electrical engineer, he only made a dollar an hour at a large electrical company in the area. In this era to live in America or in Europe was dark because of World War II and to have had three babies during this time was almost too much to imagine. As Catholics they couldn’t practice birth control, so every year they continued to have children. Everything was rationed and hard to obtain. Joseph borrowed money from his father, Michael, a prominent store owner in Philadelphia, in order to be able to rent the downstairs of the house. The attic then was rented out to Catherine’s sister and her husband, Andrew, who was in the service at that time. He would get home only on leaves from the Navy.

The backyard was fenced at that time and there were railroad tracks just behind it. The relatives who came to visit us would complain that the trains kept them up at night. They were powered by steam engines and they were quite dirty. In the winter she and her sisters and brothers would make a snowman in the yard and when the trains came, it would be covered with black soot. In the summer when Megan’s mother took the clothes out of the washing machine and put them on the clothesline to dry, she would have to time it right after the train came and then everybody would scramble to take the clothes down before the next train.

Often there were hobos that traveled in the empty coaches of the trains looking for work in different cities. They would jump off and knock at our back door asking for food and water. Her mother always made them a sandwich and a cool glass of lemonade.

After Megan was born her parents had two boys and another girl, and things began to get better in their household when her father got a big raise and a promotion at work. From an early age she played outside with the other children on the street. Megan remembers playing step ball, hop scotch, jump rope, red rover, catch me if you can, jacks, hide and seek, marbles, tag, cowboys and Indians, yo-yo’s, coin toss and all kinds of card games. Now you rarely see children outdoors playing on the street, because they are inside playing video games on their Xboxes.

Her family was the first family on the street to get a television and all the kids in the neighborhood would come over Saturday night to watch it with them. Radio shows soon became weekly television shows, like Arthur Godfrey, Amos and Andy, the Goldberg’s, and Burns and Allen. Then there was Davy Crockett and everyone thought he was the coolest guy on the television and wanted to be like him. Megan’s brothers had coonskin hats and toy guns in holsters around their waists.

She grew up watching American Bandstand and The Mickey Mouse Club. She and her sisters would drool over Spin and Marty and the boys just loved Annette Funicello. Sunday evenings they would watch Ed Sullivan and GE Theater. We only had three channels we could watch.

Milton Berle, Sid Caesar and Jackie Gleason found stardom after years of toiling on the stage. Ernie Kovacs was one of the first comedians to really understand and exploit the technology of television and became a master of the sight gag.

During the early 50s, quiz shows became popular until a scandal erupted. For three years, producers of The $64,000 Question supplied a contestant with the answers to tough trivia questions to heighten the drama and become one of the most popular shows on the network. After it was revealed, they were fined and produced an era of suspicion and most of the quiz shoes were cancelled.

Edward R. Murrow exposed the tactics of innuendo and unsubstantiated charges that Senator Joseph McCarthy used to exploit the country’s fear of Communism. So on March 9, 1954, Mr. Murrow composed almost entirely of McCarthy’s own words and pictures a damning portrait of a fanatic. McCarthy responded by saying that Mr. Murrow was, The leader of the jackal pack. And this statement just sealed his fate. The combination of the program’s timing and its persuasive power broke the Senator’s hold over the nation. The entire fiasco caused a rift with CBS and they decided to discontinue Mr. Morrow’s show See It Now.

Megan remembers Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was the 34th President of the United States from 1953 to 1961. He was a five star general in the United States army during World War II. He sent troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce federal court orders to desegregate