The Family's Senior Moments.... Tony.

Another boy-baby for my grandparents.... they named him Anthony, but of course called him Tony.  My grandmother and all of my aunts agreed that Tony was a happy baby who grew into a very happy little boy, who then matured into an immensely happy man.

Tony loved to play with his brothers when they were kids, and his favorite games involved a ball, particularly a baseball as he got older.  Tony was quick, very coordinated, and extremely talented with a ball and a bat.  When he was older and playing baseball on school teams, a scout for the New York Yankees discovered him and wanted him to join The Yankees.  Talk about a young boy's dream coming true.

However, back in the day, The Yankees had lots of physical requirements, one of which was height.  Unfortunately, Tony was one inch (just one tiny inch!) below the minimum height requirement for the team.  The offices of The New York Yankees sent Tony a letter stating exactly that, and Uncle Tony kept that letter forever, taking it out of the "strong box" from time to time to show his sons and his nieces and nephews.

One of my Uncle Tony's greatest treasures was a wooden baseball bat that he used when he was a young player.  He kept that bat polished and cleaned and he intended to pass it on to his sons. His only mistake with that bat was that he stored it in the third-floor attic storage room in Grandma's house.  The family joke was that once something was put either into the family safe or into the storage room of the attic, it stayed there forever. (Aunt Dolly was in charge of such things, and she didn't like to disturb anything once it was in a safe place.)

When Uncle Tony moved to Long Island, that bat stayed up in the attic. Years later, when he moved across the country, the bat still stayed tucked away in that attic.  When I brought my dad to visit his brother in Arizona, he and Uncle Tony talked about that bat, wondering just where in the attic it was stored, and if they could get it out of that attic without Dolly knowing about it. (That never happened.) A couple of years later, my husband and I flew out to Arizona to visit Uncle Tony and his family, and of course, he got to talking about his bat "up in the attic," and he showed us the letter from the New York Yankees.  Before we left Arizona, one of my cousins drove me to a sporting goods store and I bought the best New York Yankees wooden bat that I could find and gave it to my Uncle Tony as a surprise.  I can still see him now, sitting in his chair with tears in his eyes, holding onto that Yankee bat and just speechless with gratitude.

During World War II, Uncle Tony was in the Marines.  My grandmother cried when he joined, because her other sons explained to her that the Marines were" the first called in and the last called out." He was the youngest son, and my grandparents worried about him the most.  Uncle Tony fought against the Japanese in the South Pacific during the war.  He didn't talk much about his own war stories, and the fact that he was responsible for the death of enemy soldiers didn't make him proud.  "I just did what I had to do.... I did what they told me.... and then I kissed the ground in New York when I got home all in one piece."  My grandmother had begun lighting candles and saying extra prayers when her four sons were soldiers during World War II, and she didn't stop when the war ended because one of her sons never made it home.

Uncle Tony fell in love with and married "an Irish girl," as Grandma called my Aunt M.  "She's an Irish girl who can cook, who can keep house, and who can keep my son happy."  And that she did..... Aunt M and Uncle Tony were married for 64 years before Tony passed away in 2011. They were the happiest couple, always smiling, always laughing.  Aunt M always said "Tony makes me laugh.... he's always so positive and so happy."

"Happy" does not even begin to describe the bond of love Tony and M shared during their long and successful marriage.  Every other marriage of my grandparents' children ended in divorce. Not so with Tony and M.  One reason for that, according to my dad: "Tony and M never let anything or anyone come between them, not even the family."

Aunt M once told me a story about their first house out on Long Island.... my grandmother, along with Aunt Edie, Aunt Jaye, and Aunt Dolly, drove out there for a visit.  They arrived unannounced, before lunch time, while Uncle Tony was at work.  Aunt M was surprised, but of course greeted them graciously... they had driven a lot of miles from Queens and she wanted to make her husband's family feel 'at home.'

While Aunt M was in the kitchen fixing lunch for all of them, her sisters-in-law were indeed making themselves at home and very comfortable in the living room.  They had re-arranged M's furniture, her lamps, her knick-knacks... and when Aunt M walked back into her living room, they told her "Doesn't it all look better this way?"

It was at that point that Uncle Tony walked in the door..... and after he said hello to his mother and his sisters, Aunt M asked him to come into the kitchen.  Without making a loud fuss, Aunt M firmly told her husband to "Get in that living room and tell your sisters to put my living room back the way it was."  And Uncle Tony did exactly that.... and his sisters moved everything back to their original positions..... and Aunt M set the kitchen table for lunch and then smilingly told everyone "Lunch is served!"  

Uncle Tony and Aunt M had two sons, my cousins T and D.   When we were all kids, we would have holiday dinners at the "children's table" in the kitchen, with me and T being in charge of the younger kids, because we were the two oldest in that generation of cousins.  When we all played games in the indoor front porch at my grandparents' house, it was T who would turn out the porch light and tell ghost stories, scaring all of us just enough so that we were sitting on the edge of our seats, but not frightening us to the point that we wanted to run out of the porch.

In the 1960s, during the Vietnam War, cousin T joined the Marines..... and just as the family worried about his father serving in the Marines during World War II, my grandmother began lighting candles and saying prayers again for her grandson.  I can still remember cousin T walking into Grandma's kitchen in his Marine uniform for the first time..... my grandmother sat down and cried, and my grandfather said "You look just like your father did in The Big War."

My grandfather's dream was to have a home filled with sons who would go into the family business of house-building, concrete, brick-work. Uncle Tony was the only son who even came close... he was an expert carpenter and could make anything out of wood. If you wanted something built in your house, you called Tony to do it..... my aunts would just explain what they wanted and then walk away, confident that the finished job would be right, would be perfect.  Uncle Tony always said "Do it once, and do it right, or don't even do it at all."  He was so proud of everything that he designed and built, and he had a sense of respect for fine wood.

Uncle Tony was always "the fun uncle."  He believed that if you didn't have fun in this life, then what was the point of living in the first place.  Tony played ball with his sons, went to all of their sports games, watched baseball and football on television, and he was a champion bowler on a prize-winning team.  It was either in the 1960s or the 1970s that Uncle Tony won a brand new Chevrolet when he bowled a perfect 300 game, and he was so very proud of that accomplishment.  Uncle Tony bowled for years, and stayed a team member until it was clear to him that he couldn't bowl as well as he used to because of his age. "When your score starts to hurt the team, it's time to quit," he told us.

Just as Uncle Tony was the first of my grandparents' children to move out of Queens (all the way out to Islip, Long Island),  he was also the first of the family to move out of New York state.  When Uncle Tony and Aunt M retired from their jobs, their plan was to move west, to Arizona.  The rest of the family didn't believe him. "You're not going anywhere!"--- that's what they kept telling him.   Even when Tony and M arranged for the moving van, the family still didn't believe they would go through with the move.   The family told him: "You were born in New York... you need to stay in New York."  Uncle Tony asked the family to show him the book where that rule was written down, and then he said "Where my wife goes, I go. Period."

Tony and M did indeed move to Arizona, and within a few years, their two sons and their families were also living out west.  Their very close-knit family unit was back together under the Arizona sun, and the rest of the family back in Queens and on Long Island were shaking their heads in disbelief.

My aunts and uncles (those who never left New York) don't get on planes very often, if at all.  Uncle Tony kept asking everyone to come out and visit them in Arizona. Except for my dad, who flew out there once with me, not one of Tony's other brothers or sisters ever made the trip.

Uncle Tony and his family thrived out in Arizona.  Their two sons have children, and those children now have children, making my cousins T and D grandfathers.  I still shake my head in wonder that most of my generation of cousins who once sat at Grandma's "children's table" are now grandparents.

My Uncle Tony passed away in 2011... he was in his mid-80s, and my Aunt M misses him every day, every day.  When Uncle Tony died, his plan was not to have a long and sad "Italian wake."  He wanted his family to be happy, to go out for dinner, to remember all the good times and not be sad over his passing.  Of course, everyone was sad over his passing, but we all certainly remembered the good times we had with him.  Uncle Tony loved dogs and cats, and his pets over the years were very much loved and pampered.  Instead of sending flowers when Uncle Tony died, I went to the local supermarket and bought as many bags and cans of dog food and cat food that would fit into the trunk of my car.  I drove straight to the local animal shelter in town and donated it all, in my Uncle's name. I know that would have made him smile.

The Family's Senior Moments... Carmine.

This boy-child came into the world being a fussy baby... and that characteristic followed Carmine for the rest of his life.  When Neil Simon's "The Odd Couple" became so popular, we used to joke that Uncle Mino was an Italian version of Felix. 

I don't remember anyone in the family calling Uncle Mino by his given name of Carmine, except maybe one of his sisters or brothers if they wanted to get his attention quickly.  I don't even know how the name of "Mino" came into being, but everyone in the family called him by that nick-name, pronounced as Minnu.  When Uncle Mino introduced himself to anyone outside the family, he always used his given name Carmine, and that was also how his signed his legal signature. Come to think of it, no one other than the family called him Mino.

Uncle Mino was neat and tidy as a child, even neater as a young adult, and fastidious as he got older. He wanted his shirts ironed a certain way, his food served on nice-looking china, and his clothing came from only the best men's stores that New York City had to offer.  He always said "Buy the best and it will last forever."  He always did, and his clothes were always classic, current, and perfectly pressed, and they did indeed last for decades. 

During World War II, Uncle Mino was in the Navy and assigned to a submarine.  He had such a strong attention to detail at that time of his life that the captain of the ship requested that Carmine be assigned as his valet. (I'm positive that the captain addressed him as Carmine, not Mino.)  Uncle Mino would tell us his war stories when we were kids..... how he had to keep the captain's uniforms wrinkle-free, his shoes shined like mirrors, and his medals polished like gold.  I distinctly remember one night at my grandmother's kitchen table when my dad told his brother: "Enough with your war stories... while you were shining shoes, I was fighting Germans." 

After the War, Uncle Mino became a draftsman, which led him to a career in architecture. He was a brilliant artist, and could draw just about anything with a pencil and a "proper piece of paper," as he called it.  New York City was Uncle Mino's favorite place for sight-seeing..... he would walk around the streets with his eyes looking up at the details on the old buildings.  Whenever anyone in the family mentioned going into The City, Uncle Mino would tell them "Look up! Don't forget to look up at the buildings!"  One of the last structures that Uncle Mino worked on before retiring from the architectural firm was the Jacob Javits Center on W. 34th Street in Manhattan. He retired only because his company started using computers for their designs, and Uncle Mino was definitely 'old school' when it came to his artwork.

When my generation of cousins were kids, Uncle Mino would pay us for the coins we collected on Halloween.  In the 1950s and 1960s, a lot of people would give out pennies and nickels to the trick-or-treating kids, rather than candy. Uncle Mino was an avid coin collector, and he just knew that one day he would come across a very rare coin that had been dropped into one of our Halloween bags. If we gave him 60 cents worth of pennies, he would give us a crisp one-dollar bill.  Then Uncle Mino would spend hours polishing up those pennies till they were bright and shining, adding the older ones to his collection.

There was an afternoon in the Spring when I was in the 4th or 5th grade, and Uncle Mino came home with a very small lemon tree in a tin bucket.  His plan was to take the tree out of the little bucket, re-plant it with good soil in a large ceramic planter, and keep the plant in the corner of Grandma's kitchen near his chair.  That particular corner got a lot of sun during the day, and Uncle Mino had visions of that tree growing up to the ceiling and producing enough lemons to keep the family in lemonade. (My grandmother made the best lemonade, which everyone just loved.)

Into the corner went the newly replanted lemon tree.... right into that sunny corner by Uncle Mino's place at the kitchen table.  The tree grew taller over the years, and it did indeed reach the ceiling. However, not one solitary lemon ever grew on that tree.  Uncle Mino would talk to the tree, remove old leaves very carefully, and he never allowed anyone to water it. His theory was that the tree needed just one consistent caretaker in order to thrive.  Of course, the family made a joke over that tree, because it never did produce any lemons, but Mino took care of that tree for nearly 20 years.  When I was in high school, my dad got a couple of very small lemons from the store and managed to tie them onto Mino's tree with fishing line.  When Mino walked into the kitchen that particular morning, he stopped in his tracks and his mouth opened in surprise..... but within seconds, he realized that bright yellow lemons wouldn't have sprouted from the tree over-night.  He quickly removed the lemons, telling my dad that the thin fishing line would cut into the branches of his tree.  "Your lemon tree is a lemon," my dad would tell him.

Uncle Mino got married in the early 1950s.  I remember his wife clearly, because she was blond and very pretty, and not Italian.  They had two children, a boy and a girl.  The marriage, however, didn't last.  I've no idea why, but if I had to guess, I would imagine my Uncle's fastidiousness  would be right up there at the top of the list of reasons for their divorce.  Mino's wife left the state of New York, taking the two children with her.  The kids were very young at the time, and Mino's ex-wife kept them away from their father and away from the rest of the family.  Uncle Mino didn't see his children for the rest of his life.  Two years after Uncle Mino passed away, a young man rang my grandmother's doorbell, and told Aunt Dolly that he was Mino's son.  Aunt Dolly of course saw the family resemblance, but had to break the news that Mino had died.

In the early 1960s, Uncle Mino met a woman at work named Kathryn.  She was the perfect partner for my uncle because she loved The City.... loved to go to Broadway shows, loved trying new restaurants, loved all the energy and madness of Manhattan.  Mino and Kathryn would walk around The City for hours, taking in shows, going out to eat, and then walking around just looking up, up, up at the details on the older buildings.  We all thought that Mino and Kathryn would eventually get married, but Kathryn told my grandmother "Marrying your son would never work out. I love him dearly but I'd end up killing him."   Kathryn knew how fussy and non-flexible Mino was, and she could tolerate his habits on a friendly social basis, but she was smart enough to know that she couldn't live with those characteristics.  Mino and Kathryn stayed friends for two decades, until Kathryn passed away. My uncle had gone to her apartment to pick up her for a date, and Kathryn didn't answer the doorbell.  Uncle Mino found the superintendent of the apartment building and they both went back to the apartment door with the key.  They found Kathryn in her bed, having died during the night..... it was later found out that she died of a heart attack.  Uncle Mino was crushed... it saddened him for years afterwards, and he never dated another woman.

Mino loved all of his nieces and nephews as if they were his own children. He was forever bringing us gifts from The City... he would walk around Manhattan on his lunch-hour and if he saw something in one of the stores that would be "good for the kids," he would buy it and bring it home.  One such gift was a very expensive telescope that was nestled into a huge wooden box lined with velvet.  It was so elegant that Uncle Mino made us all wash our hands before we even touched the box.  Mino would carry the telescope into the yard on clear nights, pointing out the constellations and making us memorize their names and the correct spelling of each.  We were probably the only kids in the neighborhood who had their own backyard sky show.  That telescope was eventually given to my cousin T, who showed the most interest in the sky.  Twenty years ago, that same cousin left his job in the corporate world, bought more telescopes, and started his own star-gazing business that is very successful and very fulfilling to this day.

Uncle Mino went through World War II with hardly getting a scratch, thanks to his position as valet for the captain of the submarine he was assigned to during the War.  In his mid 70s, Uncle Mino had to be admitted to the hospital for a simple gall bladder operation. Everything went fine... he came home and was told to rest until his follow-up appointment with his surgeon.  My Aunt Dolly took care of her brother's every need, not even letting him walk down the stairs to the kitchen for his meals, for fear of disrupting the stitches from the operation.  On a sunny March morning in 1999, Aunt Dolly asked Mino what he'd like for breakfast.  "You know what? I'd really like some hot oatmeal today," he told her.  And those were the last words he ever spoke.... when Aunt Dolly brought his breakfast up on a tray, Uncle Mino was dead, resting on his own pillow in his own bed, with the covers neatly pulled up and folded by his chest.  The family would later find out that he died of a heart attack.

With my generation of cousins, and the generation that followed, we all agreed that you had to understand Uncle Mino before you could love him.  And without a doubt, we all loved him.  There was nothing we asked him for that he couldn't find for us in The City, that magical place where he went to work every day, taking a bus and two trains to get from Grandma's house in Queens to his office building in the heart of The City.  When my generation graduated school and began looking for jobs, Uncle Mino would tell us "Go into Manhattan.... go to The City.... it has more to offer than Queens and Long Island."  We would ask "More money?"  And Uncle Mino would answer "Money? Who cares about money? Manhattan has more history, and that's what counts!"

The Family's Senior Moments... Giaconda.

My grandparents gave another operatic name to this girl-baby born in 1920.  "La Giaconda" is what Grandpa used to call her... which eventually was pronounced like Ja-goan-da by her brothers and sisters who had trouble with the proper vowel placement when they were little.  As the years went along, the family started calling her Jaye, and that's what mostly stuck.

Aunt Jaye... always very distinctive from my first memories of her.  She was pure fashion with a passion, and she loved every feminine accessory to go along with the latest styles.  Pretty shoes, fancy purses, lavish furs, anything with a leopard design, and jewelry.... Aunt Jaye was the Jewel Queen of the family.

My Aunt Dolly swore by classic styles, and still does to this day, but Aunt Jaye opted for the most attention-getting outfits which screamed Hollywood from head to toe.  For as long as I can remember, Aunt Jaye's make-up was "close-up perfect," with false eyelashes that brought out the vamp in her, and magenta-colored lipstick that was unmistakably her signature color.  Because of that bright magenta on her lips, I had cousins who cringed at the thought of a kiss hello from Aunt Jaye, and still other cousins who would hide behind a chair, their parents, or a tree, just to avoid that magenta kiss.  And along with that kiss went a face-pinch.... as Aunt Jaye kissed you on one side of your face, her hand would be pinching the other side of your face as she told you how much you looked like "the family."  (My cousin D would always tell her: "Well, who else would I look like?")

I've seen many photographs of my Aunt Jaye over the years, and the pictures taken of her when she was in her 20s and 30s were absolutely stunning.  Even into her 40s, if you didn't know who she was, you would swear you were looking at a close-up of the latest Hollywood actress who was set to star in a film with Clark Gable or Cary Grant.  Jaye was honestly that beautiful, and she just oozed glamour from her perfectly-coiffed hair to the satin sheen of her petite shoes.

Aunt Jaye's husband, Uncle T, owned a nightclub in The City...... she had meals cooked for her by the chefs there, so she never had to worry about messing up her own kitchen with food preparation.  Aunt Jaye didn't like to cook, didn't want to cook, and had no intention of learning how to cook for the whole family.  I would imagine that after all those years growing up in my grandmother's kitchen, some sort of culinary talent would have rubbed off on her.  But Aunt Jaye was determined to take full advantage of the well-skilled chefs in her husband's restaurant.  The dining room in Jaye's house was gorgeous, dripping with crystal chandeliers and beautiful china, but the family never went there for a meal.  If you wanted a Sunday dinner or a holiday feast, then everyone went to Grandma's.

Uncle T's nightclub was a well-known hot spot in the hey-day of The City, and Aunt Jaye could be found there dancing the night away--- and her dancing was elegant, without fault. The club was frequented by regulars who loved to hear big-band music, and also by celebrities who liked the anonymity and privacy of the club.  My mother and my dad used to go there for dinner and dancing every payday.... and my mother once danced with Jimmy Durante who was a regular patron there.

Aunt Jaye and Uncle T had one child, a daughter R, born barely four months after me.  Because of our closeness in age, we grew up as sisters, inseparable in everything but temperament.  I was the quiet one, R was more flamboyant.   R seems to have inherited our Uncle Larry's dancing gene, because she can ballroom-dance circles around anyone else on a dance floor.  My cousin R also inherited her mother's passion for fashion, and she thrives on always looking her best, as if she just stepped out of the pages of Vogue.

When our generation of cousins were kids, Aunt Jaye was like a movie star to us.  When the family got together at Grandma's for a big dinner, Jaye was the one who always arrived later than everyone else. My dad would say: "Jaye doesn't just walk into this house, she makes an entrance."  And she certainly did.... we all couldn't wait to see what she was wearing.  Always an elegant hat, a Hollywood-worthy dress, ropes of pearls, the most beautiful shoes, and to top it all off, a fur coat.  I can distinctly remember "petting" one of her furs because it was just so soft and I couldn't resist.  Aunt Jaye scolded me: "Don't touch my coat.... you'll hurt the fur!"   My dad once told his sister:  "If you're so worried about hurting the poor animals who died for that coat, why don't you just wear a paper bag over that dress?" 

Aunt Jaye was immensely loyal to, and protective of, the family.  Jaye, like Grandpa, always believed "Family is always family, no matter what."  We were all at a christening party for one of my cousin's children in the early 1990s.  I had picked up my dad, and along with a man I was dating at the time, the three of us drove out to the Island to join the family at the party.  Not five minutes after we had arrived, my Aunt Jaye pulled me over to the side of my cousin's backyard and asked me why I had brought "a stranger" to the party. "He's not a stranger.... he's my date," I told Aunt Jaye.   She was not satisfied.  "This is a family party, and he's not family."  I was at a loss for words, or pretty close to it..... so I just looked at my aunt and said "What are we here? The Royal Family?"  Aunt Jaye pursed her magenta lips and then said "We're better than the Royal Family,  we're Italian... and don't you forget it."

Loyal. Fiercely loyal, always.  There are days now, however, when Aunt Jaye can barely recognize her family. Other days, she cannot remember their names.  Nearly two years ago, Aunt Jaye's memory capability began to fade... the result of a stroke of sorts.  No need to go into all the medical details..... suffice it to say that Aunt Jaye is now a quiet shadow of her once overwhelmingly ebullient self.  She can no longer live at home..... my cousin R had to make the hardest decision of her life, to move her mother into a nursing facility. 

I speak to Aunt Jaye over the phone, after my cousin R tells her who I am and makes sure she understands.  Once Jaye realizes exactly who I am, that I am her brother's daughter, her voice on the phone sounds happy and enthusiastic, bubbling with love.... she'll tell me how good her daughter is to her, how much she loves her, how much she misses seeing their little dog.  She'll ask me how I'm feeling, and she will tell me to give her regards to my husband.  At the end of the conversation, she will say: "Don't forget that I love you... I love all my family."  As she says those words, I swear that I can almost feel her pinching my face like she did so many years ago.

My cousin R told me that she brought a photograph of her parents to her mother's room in the hospital.... the photo sits in a pretty gilded frame on the table beside Aunt Jaye's bed.  The picture was taken decades ago, when both Jaye and Uncle T were at the height of their life together, the height of their health and good looks.  They're dressed in their finest, ready for dinner and dancing.  Uncle T was a handsome man, Aunt Jaye was a strikingly beautiful woman.  I know that my cousin R wants to remember her parents just that way, and it must be very hard for R to see the quiet little woman who waits for her visits.  Aunt Jaye is no longer the one making an entrance into Grandma's house.  Now it's my cousin R who's making that entrance, into the nursing facility to visit her mother.

It goes without saying that the family misses their Hollywood star.... their Giaconda, their Jaye.  No one expected, at nearly 93 years of age, for Aunt Jaye to not be able to live in her own house anymore.  Considering the extent of Aunt Jaye's memory loss, it would indeed be a blessing if she were blissfully unaware of her surroundings.... if when my cousin R goes to visit her every evening, Jaye thinks she's just coming home from work, not coming into the hospital for a visit.

When I speak to Aunt Jaye over the phone, I picture her as she always was... perfectly coiffed and dressed, with beautifully manicured hands and nails, false eyelashes, and that striking magenta lipstick.  Aunt Jaye still wears her signature lipstick color.... the only difference is that the magenta now has to be applied by her daughter.  My cousin R is overwhelmingly thankful that she still has her mother. Their lives changed overnight, in the blink of an eye, in one heart-beat of a moment.

In that one solitary heart-breaking moment, the exuberance and essence of Aunt Jaye disappeared.... vanished forever from the woman we all knew and loved.  But the angels are kind at times... when whispers of the family somehow make contact with Aunt Jaye's consciousness, that's when her eyes light up and she remembers exactly who she is, who she was, and the family she came from. "Family is family, no matter what happens."

The Family's Senior Moments... Angelino.

The year was 1919 when my grandmother gave birth to this little boy.  I am certain of the year because Angelino was my dad.  All of my grandmother's children were born at home, and in that part of the century, birth certificates were issued only for hospital births.

My grandmother's name was Angelina, so this baby boy was named after her, making the name masculine by ending it with an 'o' in place of the 'a.'   Neighborhood boys began calling this boy "Little Frank" or "Frankie," most likely because Grandpa's name was Frank. As the years went on, the family picked up that nick-name and they would call him "Frankie" instead of his given name of Angelino.

When my father was baptized, his full name was Angelino Larry (Larry being the name of another brother, born a few years before my father but not living past his 22nd birthday).  In his adult years, my dad's friends would call him Larry, his family always called him Frankie, and only in my father's signature on legal documents would Angelino ever appear in print. (Daddy always said he had "more first names than I know what to do with.")

My grandmother always told me that my dad was a happy baby, and a happy little boy.  He loved his brothers and sisters and protected them from neighborhood bullies who were known to make fun of the Italians.  My father didn't talk much about the family's years in the tenement apartment in Little Italy, other than to say "It was tough. Tough. We all did the best we could and we were glad to get out of there."

When my grandfather had saved enough money to buy property out in 'the countryside,' they moved to Queens in 1922 and grandpa was able to buy a double plot of land on a quiet street.  After digging out a full basement underneath the imprint of the house plans, Grandpa built straight up, three floors.  Any childhood memories that my dad talked about were centered in that big house on that street in Queens. In the 1920s, there was nothing but woods at the end of that street chosen by my grandfather.  In the near future, Idlewild Airport would be built across a highway that was adjacent to the end of Grandpa's quiet street and those tree-filled woods were taken down to make room for houses built by my grandfather.  In 1963, when Idlewild became John F. Kennedy Airport, the highway was expanded and Grandpa's street was no longer so quiet.

My grandparents' home became the center of the universe for the entire family as the years went by.  When I was little girl, my dad would walk me around the property and show me the spot where he and his brothers used to play ball...  the low branch of the apple tree that made it easy for the boys to climb into the tree and land on the roof of the garage... and he showed me the spot in the grass where they would land after jumping from the top of that roof.  "Papa always told us we were in America and we could do anything... and we all thought we could fly like birds."

The grammar school was within walking distance of their home, but I remember my dad telling me that "No matter how far away that school was, we would have walked anyway."  My grandparents were determined that their children would get an education.... in that part of the century, for children of immigrants, finishing 8th grade was an accomplishment.  By the time the 8th- grade graduates were ready for High School, most had taken full-time jobs to help supplement their family's income.  My dad became part of that work force.  He took whatever odd jobs he could get, bringing home his pay envelope to my grandmother, who would give him a few dollars to keep for himself.  My father told me "I didn't need much money. I lived at home, ate at home, and I was too young for fancy suits. What more did I need?  I bought a little chocolate now and then, but that was less than a nickel."

Dad's first full-time job was driving a trolley for the New York City Transit Authority.  He had routes along Jamaica Avenue, Metropolitan Ave... and along various streets in Brooklyn.  The family said my father was "Born to drive... if it had wheels, it was for Frankie."  Daddy loved his job, loved to be at the head of his vehicle, loved the responsibility and respected the riding public.  His belief was that when you worked for The City, you were ultimately working for a Good Pension.  That became his goal:  work long and hard, retire and collect your pension, then do what you want after that.  Dad's  job driving trolley-cars was switched over to driving city buses when the Transit Authority did away with the out-dated trolley lines. 

The one thing that disrupted my dad's work plans was World War II.  He enlisted at the beginning, with his three brothers.  Daddy chose the Army, his brothers chose the Marines and the Navy.  When the war was over, one brother was forever lost.

My aunts would refer to those years as "The War."  My uncles, along with my dad, wouldn't talk much about what happened while they were fighting for their country.  Aunt Dolly always said that "The War changed all of my brothers. Three of them came back filled with sadness and one died filled with shrapnel."

There were two 'war stories' that my father told me when I was growing up, and over the decades of his life, he would repeat these stories time and again, until they began to sound like prayers.  In the telling and re-telling, the details never changed, the emotion was as new as if it had occurred just the day before, and the sadness in my father's eyes didn't lessen over the years.

The first story was about a little German girl.  My dad was a Staff Sargent and his unit was assigned to a small town in Germany near Dresden.  My dad said the town had been destroyed beyond recognition, and the sight of the crumbling and bombed-out churches that had been so lovingly cared for just broke the hearts of everyone in his unit.  Dad and some of his soldiers were trying to clean up the inside of the town's church for the people there, who were standing outside on the church steps and crying over the damage.  As daddy walked up the center aisle of the church, he said a little blond German girl came out of hiding from underneath one of the pews.  "She was only three or four years old, she was burned a little bit and she had no clothes on.  The little girl was so scared... she was in shock and she wasn't even crying." 

My father said he put down his rifle, took off his uniform shirt, then took off his undershirt and put it on the little girl.  "My undershirt was so long that it was hanging down to her toes.  She looked down at the bottom of that shirt and she wriggled her toes a little, then she looked up at me and smiled, and then the tears came falling down from her eyes and she couldn't stop crying."  Daddy said that he put his uniform shirt back on, picked up his rifle and slung it over his shoulder, then picked up the little girl and carried her out to the German people who were on the steps of the church.  He asked the people there if anyone recognized the little girl... did she belong to anyone there... did they know her parents?   "They were Germans. They didn't speak English, they didn't understand Italian.  What could I do?  I walked around the steps of the church and looked at all the women there. I finally found one who looked like my own mother and I put the little girl in her arms and told her "Please take care of this little girl. She's just a baby. Please."   Daddy said the woman took off her shawl and wrapped it around the little girl whose hands were clutching the hem of his undershirt and twisting it into a ball of fabric.

My dad always ended that story with the same few sentences:  "I never saw that old woman or that little girl again, and our unit was in that town for almost two weeks. I hope they both made it out of there. Horrible what happened to their church. Horrible what happened to their lives. That War was hell. Hell on earth."

The second story of daddy's took place in a small French town.  Once again, his unit was sent there to "police the area" and do what they could for the residents.  Nearly all of the town's buildings had been either badly destroyed or totally ruined.  The town was so small that all of the people there just put every usable and salvageable item they had into one building that had the least damage.  With help from the soldiers in my dad's unit, they gathered up tables and chairs, beds and blankets, and any food they could find.  In the midst of all this hunting and gathering, a nine-year-old boy walked up to my dad with a bicycle that was nearly broken into two pieces.  "Can you fix this for me?" the little boy said to my dad.  "Imagine that," daddy told me... "The town is destroyed beyond recognition and the most important thing to that boy was his bicycle."   My dad later found out that the boy needed that bicycle to visit his grandmother in the next town, something that he did every day.

When my dad told me this story, he would say that the little French boy reminded him of his nephew and godson R, back at home in my grandmother's house.  He said the little boy had tears in his eyes, and my father immediately understood that the broken bicycle was the boy's prized possession.  My dad told the boy he would fix the bicycle the best he could.  He had soldiers search the town for other bicycles... thinking that he could take parts of other broken bikes to repair this boy's bike.  It took five days... but that's exactly what my father did.  The little boy couldn't stop crying when my dad gave him a bicycle that he could once again ride.

My father told me that story every time he bought me a new bicycle, and over the years of my childhood, I had a lot of bikes.  I was told "Take good care of this bike... there was a little boy in France when I was in the war....."   I knew the story by heart by the time I was seven, but I listened to it each and every time as if I'd never heard it before.  My dad always cried at the ending, saying "I wonder whatever happened to that little boy."

In the late 1990s, we did indeed find out what happened to that young French boy.  With computer access reaching small towns in France, a man in his mid-70s asked his nephew to find "the American soldier who fixed my bicycle during the war."  The little boy never forgot my father's name... my dad's family still owned the same house in Queens.... a letter was sent there, and then the family forwarded it to me.  It was written in French, and my Aunt Dolly thought I might know someone who could translate it for us.  Not only did I get the letter translated, but that Frenchman and I sent letters and gifts back and forth for three years.  I was the go-between for the man in France and my dad in New York. My dad would tell me what to write for him, and I used my computer to translate the letters into French, as well as translating the French letters we received into English, which I would read to daddy over the phone.  Those letters stopped when the old Frenchman passed away.   It was a nice tribute to my dad that in the last part of that old Frenchman's life, he wanted to make contact with his "American soldier."

 Those letters from France were filled with love and gratitude and appreciation, from an old man who remembered the kindness of an Army soldier during World War II.  My father, at that late stage of his life, not understanding the workings of the Internet at all, couldn't fathom how such a miracle could happen to "an old soldier" who was "just doing his job."

When my dad came home from The War, he vowed never to sign his name on another document for the government. "Last time I did that, they handed me a rifle and the next thing I knew, I was landing on the beach at Normandy."  He would repeat that phrase over and over again for the rest of his life. 

My Aunt Dolly always told me that The War took away part of my dad's happiness and she believed that he never was able to get it all back.  My uncles and my dad didn't talk much about gruesome details, but when they did get to talking about their experiences, daddy was always the one who stopped talking first.  He would get very quiet, listen to his brothers for a few minutes, then get up to make himself a cup of coffee and take it to the front porch of my grandparents' house. My dad would tell his brothers "I lived through that War once, I don't want to do it again by talking about it."

Daddy worked for The City for nearly 40 years.... first he drove the trolley cars, and then the buses.  It was on his regular bus route along Jamaica Avenue that he met the woman who would eventually become his wife and my mother.  Aunt Dolly, who remembers everything about everyone in the family, always said my mother was shy and very quiet, but much smarter than my father.  After grammar school, my mother went on to high school and nursing school. Daddy went to work, and then to war, then came back home to work again.

My parents got married in the early Spring of 1951. I was born in 1952, in the middle of the first blizzard of that year. By the time I was in the 4th grade, my parents were separated, and when I started fifth grade, they were divorced. Very unusual for that decade, to have divorced parents, unless you were living in Hollywood.  Queens was as far away from Hollywood as you could possibly get. 

The dissolution of my parents' marriage was never really clear to me, mainly because everyone in the family had a different theory and a different opinion. Even though they both re-married in the late 1960s, I truly believe that my parents still had feelings for one another. A few family members would not agree, but I'd like to believe that anyway.  My dad had given a locket to my mother before they married... this locket had tiny pictures of each of them. While they were married, my mother wore that locket on a necklace every day.  After their divorce, daddy wore that same locket on his watch chain, every day, for nearly 40 years.  In 2008, both of my parents died within two months of one another.

This son of my grandparents, my father, the man who fought in The War and then came home and spent hours of every day staring out of the porch windows and not saying a word, never wanted to be remembered as a soldier.  Daddy felt that his Army years were a part of his life that he willingly gave away for his country, but he didn't want to be honored for that time.  "I used a rifle to kill people. I couldn't help the poorest people in the towns we got sent to. I saw churches and schools blown to bits and I couldn't do anything to stop it. I had to dig graves for babies and small children. I had to watch the Jewish people try and walk out of the concentration camps with whatever dignity they possibly had left."

I think the sadness that descended upon my father during The War stayed with him for the rest of his life. At family gatherings, my dad was the life of the party... he could sing like a crooner and dance like Fred Astaire, and put him in a tuxedo and he looked like a matinee idol. But now, when I look at those old family pictures, I can see a touch of sadness in the corners of his eyes.  I truly think that my dad wanted very little out of life.... he wanted exactly what his father had:  a home filled with his children, a wife who wanted to be just a wife, and a little money in his pocket.

When I was a kid, my father would take quarters and dimes and nickels and let them drop onto the sidewalk in front of stores and in the grass near park benches.  His theory was that "Some old man or a little kid is going to find that money and they'll be smiling for the rest of the day."  He always bought whatever little kids were selling door-to-door, and he never passed by a down-and-out street person without giving them "a buck or two."

For all of the years my dad drove a bus for The City, he never took a fare from an elderly person, a member of the clergy, or any person that looked like they needed a break.  He would tell me "These old people should ride for free, they've been through The Depression. Priests, rabbis, and nuns shouldn't have to pay for anything after giving their lives to the Church. And a person who looks poor is poor."  My dad's bus was always on time because my father didn't tolerate lateness... his regular riders knew him by name and depended on him. 

My dad earned good money during his working life, and the bus company did indeed give him a great pension when he retired.  My father tried to "be retired," but it didn't work for him.  "I'm going to be dead a long time.... while I'm still able to drive, I'm going back to work."  The family thought he'd take an easy part-time job.  Daddy went to Kennedy Airport and started to drive a bus around the airport, taking passengers from one terminal to the other.  My father told the family: "This is an easy job... everyone rides for free."

I am my father's oldest child, and I was a "daddy's girl" from day one.  Just ask the family, and they'll tell you that I still am.  My dad's eyes lit up every time he saw me. Even in my teenaged years when I thought I knew everything, my dad may not have agreed with all of my choices but he never judged, never criticized.  When I was little, I told everyone "my daddy can fix everything," and I would bring him broken toys from the neighborhood kids.   When I got older and I reminded daddy of that childhood claim of mine, he would quietly say "I fixed all those toys, but I couldn't fix my marriage to your mother."

It was my dad's belief that everyone needed a very good fountain pen and a very good watch.  When birthdays and Christmas came around, everyone in the family would be gifted with one or the other from my dad.   Daddy even bought fountain pens and watches for the nuns who taught at the grammar school that I attended.  My dad's bus-driving job didn't make him a rich man, but he was a smart shopper. Daddy would put pens and watches on lay-away when he found just the right ones.  When Bic ballpoint pens got to be so popular decades ago, my dad said that no one who cared about good penmanship would use a ballpoint.  And digital watches... daddy hated those.  He said it didn't take a craftsman to make that kind of a watch..... "You could train a monkey to do that job. When you buy a watch, get one that was made by hand, and only then will you have a real timepiece."

I could write on and on about this man who was my father, but typing and editing this entry has made me very sad. In my eyes, in my memory, my dad was a kind and generous man who was blind-sided by The War and disappointed with the ending of his marriage to my mother. He carried an Italian/Catholic sense of guilt with him till the last days of his life, believing that he didn't do enough, love enough, succeed enough.

In my opinion, my dad was one of the most successful people I've known.  I don't measure success by bank accounts and college degrees.  I measure success the way my dad did:  "If you share a part of every dollar you have with someone else... if you smile at old people and you're kind to helpless animals... if you believe in tiny miracles... if people remember you with a smile... then when you come to your very last day, you will know you've had a good life."

Daddy died at the age of 89, in June of 2008.  In my mind, I can still hear his voice when I called him on the phone....... his "Hello?" would sound quiet and almost whispered.  When I told him it was me, he would then say "Hi-ya Larrie!" --- his voice no longer low and wispy.  He would make his voice louder and more robust for the duration of the conversation.

At the end of each phone call, my father wanted me to be the first to hang up. 
"I don't want to hang up on you," he'd tell me.
"But you're not hanging up on me, daddy, you're just saying good-bye."
"I don't want to say good-bye either."

So I would say good-bye, and tell him I'd talk to him in a few days.
The last part to all of my dad's phone calls was him telling me "Remember that I love you, Larrie... I've always loved you."  When I heard that, I knew it was my cue to hang up the phone, because he didn't want to be the first to put the receiver down.

I can still hear my dad's voice in my mind.  I would give anything, anything, to really hear his voice again.  "Remember that I love you, Larrie... I've always loved you."

The Family's Senior Moments.... Edie.

This girl-baby was given the operatic name of Aida when she was born.  My grandparents pronounced this name "Ai-eee-da," which would explain the Americanization of the name to Anita when she started school.  Further on in years, her brothers and sisters began calling her Edie, and that's the name that reigned with the family.

And 'reigned' is the correct word for Edie.  She not only had a definite, commanding presence, but she reigned as Queen of The Family. For as long as I can remember, Aunt Edie wanted to have the last word on everything.  It was her way or the highway, and she didn't care who liked it.  If you wore too short a dress (especially in the 1960s), she not only let you know it, but she would put a pencil mark near your knee to let you know where the hem needed to be.  Wrong color nail polish? She'd look through magazines to find just the right color that she thought would be better for you.  Same went for hair styles, fashions, shoes, purses, home furnishings.

Aunt Edie was the only one of my aunts who lived in an apartment house, and I thought that was the most marvelous accomplishment when I was a kid.  Yellowstone Blvd. in Queens in the 1950s and 1960s was an 'important' location.  Right in the heart of one of the nicest parts of the borough, close to The City, and surrounded by hundreds if not thousands of specialty shops where you could buy anything at all shipped in from every country on the globe.

Edie's apartment reflected her sense of style, independence and all things out-of-the-ordinary. Her Yellowstone Blvd. apartment was filled with black lacquer Oriental furnishings that were so different than any of the traditional antiques that were in all of the other family homes.      

The first time I went to Aunt Edie's apartment, I remember standing there at the doorway to her living room and just staring.... I didn't know where to look first because everything in her living/dining room just looked so different.   Aunt Edie thought I was being quiet and polite that day, and she complimented my three-year-old self on my good behavior.  Later on that same day, she would be scolding me because I had sunk my teeth (and left marks!) in one of her Oriental tables.  That particular table was hand-painted with delicious looking fruit in baskets and I guess I wanted to see if the fruit was edible.  The black lacquer was a soft wood.... my baby teeth were harder than anyone thought... and those two little teeth marks stayed in that table for as long as she owned it, which was as long as she lived.  I remember being at a family Christmas party in my early 40s..... Aunt Edie was still telling that story: "Do you remember when Larrie tried to eat the fruit on my little Chinese table?"

Aunt Edie had a heart of gold, even though some people may have thought it was made of brass.  She was just so determined to do things 'the right way,' and she just believed that her way was always the right way.  Naturally, not everyone in the family agreed with that theory, and there were times when she would clash with her brothers and sisters to the point of a loud discussion that would last for weeks.  I can remember my grandmother begging Aunt Edie to "let people make their own decisions... if they make a mistake, then they'll learn a lesson."   Aunt Edie's answer to that was always the same: "If they do what I tell them, they won't make a mistake."  My grandmother would go back to stirring the sauce or making dough for ravioli and just try and ignore the debate that was going on in her kitchen.

Aunt Edie was married and divorced before I was born.  She had two children from that marriage, a son and a daughter.  Edie's son was the only boy in my grandparents' house during World War II.... all of Edie's brothers had enlisted in the military, so it was just my grandfather and Edies' son for all of the war years, surrounded by "all these girls," as Grandpa would say.  Because Aunt Edie's children were so much older than I was when I was in grade school, I thought her son was my uncle and her daughter was my aunt.  I addressed them as such during one of the holiday dinners and Aunt Edie lost not a second in correcting me:  "R and L are my children, which makes them your cousins, not your uncle and aunt.  I am your Aunt. They are your cousins."  She had me repeat that whole formal decree so I wouldn't soon forget it.  While I was repeating that all back to her, one of my other cousins (of my own age) was whispering "You don't have to listen to her, Larrie... she's only your aunt, not your mother."  Which, of course, brought on another lecture from Aunt Edie to that cousin, and another debate with that cousin's mother (which was Edie's younger sister).

Because of Aunt Edie's 'single' status, she went out to The City quite a bit.  She was very pretty (as were all of my grandparents' daughters) and Edie attracted various gentlemen callers.  That's how she referred to them, giving them numbers over the years.  Gentleman Caller #1, Gentleman Caller #2, etc.   If she permanently said good-bye to one particular Caller, she didn't re-assign his number to someone else.  Reasons for being dismissed by Aunt Edie would be disrespecting either her or anyone in the family, being late for a date, or drinking, smoking, or eating too much. Aunt Edie wouldn't tolerate lateness, except if you got hit by a bus.  She had no patience with people who drank too much because she wanted to be driven home, not put in a taxi.  As for men who smoked more than one cigarette after dinner, her attitude with that was she didn't want to end up "smelling like an ash tray" by the end of the evening.  And if a man ate too much, she just couldn't cope with that at all.... "He might have a heart attack in the middle of a good restaurant and I'll never be able to show my face in there again!"

Aunt Edie liked big spenders, though.  She didn't like a man who was cheap with his money, because after all, "What's he going to do with it? Have his bank account buried in his casket?"  Edie liked fine restaurants, well-made clothing, the theatre and the opera, and she loved The City.   Manhattan was never frowned upon by Aunt Edie.  The City was exciting, vivacious, thrilling, and alive, and she loved every bit of it.  New York City was like Edie: glittery, sparkling, always ready for a party.

Edie's nick-name was "Sparkle Plenty," given to her by her sister Dolly. No matter what sort of porcelain figurine Edie bought for her apartment, she would douse it with a bit of clear glue and then dust it with gold or silver glitter.   Edie's daughter L sent me some Oriental figurines a few years ago because she thought I'd like them for our big Victorian house.  The figurines were white porcelain, a man and a woman, in delicate dancing poses.... frozen-in-time Asian dancers that were very fragile and very pretty.  If I hadn't known their origin, one look at the gold glitter all over their porcelain costumes would have told me that they began their shelf-life on one of Aunt Edie's tables.

When I was a kid, Aunt Edie's Oriental-style apartment was like walking into a Hollywood movie.  And if that hadn't been enough, visiting Aunt Edie along with Aunt Dolly was a special treat because the three of us would walk from that apartment up to Queens Blvd. and have lunch in one of the little coffee shops.  Aunt Edie didn't always want to "mess up her kitchen" with cooking.  The kitchen table, along with the counter-top and storage cabinets, were embellished with her collection of Oriental figurines, plates, and small lamps.  I don't think she wanted to move anything out of the way for a mere sandwich or a bowl of soup.

In our family, especially at my grandmother's, everyone ate at home.  No one trusted the ingredients from a restaurant to be fresh and of the best quality. (The exception to that rule was "Mama Leone's Italian Restaurant" in Manhattan.) Aside from that, we all believed that no one on the planet cooked as well as my grandmother and Aunt Dolly anyway, so why bother going out.  Aunt Edie risked health and food poisoning every chance she got... she just loved being served, and if she didn't have to cook it, she would bravely choose from a menu of cafes and restaurants that she was familiar with.  And I'm positive that if she had ever been served anything that wasn't up to her standards, she would have asked to speak to the chef.

As if it were just yesterday, I can remember sitting in a small cafe with my Aunt Edie and Aunt Dolly, and they had ordered a slice of chocolate cake for me, and one Charlotte Russe for them.  Chocolate cake was my favorite dessert as a kid, and I remember telling Aunt Dolly "This cake isn't as good as yours."  Aunt Edie told me to be polite and eat as much as I could without making a face.  Aunt Dolly told me she would bake me a chocolate cake when we got home.  While I was eating my not-so-good chocolate cake, my aunts were oohing and aahing over their Charlotte Russe.  Back in the day, a Charlotte Russe was made in individual servings, not in a crowd-sized cake pan.  The layers of angel food cake, cream, and berries were stacked in a cardboard cylinder and then sprinkled with powdered sugar and presented on a doily-embellished plate.  Without a doubt, each of my aunts could have eaten a Charlotte Russe by themselves, but they preferred to share just one because it was so rich--- rich in both taste and in calories.  It was Edie who would count the bites, making sure that Dolly didn't get more than she did.

My generation of 'the cousins' seemed at times to be intimidated by Aunt Edie.  She told you what she thought you should do, wear, and be.  And if that was in direct contrast to what you were thinking, then you were wrong.  As we grew into adults, however, we recognized Aunt Edie's sincerity.  She didn't want all of us to be just normal kids, she wanted us to be better than the normal kids.

Edie had a sense of fun which floored us..... as with her tiny French poodle named FiFi.  Every Easter, she would use food coloring to dye that little dog pink or blue or yellow, and she would even polish its nails.  Edie and FiFi would strut into my grandparents' house as if they were going to the Easter Parade on Fifth Avenue.  The adults would groan and say "Would you look at that poor dog?" and us kids would be screeching "Look at Aunt Edie's cute little Easter Poodle!  She's all pink!!"

Like all of my grandmother's daughters, Edie had a flair for fashion.  She loved going to the New York City opera and stage shows, and she had a closet filled with beautiful gowns.  She shopped for beautiful shoes and gloves to match, delicate "hose" (as she called it), and purses that were like jewels.  When Edie "stepped out," she was noticed by everyone. You just couldn't help admiring how beautifully she put herself together. 

Aunt Edie passed away in 2005, a year or two before or after her 90th birthday.  She spent the very last part of her life in a nursing home because she could no longer be taken care of in her own home. Her daughter L made sure that "Sparkle Plenty" was always beautifully coifed and dressed in that facility, although the opera gowns remained in a dark closet that Edie wouldn't ever see again. 

Aunt Edie had two children (a son and a daughter), both of whom had two children of their own.  Edie's son and his wife gave her two grandsons: both are married now, one has a young son, which is Edie's great-grandson.  Edie's daughter gave her two granddaughters: one gave her a great-granddaughter, the other gave her three great-granddaughters and one great-grandson.  Two of Edie's great-grandchildren now have children of their own, giving Edie three great-great-grandchildren.

I was not in New York for Edie's funeral, but the family told me that when Edie was put to rest in her casket, her daughter picked out one of her most beautiful gowns and her prettiest pair of shoes from her "opera closet."  She arranged for her mother's hair and make-up to be fixed just the way Edie liked, and the ultimate result was a beautifully restful Edie who looked very much at peace.   I like to imagine that Aunt Edie has been coasting on the puffiest of clouds up there since her passing, keeping company with my grandparents and other family members who have passed on over the years since.                                            

I am certain that Edie has also been watching over her ever-growing branch of the family tree down here, and I can imagine her sprinkling golden glitter wherever she can so everything will be sparkling and pretty.  As Aunt Edie always told the family: "A little extra sparkle never hurt anybody."

The Family's Senior Moments.... Dolly.

The family story has always been that when my grandmother gave birth to this girl-baby, my grandfather left the house and spent two nights and three days at his brother's house. He just couldn't believe that his wife had given birth to a girl.  He wanted sons who would eventually work in his construction and building business. Until 1913, grandma had given grandpa boy-babies... this was the first girl and grandpa was not happy.

Grandma named the baby girl Eleanora, which was eventually Americanized to Eleanor.  When grandpa's brother finally convinced him to go home and see his wife and new baby, grandpa immediately fell in love with the tiny baby who looked up at him and smiled.  Without giving apologies for his three-day absence, my grandfather said to my grandmother.... "This baby, she's so delicate, like a fine porcelain dolly."  The name stuck.... the baby girl became Dolly to everyone who knew her, for all of her life.

In her teens, Dolly learned how to hand-sew beads onto women's clothing and handbags.  She had an innate sense of design and a flair for fashion, and that talent gave her an income during The Depression.  Most New York women couldn't afford such accessories, but the Park Avenue ladies with spending money to spare didn't have to worry about limited budgets.

During her 20s, Dolly was working for a book publishing company that specialized in encyclopedia sets and bibles.  With her instinctive charm and overwhelmingly beautiful and petite appearance, Dolly could sell anything to anyone, and her employees recognized that.   They sent Dolly all over the U.S. to train their selling staff..... she gave lessons on proper manners and good grooming, and taught the sales people how to 'sell without over-selling.'

While Dolly was in California, she met a blue-eyed blond Irish man named Roy.  It was love at first sight for Roy..... it wasn't long after meeting Dolly that he wanted to marry his "Little Doll."  The wedding was planned down to the last detail...... Dolly made her wedding gown and her veil (all hand-beaded, of course) and she even designed her bouquet.... an ethereal vision of white flowers and ribbons.  From the tip of her wedding tiara to the toes of her beaded shoes, Dolly was the ultimate description of a beautiful blushing bride.

Dolly loved Roy with all of her heart until he committed an unforgivable offence... he cheated on her with another woman.  Heart-broken beyond belief, Dolly arranged to leave California and return to New York.  I don't know if Roy tried to get her back.... the family never talked about that very much and I've never asked Aunt Dolly for details.  Aunt Dolly never got over Roy, in my opinion.  She never talked badly about him, except to say that he 'made an unforgivable mistake.'  She and Roy never had children, and Dolly never re-married.  The few times that Dolly took out her wedding picture to show anyone, she would let her finger rest ever so gently on Roy's shoulder or on his arm, as if that gentle touch would make everything right again.

When Dolly left California all those years ago, she returned to her parents' house.  She took care of her parents, and she took care of her brothers and sisters till they left the house and got married, and then she took care of their children whenever she could. Her nieces and nephews became as close to her as they were to their parents. Dolly was everyone's favorite aunt, and she made every child feel as if they were her favorite also.  Aunt Dolly's eyes would light up whenever any of us came to our grandparents' house....... "There you are! How beautiful you look!"   When the girls became teenagers and started wearing heels, Aunt Dolly would meet us at the door to examine our shoes. "You're going to ruin my floors with those shoes!"  But she said it with a hug and a smile, so we either took off our shoes or walked on tip-toes.

During the 1940s and 1950s, Dolly attended the weddings of her brothers and sisters.  During the 1960s, she watched as all but one of those marriages ended in either separation or divorce.  Her sisters and brothers would urge Dolly to go out on the town, meet some new people, maybe find another husband.  Her answer was always the same: "I got married once. It didn't work."

Before the 1970s were over, Dolly had to arrange funerals for both of her parents. The house was left to Dolly because she wasn't married and my grandparents wanted her to "have something." What Dolly had was a three story house with a full basement, sitting on a double-sized plot of land with two driveways and a three-car garage... in the middle of a Queens neighborhood that had seen better days.  Her brothers and sisters all knew that those better days would never come back, and Dolly knew that she could never leave "the house that Papa built."

It wasn't until 2007 that Dolly finally moved out of that house and out of the state.  One of her nephews convinced her to move to Florida with him... he told her she'd be safe, happy, and taken care of.  Her answer to him was "Who's going to take care of Papa's house?"  No one had the heart to tell her that the house that was home to The Family since the day it was built would ultimately be sold to someone else.  "Papa always said that no one besides our family should ever own this house."  What Aunt Dolly didn't know at the time she said that was that grandpa's wish for his house would indeed come true.  The house never sold and is empty and forlorn to this very day.

Aunt Dolly celebrated her 100th birthday this year.  She has not only arranged funerals for her parents, but has attended the funerals of five brothers and two sisters, along with brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, and two nephews.  Only two of my grandparents' twelve children are alive today... Dolly and one younger sister.

My husband recently asked Aunt Dolly what her secret was for living such a long and healthy life. Her reply was "Think good. Be good. Do good. Be kind. Be nice. Be fair."   Her secret must work..... at 100 years of age, she takes no medication and makes no excuses.  She "straightens up" after the cleaning lady leaves the house in Florida, and she walks up and down a 21-step staircase every day for exercise.  Still with a flair for fashion, Aunt Dolly doesn't sit with company until she has fixed her hair, put on lipstick, and is dressed for the day. She is still well-spoken, graceful, and beautiful.

Aunt Dolly taught our generation a lot of little lessons over the years. She insisted that we all play nice with one another.  Aunt Dolly taught us that good manners and good grooming would take us anywhere in the world... that we should always wear the best shoes we could afford.... that we shouldn't follow clothing trends but we should invest in classics.  Aunt Dolly believed that there was always "room for more" at the dining room or kitchen table,  and she told us constantly that things purchased in a store would never be more valuable than Family.  One of her favorite sayings is "Don't bring a gift, bring yourself... what could be better than you?"

Aunt Dolly has always been, and still is, one of a kind. Without a husband and children of her own, she gave all of her love to her parents, her brothers and sisters, and her nieces and nephews.  Without one of Aunt Dolly's homemade cakes, we just didn't feel our birthdays were complete.  The delicious food she cooked for so many people for so many decades spoiled us all to the point that not one Italian restaurant in the state of New York was ever good enough.  She always kept "Papa's house" company-ready... her pride-of-place in her home was always beyond measure.  One would think that Dolly's life-time of taking care of everyone else first would have made her angry and bitter.  Quite the contrary... Aunt Dolly says this about her first century--- "I am the richest and the luckiest person in the world because I have such a big family who loves me."

I believe that Aunt Dolly's greatest legacy to our family is her own belief that "Family is forever.... just like love."