That's me when I was a babe. And yes, that's a gun in my hand. I can't be more than 6 months old. Yes, I know I'm large. Actually I broke the hospital record when I was born -- 13 lbs. 6 ounces. My mother always claimed my birth was her easiest one ... but then what do you expect after delivering ten babies before me!
This one is my mom when she was a girl of about 6 or 7 -- so that must have been 1920 or 1921. You can see from the stamp that it's a Bachrach proof. She was always a spoiled girl and she knew it!
That's my mom again this time on her way "abroad" for the first time. She is 17-years-old. It's May 1931. She left a few days before her high school graduation accompanied by a couple of aunts, a couple of priests and her uncle. They toured Europe in a grand style, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, maybe even Austria. She met a Duke along the way, and then she met my father.
Quite a dude, eh? An officer in the Italian Army. At least for a little while. He was doing his patriotic duty while studying medicine at the University of Roma. A cardinal introduced my parents. He told them that they would marry. Both my parents poo-poohed him. So what did this cardinal know about love?So to give you a quick version of the story ... my mom came back to the States, of course, after "visiting my father's island" -- that's what she always said. My father came from a small island in the Bay of Naples. He invited my mother and her entourage to "his island", and indeed they did visit. My mother didn't like the way my father combed his hair at the time, so she was still hoping to see her Duke again. In fact, she did see the Duke again after the island visit, but we never heard that part of the story. I guess my father's charms had already started to work. No wonder, he was an incredibly charming man.
They corresponded for a couple of years. Then my father sailed across the ocean, learned to speak English beautifully, established himself as a resident in the local hospital in New England near to my mother's family home, and began his formal courtship. Three years later they were married, and just about every year thereafter they had a new baby. Whew!
My oldest brother was 16 when I was born. There are no twins, and there were a couple of miscarriages along the way as well as a couple of serious illnesses. But overall, my parents had a good life with an incredible love affair throughout their time together.
My mom died about four years ago, my dad many more ago -- maybe 15 years by now. Those are things that we somehow just expect and throughout growing up, on some level, we are each preparing ourselves for the day when our parents would be gone. But I never thought about my siblings dying. Whoa. I just never thought about it until my oldest brother died the year after my mom. Now that really rocks the earth.
Let's not dwell there too long! The thing about my family -- well, we lived in this huge, beautiful home. I remember when they landmarked the house, it was built in 1860, I think, of stone and red slate, with a large garden that my father planned and cultivated.
During the week my father always worked late seeing patients and making housecalls, and my mom would wait until he came home to have dinner with him -- usually around 10pm. They would sit together in the dining room. Hours earlier, though, my mother would serve us dinner in the kitchen. When I was little, there were usually about 8 of us home at any given time. This reduced, of course, over the years, as we each grew up, went off to college, etc. But there was always a crowd at dinner -- friends popping in, or my aunt Lal stopping by. On Sunday, I swear we always had a least one priest at the dinner table if not several.
My mom cooked during the week. Going to the market with my mother was always fun. We had to buy so much so often! We had an industrial size refrigerator and a restaurant size dishwasher. My mother came from Irish decent, so she'd cook up corned beef and cabbage and beef stew. She also learned to cook Italian style, as my father was very precise and sophisticated and did not have much tolerance for anything but perfection. That's something he shared with my mother, so she did indeed learn to cook Italian food beautifully.
But cooking with my dad was something else. He'd spend the weekends in the garden and in the kitchen. I remember helping him in the garden, finding worms and throwing them in my sister B's face. Oh, she would scream! She hated worms and I had a knack for digging them up! She would yell at me and chase me around the yard, tackle me and we'd get all dirty and we'd be tossling and screaming -- what fun! Here's a picture of B when she was a babe.
Anyway, like I was saying, cooking with my dad was something else. On Saturday mornings we'd go up to the Providence Cheese Market on Federal Hill. The moment my father would get out of the car he would be surrounded by people wanting to kiss his hand. No, he wasn't the Godfather. But pretty close to that, except on the good side. He was their doctor. And in those days, people confided all sorts of things in their doctor. My father took great care of his many patients. But it was always a scene outside the Providence Cheese. Then when we went in, what service he got! Oh yes, Dottore, what can I get for you, Dottore? He would always get us each a special treat, then we'd go home with all our bundles to cook!So stayed tuned to find out just what we did cook in those days and what I'm cooking up right now!
