Read an Excerpt
Beyond The Wheelchair
Welcome To My World
By Gail Sanfilippo Trafford Publishing
Copyright © 2010 Gail Sanfilippo
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4269-4348-5
CHAPTER 1
My Family Tree
My Grandfather Francesco Sanfilippo, whom I called Papa, came from Sicily as a young man. Previous to this, in his youth, after the age of eighteen he was enlisted in the Italian Navy which in turn drafted him into the Army. His family came sporadically to America in the twentieth century, between the years of 1910 and 1925. As a young man here in America he took work on fishing boats out of both Boston and Gloucester and came home from fishing trips loaded down with flounder, cod and a fish called skate which looks similar to a stingray with wings and a long pointed tail. The meat inside the wings tasted like scallops. Our cellar was set up with a freezer in which Papa stored the fish until he cleaned and scaled what Nana wanted to cook for dinner. He became the Captain of the dragger "Little Nancy." In October of 1953 (the year I was born), his boat burned and sank offshore. When the crew was rescued, my Uncle Mac and my grandfather were using oars to steer the dory but it took on water so fast that it could not be turned. In an attempt to follow in his father's footsteps, my father did try his hand at fishing but he was not able to overcome his propensity for seasickness on the choppy New England waters.
My patriarchal grandmother, Agnes Ciula, was born in America in 1908. As I understand from my Auntie Lilly, who is my father's sister, when my Papa came to America there was an old custom to visit people they know. I presumed he came here to America to get married and some people he knew did have a daughter. Marriages back then were prearranged. So when my Papa visited the girl he discovered that she was a very heavy woman and not at all attractive to him. Her family gave him two beautiful gifts, a gold coin, worth thousands today , and a gold watch. In between these visits, my Papa stopped over to visit my Nana's parents and as he was entering the house, he saw this other girl hanging cloths. When he went into the house, he asked who she was and so I guess it was love at first sight, because my Papa told the father of the other girl he loved someone else and could not marry her.
My father was born in November 28, 1927 at home in Boston's North End and brought up in Everett. He came from a large family of Italian descent and graduated from Everett Vocational High School in 1945.
My mother, who was born two years later in Everett, graduated from Everett High and worked in the payroll department of F.W. Dodge. My mother was very smart when it came to anything having to do with math and accounting. After graduation she went to work for Sears and Roebuck. She continued to work after she married my father and only stopped working a couple of weeks or so before I was born.
My parents first met in December of 1948 at a friend's Christmas party, although they had grown up in the same city and lived there all of their lives.
From the start my father showed interest in my mother but he joined the Army and went over to Korea as a military policeman (MP) for about a year and a half, leaving his job at General Electric. Their courtship never actually started until 1949. They dated once a week for awhile, but this relationship did not work out well in the beginning. Jealousy can do many things, so my father gave up being out with his buddies. Dates were always after my Dad got off from his three to eleven o'clock shift at General Electric which was in Lynn, Massachusetts. Sometimes they just met in my Grandparent Campbell's living room on Reed Street, Everett, Massachusetts and just talked until it got light out. My mother tells a funny story about this happening when my Nana Campbell, being so lenient due to her overly disciplined childhood, used to creep downstairs whispering to my Mother "Your father's coming down very shortly." I guess then all three made a mad disappearing act, scurrying to their proper places before my Grandfather came downstairs for breakfast.
My Mom told me of this other hilarious incident which occurred while she was dating my Dad. It seems that whenever the two of them went out in the car, my Dad pulled over a lot telling my Mom the tire had to be checked. It was not until their wedding night when my Dad passed wind saying "I've been suffering, Edna, for the past three years!"
My parents, being from two different religious and ethnic backgrounds, did not help their courtship either. My Dad was Catholic and of Italian descent and with my Mother being of Protestant and French, English and Scotch heritage surely did not help. My grandfather on my mother's side did not take too well to his daughter marrying a Catholic. As my Mother tells me, my Father was willing to convert to the Protestant faith.
My Mother told me years later about the first time my Dad brought my Mom's parents over to meet his parents. My Grandfather Campbell nearly fainted when my father met him because, like the rest of his family, my dad had a boisterous, happy go lucky nature and was such a cheerful man. It was very funny to me, because I could picture my Grandfather Campbell, as reserved and soft-spoken as he was, being appalled at the loud and happy man that would inevitably become a part of his family. The two were exact opposites.
Despite the disapproval of Grandpa, my parents were married on a rainy day on May 25, 1952. My Father footed the bill for the wedding, and he bought my mother her wedding gown.
My Father worked thirty-eight years for General Electric at the Lynn and Everett, Massachusetts plants. He started out as a custodian sweeping floors before he married my mother and during their marriage worked his way up to welding parts for aircraft carriers. Throughout the duration of his service to General Electric he was laid off a lot (as all the blue collar workers were from time to time). During these times he found other jobs driving tar trucks and serving on the Everett police force. When General Electric called him back, these jobs would overlap at times. The last job he worked at before his retirement in 1987 was as a welder for aircraft engines. He loved the work and I heard that co-workers used to ask him to check for cracks on their engines prior to their departure to the assembly line.
While they were waiting for the apartment downstairs from my Dad's parents' house to be renovated and remodeled, my parents stayed at both of my grandparents' houses in Everett or down on Cape Cod at a rented cottage which my maternal Grandparents had for the summer. From my math it was in that time frame that I was conceived, either in Everett or down at Cape Cod at one of the cottages!
When my mother was pregnant with me, they moved into the renovated apartment on the first floor of the half of a house which Papa Sanfilippo owned. My grandparents had the whole apartment renovated because they wanted to be close to their son and daughter-in-law. The other half was owned by other family relatives. My aunts, uncles and cousins on my father's side lived in the same dwelling upstairs with only two or three bedrooms. Looking back now, I wonder how my Grandparents had any privacy with six children around. But this is how a lot of families grew up seventy or so years ago. In addition to my Papa and Nana's duplex, there two others that were occupied with even more of my Dad's relatives as first, second and even third generations of cousins, so I grew up in a very tight family environment. Throughout the years when my father's sisters Auntie Lillian and Auntie Josie were married, they, too, resided on Vine Street for a period of years, so I really grew up with many family values.
The way we thought of her, my Nana Sanfilippo was a typical old fashioned Italian grandmother with always plenty of food for all of us. She always cooked enough to feed a small army! She was an amazingly warm, heavy- set woman, always cooking up mouth-watering old fashioned meals at our home on Vine Street, where she lived upstairs. She had always taken a lot of pride in her family as well as helping out others who needed a helping hand. She took such great pride in her matriarchal position in the family and fulfilling her purpose in life. She usually had on a house dress and printed apron as she stood at her stove frying up the meatballs and pork chops (and on "special" occasions pigs feet for flavor, which repelled me at the time!). She made the dinner in her cast iron skillet, while the sauce she had put together to use with her tomato sauce ( which we called "gravy") was like some kind of magic potion to which only she knew the ingredients, simmered for hours on the other burner.
Each Sunday morning my Nana Sanfilippo would call down from the head landing of the upstairs and shout downstairs "Iggie, come up to get Gail's fried meatballs, gravy and Italian roll." My Dad, being his own standup comedian always said "What about me? I'm you're son!" My Nana continued to say quite sincerely "Gail is more important!" Sundays at one o'clock was like open house at Nana Sanfilippo's with aunts, uncles, cousins and guests, drawn to the smell of food cooking and a mixture of Italian or pop music flowing out from my grandparents' huge hi-fi ,which was in the hallway next to the kitchen , and sports blaring from the front living room where all the men gathered in between the main meal and dessert. No one starved or had worms. The garlic killed everything!
And, of course, there was always wine on the table. It still brings to mind someone mixing for me a quarter of this appalling port red wine with orange soda to cut the taste of it at and coffee with biscotti (Italian cookies made from flour, sugar, eggs, almonds and vanilla) at every Sunday dinner.
Most every other Thursday it was chicken soup day when all my cousins, aunts and uncles gathered at her kitchen table to eat the "best" soup ever. As usual, my grand-mother put together her homemade chicken soup which was accompanied by the best fried chicken I have ever had topped with fried onions. My grandmother was always very surprised by the amount of food I put away when she cooked, but she knew how much I enjoyed her fried chicken and onions. It was one of my most favorite meals that my Nana cooked. I used to get three thirds of the fried onions automatically right from the sizzling, frying pan.
Two of my favorite dishes were my Nana's garlic macaroni she made on occasion from spaghetti with freshly diced cloves of garlic, virgin olive oil an recently grated cheese.
The second was her fish soup made from fish heads, olive oil, cloves of garlic and tons of freshly grated cheese. When I ever heard in later years that she used fish heads, I said "No!" Just the idea of eating the liquid from fishes' brains made me sick to my stomach, but there are some things one needs to put back in one's mind. Just think about China and Japan's food and delicacies! They actually sell and eat dog. I know I would starve to death, but these are the customs. All I can say is that nobody could ever duplicate Nana's recipes. She held secrets that would always be secrets and these two she carried to her grave.
Nana was a simple woman and her whole existence was her family. My memories of her are varied like the patterns of her aprons. I will never forget when she had taken care of me while my Mother went to the hospital to give birth to my sister, Nancy. It is one I will cherish forever. I was always being fed with stories to make me eat. One I remember more than others was that she told me she would bring me to the circus if I ate. Apparently the circus overlooked the children of Everett, because I waited for years and was beginning to grow heavier and heavier! This one statement was all she ever said and she continued on for years with each of her grandchildren until we were old enough to know that she had no intention of bringing me or any other of her grandkids to the circus. To be sure, my Nana's method worked, because my Mother told me that when she saw me after she came home from the hospital she did not recognize me since I had gained so much weight. Yes, food was love to my Nana Sanfilippo.
Nana was a very religious woman. Often while my grandmother was standing at the stove, I could hear her whispering the rosary under her breath to herself over and over again. This never made sense to me, because I always was told that God was everywhere and sees everything, so why did he need to hear prayer upon prayer? When I was around eight or so, she started taking me to The Fisherman's Feast in the North End of Boston.
Since 1911, "The Fisherman's Feast" has been an event every year based on the devotion of the fishermen from Sciacca to the Soccorso (Our Lady of Help) which lasts for four days with the blessing of the fishing waters and food. The favorite dishes are Italian sausages, calamari, pizza and pasta. The finale of the feast is on Sunday night with "Flight of the Angel."
Nana's nurturing skills and religious beliefs could be seen as she pushed me down North Street and Fleet Street in these sticky "dog days" of August. Not only was I sweating my ass off, but I felt so uncomfortable in my own skin at this age being in a wheelchair. Men, women, young and old, and children, were tossing dollar bills of every denomination down off their apartments minute to give praise to this statue in the hopes that a prayer would be answered or a miracle would touch their lives. I found out later the statue was the image of the Madonna DiAnzano, also known as Our Lady of Help, who was discovered four hundred years ago in a tiny village now called Anzano, Sicily.
*The legend is that, when a farmer's cow wandered away, and as he searched for him, the farmer saw a beam of light upon some shrubs which was in the form of the Madonna. The statue was erected in a nearby town of Trevico, in the honor of this discovery. As the sculpture was lifted onto a wagon with a single bull pulling it, the wagon could not be moved, so the people decided they needed additional bulls to move it. At last, a total of nine bulls brought the figure to the border of Trevico, and no further. A chapel was built at the spot where the statue of Madonna still stands today.*
When I was growing up I could see that my Nana Sanfilippo had very few pleasures in her life. One of them was having the women in the neighborhood coming over to play cards once a week. Living downstairs, I could hear the clicking of shoes above me when someone won and, of course, my grandmother's footsteps continuously pacing back and forth on the tiled kitchen floor getting food and beverages for her guests.
As her family grew and went our own ways my Nana took up Bingo. I believe these digressions, which took place two nights weekly at both a local Catholic Church hall and Jewish synagogue, kept her going. Oh, how she loved Bingo! I well remember during the weeks, months and years she persistently said "I only had one number to go before winning a thousand or so!"
Despite my belief that my maternal grandparents came from totally different back-grounds, I am finding out in writing this book that they were a lot alike. My Grandfather Thomas Campbell and Grandmother Catherine Frigout had grown up in the same neighborhood near Kent, England. As for my Grandpa Campbell, his mother died in childbirth leaving him to be raised by his Aunt Jessie who was a very strict woman, so I am told. My grandfather's father married three times, with his first wife dying, the second he divorced, and the third residing with him in Malden, Massachusetts until her death.
My Nana Campbell grew up in a very affluent neighborhood over in England. She told me that she often played with the children at Buckingham Palace. Her mother was a very controlling woman who never approved of the young men she dated. She also had drinking problems, which drove my Grandmother further away.
World War One was being fought around the time that my grandfather met my grandmother. He did not believe in the war, but he served as a cook in the British military. From the stories my grandmother told me, they were deeply in love but because of her mother's iron fist they made secret plans to meet up with each other in America. They both made a vow to meet in five years to get married in America.
In five years my Grandmother left in the middle of the night to make her great escape from her mother's overwhelming protectiveness to get the ship to America to meet my Grampa Campball and never look back again. As I was told, my Great Grandfather Campbell was already in America employed as a wallpaper designer, which was a very good job in those days. He owned a couple of houses down on Cape Cod and gave an automobile to his son and daughter-in-law who were the first people in the neighborhood with a car.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Beyond The Wheelchair by Gail Sanfilippo. Copyright © 2010 Gail Sanfilippo. Excerpted by permission of Trafford Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
