By: Laura Pann
With the holiday season approaching, I find myself being revisited by fond memories of loved ones and times gone by. And, I am looking forward to being with those who are still here. And to the preparations for the times we will share together. Sometimes I feel as if my family is on a stairway. We see the babies just beginning at the bottom step, our siblings and cousins standing with us, and look up to our parents, uncles and aunts above us. As we each make our own individual journey up the "stairway" we find that those who were somewhere ahead of us, are suddenly gone from our sight. We can no longer see our grandparents, or maybe even a child who ran eagerly past us on their trip through life. And we know that they have gone on to a new height, preceeding us, leaving a path for us to follow.
We must realize that the losing and adding of family members is the natural order of our life, and yet we are prone to call back the memories. Trying to make contact once again, and finding comfort in doing so. The holidays are one of those times when the urge to travel back in time to reconnect is the strongest inside of me. It is, for me, as much a part of the holiday preparation as the shopping for gifts, or baking of cookies, and planning of get-togethers. And when I do touch the warm memories once again, I feel a deeper sense of gratitude for the family I can call my own, and for the person I am.
Some of my earliest memories of family holidays are a magical feeling of wonder, as I recall that Santa really did come to leave our Christmas presents on our roof! And the pretty white angel, who sat atop our Christmas Tree each year,always gave me such a wonderful feeling, as she seemed to send her warmth my way. One of my favorite things to do as a child, was to stand alone in our darkened livingroom, with only the tree lights gleeming. I would look at the shadows of the pine needles on the ceiling and walls around me. I would usually manage to take that moment each year, after the presents were opened and everyone else had gone off to bed. I'd pause to steal my private time, with the shadows on the wall, the aroma of pine, and the Christmas Angel smiling down on me, and that was when the Spirit of Christmas would come alive in my heart.
How fond are the memories of my grandparents, who lived next door to our house. They were my best friends, as well as family. I learned so much from them. Their "gifts" to me were in the examples they set before me, on how to live, work, and socialize, and how to care for one another. My parents also did this for me. But grandparents have a certain "feeling" they generate,that makes their influence in our life more like a comfortable "homeschooling" experience, that is less authoritative and more "fun" in the sharing.
During the days before Thanksgiving, grandfather would wait for the first good snowfall. It seemed to always happen, as he knew it would, and he would head out to the fields behind our houses, taking his shotgun and hunting companion, Jeep, with him. The large black and white spaniel would accompany him eagerly as they set out very early in the morning. And I would see only the trail of their footprints in the snow when I crossed the backyard to go to help my grandmother prepare for the approaching festivity. When the hunters returned, they would have a pheasant, or rabbits, or perhaps even a wild turkey.
Grandmother would let me help her clean the house. Somehow, she made the vacuuming,dusting,and cleaning seem like a "good" thing to do. She would assign me a task, first expaining how she wanted it preformed, then she would leave me alone to complete it. When I was done, she would come to look at my results, and her approving looks or comments always were my reward. Little did I know, that she was helping to build my future housekeeping skills, and to instill a sense of pride in me for completing a job well done.
As the family meal preparation began, there was the making of dough and fillings for pies, and the cooking of cranberries, and dicing of the ingredients for the stuffing. I would act as grandmother's "kitchen helper" by doing the small tasks she assigned to me. I felt so much the "little lady" of the day. But as soon as grandfather returned with the freshly killed game, I would manage to slip away. For I detested the cleaning process and seeing those poor dead animals that would be on the dinnertable later.
Thanksgiving would arrive, and I knew in advance the wonderful aroma's that would greet my senses when I returned to my grandparents house. I would arrive early to help set the table for the meal. I'd scurry across the backyard sidewalk, going from the chilled outdoors into an instant world of warmth. Both the upstairs and downstairs ovens had been on for many hours, cooking the game, vegetables, and baking deserts. I would enter and go downstairs where the holiday meals were served. This would be one of the rare occassions when the small cast iron woodstove that stood in front of the red-brick chimney would be lit, to provide extra space for keeping things warm. I'd pause in front of it, while greeting my grandmother. She would be wearing her apron and standing at the old fashioned basement stove, that stood on legs, and had two ovens.
I would wonder if she had been awake all night cooking. For, when I arrived the pies were baked and everything else was well on it's way to being cooked, creating a rainbow of smells that set my tummy rumbling with desire. My job would start with the cleaning of the tabletops, then placing the tableclothes, and arranging the glasses, cups, dishes and silverware. Every year it was the same wonderful proceedure. "How many places?" I would ask her. And grandmother would stop whatever she was doing to count out each person who would be there. It would come to a total of thirteen guests. And she would tell me "set fourteen places." I'd ask, "who is the extra placesetting for?" And grandmother would turn back to stir something on the stovetop and reply "it's for Yahooti." I learned many years later, that the truth of the matter was that, grandmother was too superstitious to have thirteen places at her dinnertable. And the elusive Yahooti never arrived for the partaking of our wonderful holiday feast.
After the meal, the men would retire to the livingroom, upstairs, to watch some sports events on the Motarola television, and partake in the smoking of afterdinner cigars. The women would clean the table and wash the dishes. This was the time they would all catch up on "family stuff." The children would withdraw to play games or take a nap. My favorite recollection is of the time I chose to go to grandmother's bedroom to rest. The full-length fur coats of my mother and aunts were laying on her bed. I closed the door, and crawled amoung the brown, black, and white furs, they smelled sweetly of the perfumes each owner wore, and I fell asleep, feeling as if I were on a soft cloud!
Some of our holiday adventures were quite different. For we would travel the highways to Chicago, Illlinois to be with my fathers family. These were also times of joyful festivity. I didn't like the traveling, so I would fall asleep in the car as we moved along. When my mother would awaken me, the sights of the tall stone buildings, close together, with only an occasional tree growing out of a hole in the sidewalk, would make me wonder why anyone would want to live in the city. But we were always given a wonderfully warm greeting from those who awaited us there.
Amoung this side of our family, I felt just as a child. I would sit and watch and listen to the activity around me. We would stay at my paternal grandmother's city flat, where my father had spent his teenage years. Here, it seemed like there were so many relatives coming and going. Someone was always sitting at the kitchen table, the apartment was always full of people. And I felt so "small" and "surrounded."
When it came time for us to sleep, the children shared the bedroom off the side of the kitchen. It was crowded, and unfamiliar to me, and I could never rest well. But the next morning, after waiting our turn to use the bathroom in which the biggest old bathtub on clawfeet stood, aside the small pedistal sink, we would go to the pantry to choose a bag of dry cereal to have for breakfast. Sitting at the kitchen table, warmed by the space heater, we would eat our puffed wheat and watch the small tv together. I remember watching the movie Heidi, as we began our day.
Coming to the city was so different, I was always so glad to go back home. But I will always remember how it felt. The sound of people everywhere, the horse drawn vegetable wagon and the peanut vendor's cart in the street below, with their owners hawking their produce for sale. In later years we would gather at my Uncle Jimmy's home in a suburb of Chicago. I found this more enjoyable, because he had a nice back yard with a lawn and trees. It was more welcoming to a child like myself. The aunts, uncles, and cousins would gather to eat wonderful italian foods, and visit with each other.
When I look back now, I recognise the wonderful sense of love, respect, and comradery that was there amoung my father's family. I still don't know all of my relatives from that side of my lineage. My source of reference may have been more from family photo's, or faces at large family weddings that have no name attached to them in my memory. But the sense of being related to such a large extended group is a good one. I know that part of what makes me who I am comes from those relatives in the city that my father left behind when he came here to marry my mother and start a family.
In the years since then, many of these people mentioned, have climbed to the top of our "family stairway" and crossed over to wait for us in the eternal family of God. We treasure the experience of having known them, as they touched our life. These are the memories of the past, that mingle with the present, in my heart. And I wish I could see everyone together again. Those who have gone up the stairway so high that we can no longer see them, and those who have just arrived. So that we could all gather in love and unity, embracing one another, holding hands and giving thanks. For we have truelly been richly blessed.
Let us make more significant then the loss we feel, the pride we know in having had such a gift given to us. A gift that will continue on, in the new babies we have been blessed with. A gift which is wrapped in the family love we share. Our "family stairway" transcends the generations of time. It stretches across the miles. And, it reaches from birth to death, on into eternal life. It is a the "stairway to heaven."
Written: December 1997
Over all this generous, lively world presides Vesuvius. Since the erruption of 1944, the tuft of smoke has vanished from the You may wonder, as I do, what may have influenced Vincent, a young teenage boy, to run away from this setting? Yet, after Was it during the long sea voyage, hidden away, that he planned his future? Or was it when he first set foot on American After Catherine and Vincent married, they remained on the East Coast, raising a family of three daughters. The oldest Vincent went on ahead, to a small town in Illinois, where there was a job offer at a company that manufactured His employer encouraged him by constructing several small buildings in which he could have his own For liesure, he grew tomatoes, grapevines, and fruit trees. The pride and joy of his yard was the fig tree, I believe that Vincent traveled across an ocean, from his birthplace in Italy, and lived out his dream Vincent died at the age of 62 years, from a brain tumor, many years ago. But it seems his family and Written July 1996....by Vincent's Grandaughter, Laura
Born in Italy, the son of a tailor, he was expected to follow in his father's footsteps. In a brief discription of his birthplace,
Naples, it is said that, here the Neapolitains live in what one writer called a "mutual help society." From dusk to dawn they
engage in activities in the bustling streets, working, resting, arguing, eating and doing business.
volcano, but sulphurous fumes at Pozzouli and earth tremors at Baia. are a constant reminder to the people of the volcanic
nature of the region they inhabit. The Neapolitans, who love cooking, have the advantage of splendid vegetable gardens.
Tomatoes grow everywhere, even on the slopes of Vesuvius, up to the lava and heather in sight of the crator, and local
fruit and vegetables are excellent.
refusing to comply with his father's wishes, that he become an apprentice in the family business, he set off on his own life
adventure. Did he, perhaps, run to the base of the volcano? Was it on the slopes of Vesuvius that this young man planned his
future? An older brother, Joseph, had immigrated to America a few years earlier. Was it the thought of joining Joseph that
compelled him to set out for the shipyards, stow away on a ship destined to travel across the ocean to the New England
coast? The feelings in his heart and mind must have been overwhelming.
soil that he decided his fate? Vincent was able to locate his brother, who found him work in a shoe factory. He was only
fifteen years old when he met, Catherine, my future grandmother. She was the daughter of a businessman who owned
one of the town's small grocery & gas stations in Rhode Island. I have been told, the two teenagers met in the townsquare.
There they would meet to share their dreams and a parkbench. They grew romantically interested in each other. And they
made secret plans to elope.
of which, is my mother. If this sounds pretty typical, you may be interested to know that the story doesn't end there.
Vincent had a "calling." And one has to wonder, was his dream born in the shadow of a vocano? He wanted to become a
pyrotechnician, and to create fireworks. Drawing from the same determination that had brought him from Italy in such a
daring fashion, he set out again on a new phase of his journey, eighteen years later.
railroad flares. Soon afterward, he sent word for his wife and daughters to follow, and they settled in a small
apartment house. He worked and advanced himself at his job, which also gave him the oppertunity to work with
explosives, study his interest in fireworks. His employer recognised his potential and was very supportive.
He sold Vincent a parcel of land adjoining the business site, and there the family home was built.
workspace and house the combustable materials with which he created "bombs" and later "ground displays."
Creativity and skill started to win him the notice of many people. At first, he supplied local firework shows,
but as his work gained the interest of the public, he began to sell fireworks statewide, and later across the U.S.
My grandfather finally realized his dream, he was the creator and owner of the "United States Fireworks Company."
He spent the rest of his life doing the work he loved.
which bore a multitude of fruit, after his careful tending. Each winter he would wrap the tree in a tarp, to
protect it from the elements. As children, we were instructed not even to brush against it, as we ran past it
in play. I remember my "grandpa" showing me the small, curious looking,green pear shaped fruit, cupping
them gently with his workworn hands. He would promise to share them with us, as a reward, if we were
careful not to damage the tree.
in America, without forgetting his origins. I wonder if the smell of the sulphurours materials he worked
with reminded him of the volcano? Did the tomatoes he tended in his garden remind him of the tomato-covered
slopes of Naples? I don't think he ever regretted leaving his homeland, but enjoyed the carrying on of
his heritage. He was a man that I look up to, and admire. He was honest, straightforward, a hard worker
who was loved and respected by his family.
friends recall his life every year, around the fourth of July. Whenever I see a spectacular fireworks
display, I look above and beyond and say to myself, "how did you like that, Gramps?" And I smile,
because I am certain the show must have looked even better from "up there!"
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