HER NAME WAS MARY

Now that the holidays are coming upon us, it got me thinking about some of the people that have shaped my life and that of my children, nieces and nephews. I think about how lucky I was to have them, and to be part of a line that was filled with unsung heroes.  In this long line of heroes are people that I have never met, and wish I had. There is my grandfather Joseph, my Dad’s father and my grandmother Mary, my Mom’s mother.

There is so much we take for granted that we forget the sacrifices that were made by our ancestors, the crippling jobs the immigrants had to take to support the families and the pain and suffering of an unenlightened world trusted upon them, a world so very different than today’s.

 

I see the young children all about me now, recently born heirs of a history that speaks valor, sacrifice and above all tradition that defines these toddlers of today.

I am writing today about my maternal grandmother, a women of great strength and dedication to her children, a woman who suffered so dearly and gave so much that I feel I have to get the word out there for all to hear, for all to know who she was and what her life really meant to her descendants. I have never met her, but I know I love her and thank her for all she endured and did not only for herself and her children, both indirectly, and directly for me.

She was a simple woman, born in this country in 1898 in Manhattan on 19^th Street. Her immigrant father was a tailor from Italy and by trade. Her mother likewise an immigrant from Italy, died when Mary Truppe was 4 years old from childbirth and so she lived with a mean stepmother when her father remarried. The stepmother was a fairy-tale stepmother; so evil she would be harsh to the children when her husband wasn’t home, but when he returned she was a loving caring mother.

She was one of four children, a brother Louie and another brother Joe who died at 20 years of age and the youngest: Jenny the baby who died in the late 40’s. Her brother Louie passed on some time ago in the late 30’s or early 40’s.

She married in 1917 to Vittorio Tria, a carpenter by trade and a ladies man at heart, an immigrant from Italy. A story goes that he was working one day on a job, sawing a piece of wood when an attractive young lady went by, causing him to saw off part of his thumb! They had three children together: Olympia (my mother), Theresa and Marietta. It was a tumultuous marriage that didn’t last long, and when Marietta was three months old, he left the house and they soon divorced. He would never see his children again.

Mary took on the responsibility of raising her three girls herself, in a flat on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, until she could no longer do it by herself, became sick and the two older children were put into a foster home run by Catholic nuns while the youngest went to live with relatives.

The 20’s were tough on Italian immigrants and immigrant women without husbands or fathers even tougher. Mary was in a hospital recovering from a mental breakdown, and this was leaving a lasting impression on her children. It would be a number of years before they would all be reunited, and be one family again.

The 20’s turned to the 30’s and life went on. Mom would relate to me stories of her childhood, but only of her home life. Being raised in a Catholic Home for children run by nuns, she was living under the strict supervision of nuns, in all that time building a strong relationship with God, love of a family life and faith that tomorrow would be better.

She remembers being in a school yard watching Lindberg flying off to Paris cross Atlantic in the Spirit of Saint Louis one day on his historic journey. She remembers stories about her childhood so sweet and innocent, yet so in many ways: profound. Her youngest sister Marietta getting up in the morning as a young child, putting on the radio, as the National Anthem was being played, making my grandmother put her hand on her heart out of respect for the flag.

But there were stories about Mary that make my want to cry from her pain, deliverance from a cruel world and be grateful that her children had it better. Her middle daughter married against her mother’s wishes, and out of spite didn’t invite her own mother to her wedding on her wedding day, my poor grandmother watching from the window that could over look the church steps from her house on Atlantic Avenue near Our Lady Of Loretto Church on Sackman Street, the first Italian/American church built by Italian craftsmen in this country, standing a lone figure as her daughter entered the church.

To feed her children she worked in a factory, and did homework to supplement where she could. But she raised her children when she was finally healed from a depression, by her herself, fighting for child support she never got. I guess every family has its shame as well as its heroes.

Mary loved my Dad. Dad would visit when he was dating Mom, and my grandmother would be entertained by his antics, and a story goes she was asleep on her kitchen chair one evening after a long and trying day when Dad showed up to visit. Seeing her sitting there on that kitchen chair asleep with her arms folded, he drew a picture of her in that pose, with a pot under the chair!

She would sing to her children as they grew up, all the old love songs from the radio, the popular hits and her children would sing them later on in life. Mom to this day laughs at everything that makes her happy. She learned to have a sense of joy from Mary her mother, to laugh and be as happy as possible in this stinking lousy world at times. But there is never a happy ending.

In 1944 Grandma Mary had developed ulcers and cancer of the stomach. She never met all her grandchildren or great grandchildren but one, my sister. She died with a reconciled daughter and my mother married just a few years and one daughter about to get married when her fiancé returned from the war.

 

Many years ago, when I was between 4 and 10 years of age, every October my mother would take me with her to St. John’s cemetery in Queens. There on a gravestone is clearly marked ‘Mary Tria’, and the ground would be covered with leaves from the trees, the still warm sunlight would shine in my eyes as Mom would start to gently sob. Not understanding at first, I would gently squeeze her hand and wish we would leave. I would look out and see the borough of Queens in the distance and want to walk the streets, see people passing me by, maybe going on the bus that took us to the cemetery and be anywhere but where I was, this lonely solemn place and my mom not crying. It was October that she died, the 17^th to be precise, and every fall Mom would get a little sad and so do I as I remember.

Ave Maria.