YEARS AHEAD OF HER TIME

She was never educated, fleeing the depressive conditions of Europe as a young girl at the beginning of the last century. She started out life in the United States poor, but worthy of the challenge. Her husband having died a young man left her with three small children. Her whole life was entrenched until her children grew into their own families, a traditional Italian immigrant.

Grandma Frances is against the window in the back

As a young child, you couldn’t help but love her, she was my grandmother, I called her ‘Grandma’ the lady who cooked like no one else, had a loving generous way about her, and when you caught her in a good mood, would slip you a dollar or five, raise her forefinger to her lips and say: shhh! It was our special communication, not to tell my parents she gave me money.

It set the stage for something that is extraordinary that was to come years later.

Up until the mid-fifties, no one of my cousins had ever gotten married. In about 1957 that was all about to change, and with it was to come the reason Grandma was in this country, her real hard lesson to us all. She was considered the matriarch of the family, the last word the final say. If any of my aunts smoked, they did it hidden away from Grandma, that she not be disappointed and maybe their being yelled at for doing something so unladylike.

I had a cousin Marie, a beautiful woman who was about to get married. That was fine in itself, but the problem seemed in everybody’s mind was the groom. He was an interesting, tall and handsome man, with blond wavy hair, and a fine manner, the problem in the eyes of the family was: he wasn’t Italian! How would that fly with grandma? To make matters worse, he wasn’t Catholic! Good God almighty, how would she ever accept this? How would they pull off this marriage?

That's her in the black dress!

The big day arrived and off we went to Mt Carmel Church in Patchogue one gorgeous sunny Sunday. The small country church was packed with relatives and friends that glorious and historical day, and I learned my first lesson from a great lady: something that Martin Luther King preached later in life, that what matters is the content of your heart. When asked how she felt about the marriage to a non-Italian, non- Catholic marrying into the family she said in essence: This is America, this is what it is all about.

I can’t for the life of me remember her exact words, but do remember the exact lesson, early on.  Funny because the next wedding involved my older sister (much older) Tessie, who married a man of Polish extraction, and so became the Americanization of Grandma Francesca’s family, the growth and prosperity of enriched cultural diversity, her American dream coming true.

Thanks Grandma, without you and your forward looking outlook, I might have been poisoned with an outmoded, immoral attitude, instead of being married to the Irishman who is sitting next to me as I write this!