Throwback Thursday - The Notebooks

Uncle Mario, age 12 or 13?

To clear up some confusion, the Notebook passages posted on Throwback Thursday were written by my father and found by me after he passsed away. They were his attempt to tell the family history. He was in his late 80s or early 90s when he wrote them. Today's chapter:

Stepping back, my brothes and sisters got along well. And each had their own friends.

My brother, Mario, was a problem at school and at home when we were in grammar school. My father gave up that he would be a scholar. And there were complaints from school, etc. And our community was still old-fashioned as we, the born in America children, we were all for America, while elders maintained their views which were  European. And an attitude that Americans were stupid. They criticized our system. And then there was the group that adopted American ways. They became citizens but somehow held fast to European customs.

My father could not accept Mario's attitude and his concern was that he would eventually cause a lot of big trouble. So he evidently got Uncle Vincent [ed: a lawyer] to use some power with the people in charge of our government and had Mario put in a state school for children that eventually could become criminal minded. And Mario was sent to one. I forgot what it was called. Father was criticized because Mario didn't do anything bad. At that time, in fact even the employees at the so called school asked what he was doing there. He hadn't committed crimes or came close to that. Mother was heart broken and never forgave my father for doing that. At the time, I was still too young to know what it was all about. Mama went to see Mario and took me to Holyoke [ed: Massachusetts] by train. Mario wanted to come home and wanted to know when. She told him soon. Just be a good boy and he would be home. He stayed there about 4 months.  School was not for him. And he got to be an errand boy and helper for the oil man. And later got a job with him. And when he was old enough went into the building trade. Drove trucks, and moved furniture furntiture, pianos, lumber.

He had a heart of gold and his bark as it was said was worse this his bite.

[ed: Part of what I was told about Uncle Mario. My mother told me Mario had been sent to the Lyman School for Boys in Westboro, Massachusetts. Coming from the city, it would have seemed like Dad and his mother were traveling clear across the state. Westboro is in the middle of the state and to a Bostonian right at the end of the earth. Students at the school, according to Wikipedia , were subject to harsh discipline. When I was a kid, we would pass by the school on the way to a shopping expedition at Spag's in Worcester. My mother would threaten if we were not good, we would be sent to the school. Like going to school with the nuns was a cake walk :-D

Boys also learned a trade ( masonry, caprentry, plumbing, etc.) at the school. I'll have to check with my cousin to see if he knows the name of the school where is father was sent.

What Dad didn't mention was Uncle Mario was a skilled bricklayer. He was a big man. Looked like a refrigerator with a head and had hands the size of hams. I heard stories of the mass quantities of brick he could carry in a hod. Uncle Mario put in brick steps with wrought iron railings at my parents house. The brick work lasted nearly the entire 58 years my parents lived in their home with only a few minor repairs to the brick. He also installed an iron pipe clothesline set in concrete for my mother.  That thing with stood hurricanes, blizzards, ice storms and was still solid the day I sold the house. Uncle must have learned masonry at the school.

I speculate what Dad said he was too young to understand about Uncle's situation. This was during the middle of the Depression. Dad's father was not working or bringing in very little income. My grandmother had worked at a candy factory, before or after she was married is not clear. One thing about my family, the elders rarely talked about what happened while growing up and never talked about other relatives in the area or back in Italy. And we kids were not interested in family history to ask the questions.

Anyway, my grandparents had 5 children. The two oldest, Dad and Uncle Mario, were growing, teenage boys. Not much income, barely able to make ends meet, little food. Dad went to live for a time with his mentor, Skip, and Uncle Mario was sent to the reform school.]