Throwback Thursday - The Notebooks

Ma's father, without a hat. Dad's father, tall gentleman
in the back.

To clear up some confusion, the Notebook passages posted on Throwback Thursday were written by my father and found by me after he passed 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:

At this time The Depression was in and things began to get tough.

My father's factory shut down and he had to hustle and seek work, but the people who kept him busy did not buy custom made clothes on a regular basis as they were hit hard as well.

There were no more Saturday afternoons of card playing. His friends were lucky and kept working in other trades. In any event, he was hurt. They played at my Uncle Mike's house. He was married to my mother's sister.

Once my mother told him to forget the so called friends. He told her that what bothered him was that he just wanted them to invite him once. He would not accept because he couldn't afford to ante up to play. At least he would know that they cared about him. He then got chummy with the Arianese [ed: area in Italy], your mother's  people. Who had a reputation of being thick-headed.

In Europe at the time, they held to class. Royal, rich, middle class, and poor. Your grandparents were on the lower side of the Italian boot. Farm country. And not as well educated.

Italy is occupied by 22-23 different peoples. They were brought together by Garibaldi whose idea was to bring them under on person, The King.

They were able to come together and work together under a king. Yet, each national group maintained their own culture. And they seemed to have done well in their efforts, economic, industrial and performing arts. With an attitude of what you can do, I can do better. And they succeeded.