My Mom's side

 

One of my great-grandmother's first three children was my grandmother Nana Gene, was a feisty lady who never looked, and rarely acted, her age.  She was born in 1905.  She often told us that she married my grandfather, Papa Jim, in 1921 when she was 16 and he was 26.  We were never clear if it was an arranged marriage or not.  And they had sex twice – my mom and my Aunt Mary.

Nana Gene always worked while Papa Jim seemed to have a lot of illnesses and apparently several operations – although none of these were authenticated.  Papa Jim liked to grouse about how he didn’t feel good, or something hurt.  Once at the dinner table he said, “it hurts my arm to do this”.  Nana Gene said, “then stop doing that, dammit.”  Maybe it was an arranged marriage.  

When I was 20, I moved with my girlfriend into a little cottage that was right next to Nana Gene and Papa Jim’s house.  I would see him in the morning walking slowly with a limp, holding his stomach, just generally feeling bad.  Then Nana Gene would head off to work.  Suddenly he was walking around, talking with his friends, sitting on the porch drinking wine.  As soon as she came home, the limping returned.

 

 

My Aunt Mary was born when Nana Gene was 17 and my mom when she was 18.  They grew up very close to each other.  My mom’s name in Italian was Rosaned (Rosemarie) and my aunt was Maried (Marie).  When they were little neither of them could say those names, so my mom became Nonna and my aunt Madda to each other.  And eventually to my dad and uncle.  Those names just stuck.

I don’t know a lot about their childhood.  I know Mom always wanted to be a stage performer.  I also know that she was a total tomboy and broke her nose when she was 14 by jumping over a fence to impress a boy.  When she landed on her face, he wasn’t impressed.

And there was the story about how they lost Aunt Mary when she was around three.  Couldn’t find her anywhere.  Eventually located her sitting in a bowl of sugar under the sink (no idea why there was a bowl of sugar under the sink).  Also, when she was fairly young, she fell into an ice hole and got very sick.  Eventually this led to rheumatic fever and some heart issues which she had all her life.  She spent a lot of time in and out of hospitals and rehab during her teen years and rumor had it that Uncle Joey proposed to her in a rehab facility when they were 16.

My mom, dad, aunt and uncle all lived in the Italian neighborhood in Chicago and were friends during their teen years.  Both couples got married right before World War II and had me and my cousin, Ken, in 1946 right after the war.  Two original Baby Boomers!