The 2nd Best Thing I Ever Did

Dad was getting ready to retire, and the party we were planning just didn’t seem adequate. So I made a few calls to see if anyone might be interested to know that a veritable institution was closing its doors. One columnist/reporter called back, interviewed me over the phone for about 15 minutes, and then said that Dad’s was certainly a story worth sharing.

The Chicago Sun-Times is one of the city’s two big dailies – it’s the home newspaper to both Richard Roeper and Roger Ebert(!) – so I was quite surprised when the reporter said he would head down to the far south suburbs and visit with Dad, and I was quite tickled that his story could be seen by potentially several hundred thousand people! (Click on the image to make it bigger.)

From Sunday February 29, 2004:

(Special thanks to ts2bx Mrs. Farrago for
preparing this image.)

The Best Thing I Ever Did, part 3

June came and we endured the hardships of traveling with an elderly man hobbled by neuropathies in his hands and feet. We flew non-stop to Frankfurt, Germany, where I had rented a car. The younger of my two older brothers flew a different airline (frequent flier miles) and met my wife, my father and me in Frankfurt. We loaded up the car and drove four hours to Nancy, France. The older of my two brothers had preceded us by a couple of weeks, and he and his son had been visiting his Army nurse daughter in Heidelberg and touring central Europe with her, and the three of them drove to Nancy and met us at Sylvaine’s home. Sylvaine insisted that we all stay with her, but my brothers and my niece and nephew declined, and stayed at a nearby hotel. (Click on any image to see it larger.)


Jimmy at Sylvaine's home. From upper left: Sylvaine,
son Sebastien, Jimmy. Front left, daughter Carole,
son Thomas, with gifts we brought them from Chicago.

The next morning we headed in a two-car caravan to the home where Tresi lives. When we arrived, her daughters went in to help her get ready. They let us into her room while she finished in the bathroom. Tresi had recently hurt her leg in a fall, and so was in a wheelchair. When Sylvaine wheeled Tresi out, and Jimmy saw her for the first time in sixty years, he immediately burst into tears. He bent to her in the chair and, through sobs, cried, “I’m so sorry I didn’t write.”

Tresi wrapped her arms around his neck and said, “Don’t cry. Don’t cry.”


The emotional reunion.


I videotaped the moment, but I couldn’t be sure I had captured it until later, as I couldn’t see the viewfinder through my own tears! I looked around the room and saw mine weren’t the only wet eyes.

We stayed for lunch at the senior home, and Jimmy and Tresi reminisced in four languages: when Tresi didn’t understand something Jimmy said in English, he tried in the limited Italian that stayed with him, then he tried in the little French he remembered from his time in the war, and failing that, he tried in the little bit of German he can recall. When those failed, he fell into the bits of Spanish and Polish he knows from his 45 years in the changing ethnicities surrounding his barbershop. They were cute together: his sense of humor transcends any language barriers, and she gently “slapped” his face when he made his wisecracks.


Jimmy and Tresi, long lost friends together again.

After all that buildup, the months of anticipation for the trip overall, and for the side-trip, I regret that we only spent one afternoon with Tresi. And I soon would discover that wouldn’t be my only regret.


Tresi with Jimmy and his entourage. Standing, from
left: Jimmy's grandson Thomas, son Jim, yours truly,
son Dan, Jim's daughter Rebecca, and Mrs. Farrago.

Later that afternoon we trekked up to Differdange, where we met up with Marc, the man who had found Tresi, and toured the town and the grounds of the old school where Jimmy was bivouacked for 5 months in 1944. Either the school has changed drastically in 60 years, or Jimmy's memory of the place is shot, for he could not remember any details about the place while we were there.


Jimmy speaking with Marc, the man who
made it all happen.


With the school as a backdrop, Sylvaine, Rebecca
and Marc fiddle with a camera while Jimmy offers
sage advice.


"The more things change, the more they stay the same..." The photo on the
left, obviously taken during the winter, was sent to me by Sylvaine a few
months before our trip.

We split up again: my brothers and nephew boarded a train in Nancy and made the entire trip, through Switzerland, through Milan, to Castel di Sangro; My wife and my father and I drove back to Frankfurt (a story in itself!) and resumed our journey to Italy. Upon our arrival in Rome, we walked through the airport right into the attached Hilton hotel, where my oldest brother had booked rooms for us using his many hundreds of thousands of Hilton points. We spent one night there, and woke early the next morning to catch the first of several trains to reach the Abruzzo mountains and Castel di Sangro.


Back in the land of our roots.

Upon our arrival we experienced some confusion. I had apparently forgotten to bring with me the phone number to the pensione where I had booked our rooms, and none of the railroad officials at the train station had heard of it. It seemed like forever, but then one of the officials noticed the name on a luggage tag, my family name, which is quite prolific in the small town. Suddenly he stepped outside of the small rail office and called to another railway worker, who was a couple hundred yards away tending to the tracks in some way. The younger man hopped on his bicycle and rode toward us and up to the man who had called him. They conversed briefly, and then the younger man pulled some folded-up papers from his pocket, plucked one out and handed it to the older man. The older man looked at my father, the only one who had said anything the man understood, pointed to the paper and stepped into the office. He dialed the phone and spoke very briefly to the person on the other end, and then told my father that someone was on the way. We found out later that my brothers and my nephew had arrived several hours earlier, pointed to the name and phone number of the pensione which I had e-mailed them a few days earlier, and the young man had phoned the proprietor to tell them they had arrived. When the proprietor came to collect them, he had told the young man that there were others arriving later, and to call him at the pensione when they arrived. I had never even thought to name-drop my own name!

The confusion was over, and Enzo, the proprietor of the pensione, showed up only minutes later to gather our bags and stuff us into his little car for the brief ride back to his establishment.

On arrival to our room, my wife and I discovered a card, written in English, from Simona, someone I had contacted years earlier during my genealogical research, a woman with the same family name as mine, though, apparently, unrelated to me, and whom I had sent a last minute e-mail to notify her of our impending visit to Castel di Sangro. In the card she had written that there were people in town who were eager to meet us, and to call her when I arrived.

A few hours later Simona arrived with her husband and daughter in tow, and our entire entourage walked the few hundred yards to Albergo Corradetti (the Hotel Corradetti) which, it turns out, is owned and run by the wife of my first cousin thrice removed, Federico. Simona spoke with Federico and his wife, Berenice, and told them who these Americans were whom she had brought along. Federico became very excited and phoned his mother, Maria. Only a few minutes later the elderly Maria entered the restaurant area of the hotel, and instantly welcomed us into her heart as family.


Jimmy with his 1st cousin-once removed, Maria.

Before long our entire entourage was seated at a long table with Simona and her family, including her mother, who was divorced from – and harboring a deep hatred for – our family’s namesake! Berenice, the hotel proprietor and head chef, was preparing a family-style Abruzzo-Italian feast. Poor Simona, the only truly bilingual person in the room, was translating to and from English as quickly and efficiently as she could, but the questions kept coming at her faster and louder with each passing, wine-soaked minute. The food (particularly the tagliatelle tartufo) was delicious beyond words.

Too soon the locals had to call it a night, for the Americans were the only people in the room on holiday, and the others had jobs to get to the next morning. Maria, however, insisted that we all gather again the next evening, and she would make sure to call her sister and brother to join us, and, hopefully, her sister would bring Concetta’s pillowcases to show us. It seemed a curious thing, but we were nonetheless intrigued.

The next day’s agenda included some genealogical research at the local biblioteca; lunch at Enzo’s restaurant (across the road from his pensione); some sightseeing at the obvious geological highlight of the town, a huge hill around which the town was built; and then back to Albergo Corradetti to meet the rest of the cousins.


At the biblioteca, where we discovered no simple
connections to "cousins" back home.


While we climb the big hill, Enzo details its tactical
significance to conquering armies over the centuries.

When we arrived Maria was there, and her sister Elisa was on the way. Pietro had been told about us, but she wasn’t sure if he would show up. When Elisa arrived she carried two gift-wrapped boxes, and, with the help of Simona (alone this time), gave us a bit of history and family lore:

At the height of World War II the German army occupied Castel di Sangro and used the town’s great hill to military advantage, keeping an eye on everything around it for miles. Allied British and Canadian ground troops sweeping north through the country were brought to a standstill miles outside of Castel di Sangro by the Germans, who rained artillery on them before the Allies even knew anyone was watching them. Battles raged for days as the Allies attempted to reach the town, but were repeatedly driven back. Finally the British called for an airstrike.

My earlier genealogical research had revealed that my grandmother, Concetta, was the only one of her parents’ many children who survived childhood, the others all dying before the age of 9 of what Simona described as “the syphilis.” It is only my conjecture that, by Concetta’s 18th birthday, her parents were desperate for her to escape the town and their certainty that she, too, would succumb to her siblings’ fate. Again, it is only a guess, but it appears that a marriage had been arranged between Concetta and a man who was already in the United States, for in April of 1915 she left to begin her life in America, leaving her parents behind her, alone and otherwise childless. And four months later she was married to Rosario.

By the time World War II had swept Europe, Concetta’s father was dead, and her mother lived alone in the family’s home in the center of town. And the British called an airstrike on Castel di Sangro in an attempt to flush out the Germans.

The tradition in Old World Italy, as in many other European countries, has been that, starting around age 8, young girls would begin work on their hope chests, learning the skills along the way as they stitched the lace for their wedding dresses and stored other items they made or acquired, preparing for the day they married. Concetta had begun these items in line with tradition, but when she left for the United States she could not bring her hope chest with her, instead leaving it with her mother until the day she could return and retrieve it. Concetta never was able to return to Castel di Sangro, but she had achieved a sort of hero status in her family as a survivor and as someone who had made a life in the USA. Though they had never met her, Concetta’s cousins, Maria, Elisa and Pietro, were forever in awe of her.

According to family lore, the first bomb dropped by the British planes destroyed Concetta’s mother’s home. Her mother, fortunately, survived the event, but Concetta’s hope chest was all but demolished. Her mother was able to salvage only the four pillowcases Concetta had left behind, white linen squares embroidered with Concetta’s initials, “C” on two, “I” on the other two.

Shortly after the war Concetta’s mother was ill and, feeling death was imminent, passed the pillowcases on to her deceased husband’s oldest niece, Elisa. Elisa cherished the pillowcases as she cherished the cousin she had never met, washing them regularly and letting them dry in the sun, and wrapping them tightly and storing them away out of the reach of uncaring hands. She did this for nearly 60 years.

Elisa finished her story and, before any of us realized what she was about to do, she handed the two gift-wrapped boxes to Jimmy, who opened them to reveal two bright, white pillowcases, one with a delicately embroidered letter “C,” the other with an equally elegant embroidered letter “I.” Jimmy was visibly moved and, once again, there was not a dry eye in the room.


Jimmy and another 1st cousin-once removed -- and
Maria's sister -- Elisa.


Jimmy and Pietro, his 1st cousin-once removed, and
brother to Maria and Elisa.

We feasted again, but this time Maria insisted on paying for it. She was an old woman. I don’t think she had a job. We pleaded with her to let us pay, or at least help her pay for it, but she absolutely would not hear of it. And again, too soon the evening was over. This was our last evening in Castel di Sangro, our last time seeing our cousins and, as we made for the door, Jimmy broke into sobs, blubbering in two languages about how he hates good-byes, and hugging his cousins as if he’d known them all his life.


Jimmy and our family in Castel di Sangro.

The next morning, after we squared up the bill at the pensione, we were chauffeured by Enzo to the town’s older cemetery, where most of our relatives were buried. “Were” is the operative word because this cemetery is very small and has been around for centuries. When they run out of room they disinter the oldest, most dead remains to make room for the newer, not-as-dead dead. The only marker for my grandfather’s only sibling who didn’t make a life in the United States is a line in a roster of burial entries. My grand-uncle Francesco, who may have gone to the USA with his father, but returned to Italy sometime afterward, died in 1901 in the military as a result of an accident “with a horse.”


Could you think of a better ornament with which to
adorn a cemetery gate? No, you couldn't!

And then we were back at the train station saying our good-byes to Enzo, who, though not family, had endeared himself to us by volunteering to accompany us everywhere, to drive us where it was too far or too difficult to walk, and to explain to the best of his ability about features of the town. At the end of it all, right as I was convinced that he heard the “cha-ching” of the American tourist dollar racking up with every “favor” he did for us...Enzo refused to accept our gratuity for every kindness he had shown us during our three days in town.

We spent the next four days in Rome, four days that, for the experience, could not compare with even one hour we spent in Castel di Sangro; four days in which I found myself regretting that I had yet again shortchanged our time in a virtual paradise of hospitality and kindness and family because of doubt, and because of the fear of changing plans at the last minute.

By measure of dollars, I didn’t really spend much on the trip; we went about it in rather a frugal manner. By measure of other things I’ve done, I don’t consider myself to be a particularly generous person. But I think I made this one count. I know that my father was truly touched by his experiences, truly moved by the connections he had made and by the connections he had re-established, and was truly glad he had allowed himself to be convinced to make the long journey. By the look I saw on his face several times during the trip, I know I really made this one count.

The Best Thing I Ever Did, part 2

In 1962 Jimmy and Mary moved the family from Joliet, Illinois, to Chicago Heights, Illinois, now only a five minute drive from his barbershop. And soon I was born. Many times over the next decades Jimmy told, in bits and pieces, the story of the two Italian girls in Differdange, Luxembourg, and how he came to be loved by their family. (Click on any image to see it larger.)


Damn, I was a cute kid! What the heck
happened? February-ish, 1965.

Flash forward to the year 2000. Jimmy and Mary’s children had all grown up and flown the coop. Mary had died suddenly in 1993, and Jimmy lived alone. His youngest child had been hit with the genealogy bug. In preparation for a huge family reunion we were planning, I was putting together the first issue of our family newsletter which was to feature a brief biography of Jimmy. In a visit with him at his home, I asked him about his war experiences. I had heard little snippets of his "two girls in Differdange" story, but he had never explained the whole thing. He told me of the nearly 20-year correspondence with Tresi. He told me that she had mentioned her illness. He showed me the last letter he had received from her, still accompanied by the envelope in which it had arrived 39 years before. Then he broke down in tears of grief over the loss as, certainly, she was dead by now; tears of guilt that he had never written back to her to offer words of comfort or wishes of good luck.

I was at a loss for what to say to comfort him, so I managed to say that maybe she wasn't dead. He said that he doubted it. After all, she never wrote again. I wrote in my research notebook the last known address of Teresa Civitareale Arrigoni.

I was in the middle of genealogy fever. My research gears were already greased and spinning. I had the power and the reach of the internet at my fingertips. I felt that anything was possible, so what the hell?

The first thing I did was post a message at The Genealogy Forum, which is where I had made the most meaningful connections in my family research. In the Italy, France, Luxembourg, Ohio, and Massachusetts forums I asked if anyone had ever known of anybody named Civitareale who had lived in Differdange during the war. I also briefly mentioned the 20-year correspondence that Jimmy had with a Civitareale from there.

Then I went to Yahoo.com's people search and did a white pages phone directory search on Civitareale and Arrigoni in Differdange. Then I did the same in the village of Hussigny-Godbrange, France. That time I came up with the name, address and phone number of Egidio Arrigoni, and it matched the address on the envelope that Jimmy had shown me! I immediately wrote a brief letter telling who I was, who my father was, and with whom he had corresponded for 20 years. I humbly asked if this was the same person that Jimmy knew. I leaned on one of my contacts from the forums - my newly discovered fifth cousin - in Altoona, Pennsylvania, for help. He is a high school teacher of foreign languages. He is fluent in Spanish, German (I think), French and Italian, so I e-mailed him the letter I had just written and asked him to translate it into Italian and into French. I transcribed all three versions to paper and sent it off, crossing my fingers for a response.

The first edition of the family newsletter went out, and then the second three months later. Jimmy’s sister, Mary – the eldest of Concetta’s children – and his younger brother, Ray, died within months of each other. Time slipped into 2001. I started a new job with a heavy travel schedule. The family reunion weekend came and went. The world cried on 9/11. I lost steam and the family newsletter went into limbo; 2002 slid into 2003. I never received a response to my letter to Egidio Arrigoni.

Sometime in the middle of 2003 I had begun to think about using my frequent flyer miles to take my father to Italy to visit Castel di Sangro, the Abruzzo town from where his parents had emigrated. It took some convincing, as he was unsure that his failing hands and feet could carry him through all the walking. One of his friends convinced him to go by telling him that, if he never went, he would spend the rest of his life regretting it. My two brothers, upon hearing of my plans, signed on to make the trip as well. The itinerary was firmed up: four days in Rome, four days in Castel di Sangro. The travel dates were agreed on between my two brothers and me for summer of 2004.

In December of 2003 I got an itch and I opened the genealogy research notebook for the first time in over a year. My Altoona, Pennsylvania, cousin had disappeared from the forums, his e-mail address now defunct. I felt like I was starting from scratch again. So I started over. On December 9 I searched on my own name in The Genealogy Forum. There's a page where it offers a link to "see all of this member's posts." I clicked on it and saw a list of every message I had posted to the website, and all of the follow-ups that people had posted in response to my posts.

And there, at the bottom of the page, was a response link to "Civitareale in Differdange!" It was exactly one year old, written two years after my original query. After leaping out of my chest, my heart sank. There was no way this person is still at the same e-mail. Against my better judgment I opened the message. The author claimed that he knew a Civitareale when he lived in Differdange; he had gone to school with him.

I replied personally to the posting, and discovered a .lu domain name; he still lived in Luxembourg. A few days later I received two e-mail messages from him asking why I don't respond to his e-mails. His name is Marc. I wrote to him, copy-pasting the only e-mails I got from him and explained that there must be a problem with the connections.

In subsequent e-mails Marc told me that he knew how to get in touch with the Civitareale that he grew up with, and that he would ask him about "our" Civitareale. The holidays came and went, and I figured that Marc had struck out and didn't bother to write back.

Then, on January 10, 2004 I received another message. Marc wanted to know if Jimmy stayed in Differdange. He wanted to know dates. Did my father know any other families or soldiers from the same period? I answered all of his questions to the best of my knowledge.

On January 11, 2004 he wrote again to say that he will contact the Civitareale schoolmate, and that he will also check in Hussigny, which is only about thirty miles or less from Differdange(!). At this point I was giving him every bit of information I could think of, to include the address in Hussigny that I had confirmed from Jimmy's envelope.

On January 12, 2004 Marc wrote to tell me that the Civitareale family he knows is not the one Jimmy knew. However, the father of his schoolmate knew of Tresi in Hussigny, and thought that she was still alive! By this point I was almost on fire with excitement! Then I read the next message, sent on the 13th, and he told me that he had just spoken with Tresi's daughter, Sylvaine!! She was VERY delighted to hear about my efforts to track down her mother, who was by then 83 and living in a senior center in Nancy, France. Tresi's husband, Egidio, had died in 1997, three years before I had sent the letter to him.

Then on January 14, 2004, Marc sent me a copy-pasted e-mail exchange he had with Sylvaine - all in French - where he basically told her that he had been in contact with "le fils de Jimmy," or the son of Jimmy. I couldn't tell from their exchange if she had heard of Jimmy, or that her mother had ever told of the American soldier who had helped her family. But what I could make out - and Marc told me as well - was that she was going to visit her mother the next morning, and that she would write to me directly!

A few days later Sylvaine wrote to me. She is a medical researcher and teacher in a university, and her written English is only what she’s picked up from studying medical journals, but it was enough for me to understand, and much better than my French. She told me that, indeed, her mother, Tresi, had told them the story of Jimmy, the American soldier who had gotten a letter through to her mother’s cousin in Massachusetts, and how Tresi’s parents so desperately tried to win him into their family!

Sylvaine also told me of her mother’s frailty since Egidio’s death. Tresi had never quite accepted that her husband was gone, and, seven years later, still asked her daughters where their father was.

In a subsequent e-mail Sylvaine told me that she had informed Tresi that Jimmy’s son had found her, and she told me that Tresi was thrilled to hear that Jimmy was still alive. I asked Sylvaine if Tresi was well enough to receive visitors, should my father feel up to visiting. A few days later Sylvaine informed me that not only was Tresi well enough, but she was telling everyone that Jimmy was coming to visit her! Tresi had memory problems, but she remembered Jimmy vividly!

During all of the positive correspondence to this point, I had kept quiet to Jimmy about it. I made a phone inquiry to United Airlines about scheduling a stopover. I compiled all of the e-mail correspondence between Marc and me, and between Sylvaine Arrigoni and me, and all of the JPEG files she sent to me, printed them out and bound them in a folder, and brought it to my father. The look on his face was priceless when I told him that not only was Tresi Civitareale still alive, but that I had been in direct contact with her daughter. He kept reading the pages over and over, running his fingers down the pages, looking at the photo images printed on the pages of Tresi from 1944, with her then-new husband in 1946, and shortly before Egidio’s death in 1997. Jimmy kept shaking his head in disbelief, and kicking himself for ceasing correspondence.


Tresi and Egidio, circa 1946


Fifty years later, Tresi, center, and Egidio, far right,
with her sister, Erna and her husband, far left,
and a few grandchildren.

Then I said to Jimmy, “We can easily alter our trip to Italy to make a stopover in France.” He looked at me expectantly, yet not sure what to expect. “Would you like to make a side-trip to Nancy, France, to visit Tresi?”

“Yes.” His answer came without pause or hesitation.

I notified my brothers and my wife of the altered plans. Whether they wanted to go or they didn’t, I was not going to let my father miss this opportunity.


In part 3: Reunion and Rekindling.

The Best Thing I Ever Did, part 1

Jimmy grew up in a poor neighborhood in the south suburbs of Chicago, the child of Italian immigrants. His father died before Jimmy reached the age of five, leaving his mother, Concetta, alone to lead her seven children into the mouth of The Great Depression. (Click on any image to see it larger.)


Jimmy's parents, Concetta and Rosario,
with their first two children, Maria and
Giovanni, circa 1919.

Jimmy spoke only in the dialect of his parents – the dialect of the people of the Abruzzo mountain region of east-central Italy – until he started in public school, where he quickly learned English. And like every boy he knew in school, he lived the hard life of poverty, and he came of age in the face of a war in lands far away that continually threatened to embroil his country.


Vincenzo (Jimmy) and his brother Giuseppe
(Joseph; known to family and friends as
"Chooch") goofing for the camera, circa 1941.
Possibly the oldest existing photo of Jimmy.

Not long after the start of his senior year in high school, Japan’s navy attacked the American ships docked sleepily at Pearl Harbor, and the fear of a nation was realized. It is perhaps that event that convinced him to continue with school and earn his diploma, a feat none of his six siblings accomplished. Shortly after graduation in 1942, Jimmy was drafted.

It was around fall of 1944, and Jimmy's unit, the 129th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion, was bivouacked in and around the small village of Differdange, Luxembourg. Jimmy was assigned to the Headquarters company who were camped out in a large schoolyard which was surrounded by a heavy wrought-iron fence.


On the left, Jimmy shows off his trademark schnozzole. On the right,
he performs one of his ancillary duties in the 129th AAA Battalion and,
unbeknownst to him then, his future. Differdange, Luxembourg, circa 1944.

One day there were two attractive young women walking along the fence and Jimmy, being Jimmy, went over to talk to them. At least one of the girls spoke English very well, and French, German, Belgique, and Luxemburgie, as most Luxemburgers do. Her name was Teresa Civitareale (CHEE-vee-tah-ray-AH-lay), or Tresi for short. Her sister was Erna. Then one day, to Jimmy's surprise, he discovered that Tresi, her parents having emigrated from central Italy, also spoke Italian in Jimmy's own Abruzzese dialect! So, over time, conversing in English and Abruzzese, she told Jimmy that she had worked as a translator, which Jimmy assumed meant that she had worked for the Germans before they retreated ahead of the American advance.

The same activities went on for several days - the girls walked the fence, Jimmy talked to them for a while, and then they went on with their business. One day they came to Jimmy with a favor to ask: their uncle (mother's brother) lived in the USA, but they had not been able to get mail to him to let him know that they were still alive and healthy. They gave Jimmy their uncle's address and asked Jimmy if he would send a letter to him through the Army postal service. Jimmy said he would, so they gave him the letter, and he sent it.

Several weeks later a letter arrived from the uncle in the States, and Jimmy opened it, but it was written in Italian. The language of his parents had only been a spoken language to Jimmy. He never learned to read or write Abruzzese, let alone Italian. The next time he saw the young ladies, he gave them the letter, and they took it home to their parents.

With Jimmy's success in reaching the uncle, the Civitareale family vowed themselves forever indebted to Jimmy in their gratitude. In their eyes they could not do enough for Jimmy. Suddenly he was invited to dinner at the Civitareale home on a nightly basis, which, to a soldier who's been in the field for many months of eating meals from a can, is like a dream he doesn't want to wake up from! Jimmy accepted the invitation as often as he could get away with, and soon he felt toward the Civitareale family as he did toward his own.


The Civitareale family, 1944.

As he spent more time with them, and the closer he felt to them, the more desirous the parents became of making him a legitimate part of their family: at the end of each evening as Jimmy made to take his leave of their hospitality, the girls' father would send each of them down in turn for the opportunity to woo, or perhaps to be wooed by, Jimmy. By this point in his relationship with the family he felt toward each of the girls as he did a sister, so a pass at either of them was the farthest thing from his mind. And in Jimmy’s mind, that had to be pretty far!


Tresi Civitareale on the Avenue
Charlotte in Differdange, circa 1944.

History was recorded. The German Wehrmacht punched a hole through the American supply line which linked the 3rd Army in Bastogne, Belgium to the 1st Army in Luxembourg, and the US Army scrambled to contain them, forming what historians dubbed "The Bastogne Bulge." Soon the United States Army, and Jimmy, were on the move again, and Jimmy had to say good-bye to the Civitareale family. He promised them that he would stay in touch with them from that point on, corresponding with Tresi, despite the hardship he would face as a soldier in a global war.

Jimmy marched through Belgium and into Germany, and he wrote to Tresi. The war in Europe ended, and Jimmy was sent back west into France, from where he was shipped back home in 1946, and he wrote to Tresi. Jimmy reacquainted with a girl from the neighborhood, Mary, married her, and he wrote to Tresi. Tresi met and married Egidio Arrigoni. Mary and Jimmy brought Jim and Jo and Pam into the world, and still Jimmy corresponded with Tresi. Tresi and her husband moved from Differdange, Luxembourg, to Hussigny-Godbrange, France. Marie and Denise came into the world, and Jimmy wrote to Tresi. Dan was born and Jimmy entered barber college, and still he and Tresi traded letters. In 1959 Jimmy opened his barber shop, and he wrote to Tresi.

But Tresi didn’t write back. For a long time Jimmy didn’t hear from her. Finally, in 1961, Tresi wrote to tell Jimmy that she had been very sick and, as a suggestion by her doctor, had a second child, another daughter, in hopes, among other things, that her body would strengthen from the antibody boost having a baby would provide. However, it didn’t work, and, though the baby, Sylvaine, was healthy, Tresi was still sick, and showed no sign of recovery.


Tresi (far right) and Erna, and their respective fami-
lies in 1961. To Tresi's right is her older daughter,
Danielle; in her arms is Sylvaine.

To this day Jimmy doesn't understand why, but he never replied to Tresi's last letter. He says that he felt as though there was no point in it. They were four thousand miles apart. He had his life and his family. Tresi had hers. And now she was dying. Maybe he didn't know what to say when he learned that she was ill. Tresi never wrote again. Jimmy quietly accepted that she had died, and stoically absorbed her loss.


Jimmy's family, January 1962.

In part 2: Genealogy and Surprises!

Wear Eye Bin; Dad Update

I’ve been away from this thing for a while. No earth-shattering reasons or a desire to be free from making my petty arguments and pointless observations in a public forum. The simple answer is that I was on the road.

Down Mexico Way
Now, before anyone groans with envy when I mention that I was twelve days in Cancun, let me throw cold water on that shade of green by saying first that those days were spent working for a client so dysfunctional it makes the company I work for look like the poster child for organization and employee satisfaction! Second, because of the subject of my first point, almost every last minute of each day was consumed by our combined efforts to please every last-minute whim and eleventh hour crisis of said dysfunctional client.

Over the course of the twelve days I had one day free, during which I slept in ‘til about 9:00, and lounged by the pool until daylight waned. Then two co-workers and I went into Cancun's party zone and watched the Spring Break college students attempt to drain the city of its alcohol supply. They had a little help from us, as well.

Then it was back into the fray of disorganized, ill-informed, shoot-from-the-hip, lead-by-committee decisions made and then changed at the last minute back to the original plan only to realize that neither plan was a good one. Not to mention the client lead whose fear of appearing to lack the respect of her peers and charges got in the way of performing her job effectively. Nor to mention that they seemed to forget that their staging and video crew (us!) were not automatons with no need for food or breaks or sleep. I had just enough time each evening to check e-mails and respond to only a few, and absolutely no energy to blog.

I’ve never wanted to leave paradise for the wintry climes of home so badly, despite my lonely existence!

I was originally booked to leave Cancun and fly directly to San Francisco for three more days, but upon receiving word that my father’s health has taken a decisive turn for the worse, I advised my employer to prepare to cover for me should I have to leave San Francisco suddenly to get home to the family. My employer thought it better to replace me before the start of the San Francisco leg of my trip and let me go home Sunday instead.

Being that I was responsible for carrying editing equipment from the meeting in Cancun to the convention in San Francisco, and that the better plan of getting it into the hands of my replacement came after said replacement’s flight was booked, I wound up traveling Sunday from Cancun to Dallas, where I cleared Customs and Immigration, then to San Francisco where I met my replacement at the airport and handed the editing gear to him, and then back on a plane to Chicago. I left my hotel in Cancun at 4:30am, and arrived home to my apartment around 1:00am. My day would have been so much better had I thought in time to have the other guy’s flight routed through Dallas as well. But then I may have had luggage issues. Who knows?

Dad Update
The cancer has likely spread; to where, exactly, we don’t know. The evidence of further tumor growth in his lung is in recent x-rays taken, and in my father’s complaint that he hurts everywhere. He has stopped eating and has refused his favorite snack, cheese (no, his name is NOT “Curly!”). The two youngest of my sisters, who have taken on most of the responsibility and burden of seeing to his care since he went to the hospital last March, have arranged for him to go into hospice. We’re assured that every effort will be made to keep him comfortable and free from pain. He is conscious and aware, though perpetually tired. Accordingly, he sleeps a lot.

When his doctors first assessed his lung cancer, they told us he had maybe a year. It has been that long, and it looks as if they may not have been too far off in their estimate.

When my mother passed in 1993 (an event I have not yet shared here), she went fairly quickly, displaying symptoms of a “slow-burn” cerebral hemorrhage on a Thursday, and passing away on the following Sunday morning. It’s different with my father. We’ve watched him decline slowly in his old age, especially since his neuropathies became pronounced and made his work as a barber physically difficult. It became evident last March that he had had a series of mini-strokes, and his use of his left hand and leg have slowly ebbed away.

And now, in the past two weeks, he has taken a more drastic downward turn.

In this situation I thought I could prepare myself for his final moments, knowing that his life is essentially over but for the dying. But as he enters what is truly his final countdown of weeks and days, of heartbeats and breaths, I realize the final moment will hit me as hard as if he had dropped dead an otherwise healthy man. While his eyes are open and aware, and while air still passes into and out of his lungs, it’s a damn cruel joke of human nature that I still hold hope for some sort of recovery, for I cannot bear the thought of living without him being somewhere I can visit him and talk to him and hug him and tell him that I love him.

My sister tells me that he is not quite yet at death’s door, so he may have several more months left with us. This doesn’t exactly make me feel better, either for me or for him.

I will continue to update.