Interview with Luisa V. Solomito by Michelle McCleary for the AAUP Oral History Project, Center for Oral History, University of Connecticut, May 10, 2001.

MCCLEARY: The focus of this interview is to talk about basically, your experiences during World War II, but why don’t we start off first with where you were born, where you were raised, your early life, and your education.

SOLOMITO: Sure. I was born in Naples Italy, May 5, 1927, and I was the oldest of seven children, the oldest one. Needless to say. I learned how to be a mother and housekeeper before I was a wife. But in 1940, … 43, my daddy died and uh, after he died, we were left seven children and no father and in the midst of the second world war. So, my mom didn’t have a job, because we were seven children, but she tried to do odds and ends, you know, to raise us the best that she could. But in 1944, in the month of January, the Americans were already in Naples. They liberate, they liberate us actually, from the Nazis, and uh, we just didn’t know each other really. [Carmen] was, he was stationed across the street from us. It was a university of Naples. And they took over naturally. They made it their headquarters, and so one day, you know, somebody must told the soldiers, and particularly my husband, that my daddy had died during the war and we were seven children and we were very poor. And so uh, he came at the house, and knock on the door, and I opened the door, and he says little bad broken Italian, because naturally he was American boy, Italian descended but he didn’t speak good Italian at all, like I don’t speak good English. But at the time I didn’t speak English, he didn’t speak Italian, so it was quite an ordeal try to make, you know, sense. But he says “Mama’s home?” and I said, “No,” so he say “Ok,” and he left. Because he was actually cross the street from my house, so he came back again, and this time he spoke to my mom, and he said, “I was an Italian, and uh, I was told that you husband died during the second world war, and uh you can use us … I work in the kitchen.” He said, “and I can help you bring you some food, and we can bring you some clothes. I have all Italian friends, Raphael Sorventino from New Jersey, uh Leonard from Utah.” I forgot his name. Enrico from Montana. They were all Italian descended soldiers. So they made our house as if it was their home, their family. So they came to our house really, not to take advantage of the young girls like we were during the war. But merely to come over to my house. And so he said, “my friends would like to come here and be part of your friends.” So my momma said… You know his name is Carmen, so she says “You know Carmen…” My mother was only 39 years of age, so she says, “You know Carmen I have 7 children, and I don’t like you know, no misunderstanding with people,” you know? And he says, “We’ll come here, because we wanna help you.” And so that’s how it was. And he brought the laundry. In the laundry he brought all kind of food, and they came from the kitchen. They brought us like pancakes, and uh, you know, you name, all the food they cook over there and they brought to us, and in a few months. At the time I was sick. At the time, I was diagnosed with, uh, with pleurite, but actually go into TB, because pleurite is so close to the lungs, that it, you know. So I was pretty sick. And my momma said, “You know, Luisa just got over, came home from the hospital. Rosa is very young. My sister Rosa.” So he says, “Mom, I would like to make Luisa my wife.” My mother said, “Luisa’s sick. She’s too young. She didn’t know hardly nobody either.” He says, “I’ll get her on her feet in a few months.” He, he had a Tuesday off. That was his day off. He used to get his cigarettes, go out in the outskirts of Naples in the country, cause we were in the city, and he exchange his cigarettes for fresh eggs and he used to come over the house, made me this big brandy glass. He’d fill it up with, it’s some kind of wine, it’s called Marsela, like a Vermouth, but it’s supposed to be good for your blood or something. Well he mix that with eggs, like a Zabaione and he used to say to me, “Drink this. Drink it off,” and I drank that. And in a few months I begin to fill out my everything. You know nice color, I begin to get healthy. And so then he says to me, he says. At the time 50 cents in American money in Naples was quite a bit of money. So he says to me, “I’m gonna give you this.” And he give me the 50 cents. He say, “I want you to take a picture and I want to send it to my family in America. My mom has to know what you look like.” So I did, and from that time on, you know, we became more than friends. He used, I used to have black curly, black long hair. He used to brush ‘em, and brush them, with his brush. He brought it. I didn’t have no brush. And he put Noxema on my face. And he just cared for me as if I were a little queen, you know, and so he says to me, he says. He call me “Unie” U-N-I-E. Unie. He says, “Unie, I want to marry you.” So, and he told my mom, and she says “I never see my daughter again.” And he says, “well” he says “I promise that I will love her, but I cannot promise that I will bring her back.” Because in those day, people came here to marry, they come here, they die here. They never go back. They die here. They never went to see their family. Because it took about two weeks before you can go over you know, by ocean. And so my momma says “Ok,” so we went together from January through the month of June. June 13, St. Anthony day, he left. He left, and he took me by the sea, and I never know where he go, and there was no way to communicate, because the post office was destroyed. In those days everything was destroyed by bombs and so on, you know. And so one day, somebody came in Naples, to tell me where he was. And then July 2, we saw somebody that it was coming toward the street, you know, and somebody said, “Luisa, Carmen is coming back.” So he came back to, um, tell me, that for sure he wants to marry me and that I had to go for blood tests over at the Red Cross, and to get all the documentation so that he could present it to his captain. Because they couldn’t do anything without their permission and it was not allowed for them to get married without that boss. And so my mom made him the nicest little lunch. That night he slept over my godmother’s house, because we didn’t have no room to sleep there you know, and so he slept over there. The following day he come in the kitchen. He says, “You sure you want to marry me?” He says “Because I am 25 years old.” I was born 1927. I was not even 17. So I said… I love him. I mean I didn’t come here, I didn’t think of coming to America as an adventure. By that time I love him for what he did for me. It wasn’t love at first sight. And it wasn’t that. You know when you see somebody and you fall in love. He had a beautiful build, he was very handsome. But I never went out with nobody. I didn’t have the feeling of having this man. It was what he did for me that it mattered that made this love blossom in my eye. And so he left, as I said, he left again, and I didn’t see him for a very long time, and still there was no transportation and still no communication, so every time somebody came in Naples, he send the letters. Hey letters! And I mean ten, twenty letters. One day I was in the beauty parlor having my hair done, and somebody came in and said. “Louisa somebody came over the house.” I say, “That’s what they left?” There must have been about 20 letters, big package like that. Beautiful. The man in the beauty parlor says, “What does he do? He stay up, he stay awake all night to write?” Because in those days they were not very welcome of the American boys to marry the Italian girls. Don’t forget, they, they come and, the Americans come and get the girls. You know the Italian men grow angry at them. So they were not very happy. But anyway, at this time, Michelle, it was 1945, and I got a letter from Carmen saying, “I will be in Naples in the month of August to marry you.” It never happened. Because they were changing stations going from Rome, Pisa, you know, up and up, and then in Germany, you know Marseilles, France, Germany. So they lost all the documents. When Carmen had to come to marry me, he didn’t have nothing to prove himself. In the meantime, in the meantime, his friend, Raphael, the one from New Jersey? Came in Naples to marry his girl, and because we were good friends, he says to me, I say, “Where’s Carmen?” He says “Luisa, Carmen can’t come, because they can’t find no documents, the blood test, everything.” He said, “ But he told me to tell you that no matter what, he will come back in Naples, even he’s going to be discharged, he will come back and marry you.” Well, at this point, my heart is sunk. I says, once he’s going to America, he better forget. I mean that was my, you know. So I says, “Well, there’s only one thing to do, write him a letter, you bring it to him and tell him that I’ll wait for him.” But if he changes his mind, to let me know and I will wait no more. In the meantime, while he was in Germany, the war was over and he had to leave to come in the United States to be discharged, so without his documents, he could not come in Naples and marry me, because the army want him to come home. They don’t care that he got a girl over there. They don’t care. So Carmen was ready to come in United States to be discharge. His friend, Leonard, says to him, “Carmen, they’re going to have a raffle, not a raffle, but I’ll put your name in the box, and they pull your name and you will go in Rome for 15 days. A furlough. Fifteen days.” So Carmen said, “No.” He put the name, Leonard, put Carmen’s name and they pick out Carmen’s name. Now, Carmen supposed to go in Rome, not in Naples. I mean, these are things you never forget because they’re too uh, touchy, so he figure, and Leonard say, “You go to Rome, and then from there you can go to Naples.” Well Michelle, Carmen got to Rome all right. But he can’t come in Naples, because there’s no transportation. As I’ve said, everything was destroyed, railroad, telephone, everything, lights. I mean it was bad time. So when he went in Rome, he figures, “Look I’m here, I’ll hitchhike.” When he got in Naples, but I didn’t know anything. By this time it was August 6. When he came in Naples, I was over my friend’s house. I was on the balcony. This young lady came to me and she said “Luisa, Carmen is back!” I say, “My Carmen?” She say, “Yeah.” I say, “Where?” She say, “Down the street.” “Oh boy,” she says. “He’s got a kerchief on his head. You know when you make a handkerchief and you fold it like that? And he looks so tired.” Sure, he had his combat clothes on, his fatigue clothes, you know, combat, yeah, fatigue. So when I heard that, I started to run, and I must have been about five minutes of good running, when I can begin to visualize the spot. Actually it was a black dot from far away, because there was some of the black people, black soldier was left over there. Don’t forget, we had all kinds of soldiers, all nationalities. They were Morrocco, Russian, English, Hindu, Swedish, New Zealand, you name it. So by that time there was no more soldiers but some still in the black, some in the company that were left over there. So I thought it was a black guy. And as I get close, and I said, “Oh my God, my God it is Carmen.” I got close and Carmen picked me up like a little bunch of flowers. And he’s swinging me all around, you know. We got home, my sister Rosa, look at me and she say, “Carmen, why you here for? For to marry Luisa or what?” He say, “No I just want to take a walk from Rome to Naples!” [Laughs] So we went home, you know, and two days after and my momma was so happy, and right away we had to rent a wedding gown. I couldn’t buy a wedding gown. At the time, we didn’t have no money, but in the meantime, I say, “Carmen, you got all your papers?” He says, “No.” He says, “Everything got lost.” He says, “But I’m going to see if there’s still,” not a station, uh, headquarters, where all the, and they were all English headquarters over there. A lot. He says, “I’m going to go over there and see if I can find out something about it.” And we walk for miles. I would say, from here to Watertown, three, four miles, you know we walk. And we went over there and he ask for information, and they couldn’t find it. They called by telephone, because it was the army. They called Rome, and he was in Africa, they call all over. So, everytime they say, “Yes, yes.” And because I couldn’t understand English, I understood “Yes, Yes” as “OK.” And I say, “Carmen, he say ‘yes’?” And he say, “No,” Now this was August 6 the day he arrive, right? We at August 10 and there was no way that we could get married. There was no way to get the documents that we need. And the last time we went, there was this Chapel, chaplain? Chaplain, and his name was Furi. I don’t know his first name, but his last name was Furi and he says to Carmen and I, he says, “You two are so sincere, that by 12 o’clock tonight, if I don’t hear anything. You come tomorrow and you give me all the information and I make a duplicate of whatever.” And we went the following day, and so everything was Ok. Now we had to go to church. The church has got to OK everything. But don’t forget, he was an American soldier. They were afraid that he might have had another wife over here. That’s how they did things, some of the soldiers. You know, so he want from Carmen, the document that he was single, and he never had that, he never had no document. So the priest said there was two more things to OK by the church and they were looking at us, and he says to my momma, “You gonna give your daughter to this guy? Something is hiding someplace. He’s hiding something. In other words, he might be married and you give the OK for him to marry her.” So Carmen, he looks at my mom, and he looks at me, and he says to my momma in Italian. By that time he learn how to speak Italian. He say, “Ma the way he put it, you have something underneath.” You know, hiding, he says something, under. He says, “Ma, you believe I got something underneath?” [Laughing] My momma look at him. It was a double meaning. She says, “I don’t know.” So everything was Ok. And then, that night we go home, and Carmen has got a temperature hundred and four, with a case of malaria. So, he went to bed. We got everything ready because we decide to make the invitation, little things like this, just to address our wedding day. And momma said, “We can’t have a big wedding. When you come out from the church, we pass some candies to the people coming to the church and that’s it.” I says, “That’s all right momma, I don’t care, I love him.” My best man Dom Rosa, he pass away now, he was a lieutenant in the air force, stationed in Naples and through him, I used to get all the responding letters. And I used to go to him. I used to write to him. Carmen used to write to him through the army naturally and Dominic used to get all his letters and give them to me. So he was very happy, and I say, “You want to be our best man?” He says, “I’d be very happy to do that. So and I’ll bring my jeep and I will take you to the church and the pictures,” because we didn’t have no money to go to the photographer, and he says “I’ll bring my camera” and at the time he took like 36 pictures, and God knows, I’m gonna show them to you what, they’re like this. You can hardly see – me or Carmen or nobody. They’re like this [indicating tiny photos]. So he says, “I’ll take the pictures and you’ll have the memories of your wedding,” and I says, “Ok.” I’m happy, I didn’t care. Big or small as long as we get married. Well Carmen still has a temperature of a hundred and four. So we go to somebody that we knew and they give us quinine before the wedding and that’s for malaria. And for our wedding day, he was pretty good, but our best man couldn’t come with the Jeep. So we had to walk from my house to where the mall used to be, maybe, about half a mile? And a whole lot of people you know, and we walk. So we got married, and after that, and not even the picture. I don’t know what he did, but the pictures. They didn’t come out good. [laughs] After that though, there was one of the fellow from Waterbury. His name was Saverio Sforza. He also died, and he also was in the air force. And he was at our wedding. In the afternoon, he came with a Jeep and he took us in Pompeii. Well, I donated my flower and thanked the lord for our union, you know for our marriage. And then at night he took me to this club, cause that was all, there was nothing else. People went home. No reception or nothing. At night he took me to this club, the officer, officer’s club, all lieutenant’s, and they used to used to play [hums a song] and so we got in there, got a table. We sat at the table with all these soldiers. We went to get a pitch … pitcher of beer. So while we’re sitting over there, naturally. My mother-in-law had sent me a beautiful suit, navy blue suit. Very beautiful suit. And I was very, I was very small. Ninety-five pounds. I’d been like little queen in that. Very beautiful suit. Carmen had actually told the guys that we had just got married that day. And he says to me, “They want to kiss the bride. That’s what they do in the United States.” I said, “That’s not what we do over here.” He says to them, “Guys, she says ‘No.’” [Laughs] And so you know, then that night, we walked home. As I said there was no way to travel. We walk, and then the following day he takes me to the Red Cross and there he signs me up for GI’s wife. So then I was entitled to the government benefits and for keeping in touch with me, whatever rules they had for going to the United States to come, you know. And then, oh and then after that, the following day, the 14^th he had to leave, so I took him to near the Hotel Patria, which means “hotel country.” It was right in the middle of the Via Medine. Big hotel. I brought him over there. I left him, and I never saw him again until 1946. In the meantime, you know, about a year went by, from August of 1945. Then April 3 of 1946, I got a letter from the Red Cross telling me that I had presented my self to a certain hotel to the Annex at Baguoli. And there they would get us ready, you know, my be my accommodation and everything. But that was it. It was like a recruiting. You didn’t go home no more. You went there and they got you ready for coming to America. So my sister Rosa and my mom took me over there. I had my mom pack all my beautiful clothes. Because Carmen used to send me money by that time. I bought myself beautiful suits and everything that I wanted and I needed to come to America, and so, you know. [Tape change] I went to the hotel and April 19 we left Naples on Good Friday. Now my mom, that’s a sad story. And you know how many years I’m here? Too touchy. My mom, because we all lived not too far from the port. You could hear the whistle of the ship when you leave, all the ships. So my mom says to me … First place in the morning this American soldier, when he came at the hotel to put the girls on the truck, just like soldiers, sitting in a row, and he says, “Ladies, before you…” By this time we understand English a little better, because you know, the Red Cross teach us a few things – “open and close the door,” “Let me call you sweetheart,” “God bless America,” “Close the door, shut the door.” [Laughs] Just enough to get by, you know? So he says, “Before you leave,” he says, “I’m going to give you tour of your city so that it will be with you in your mind.” And he give us a tour of Naples – all of it – and we were all crying. All the girls we were all crying with big pain. So my mother tell me, “The ship is going to leave at 12 o’clock.” She knew. That’s what they tell her. “I’ll be there,” she says. “I’ll go home and give the kids their lunch, and I’ll be there.” Because don’t forget, my youngest brother was still five years old, you know. So what happened was the ship, and my mom had brought me a big bouquet of red roses with a ribbon of the country, red, white, and green, the emblem of the country. Big ribbon like this. It was tied like this around a big bouquet of red roses, red, red roses. All of a sudden at 11 o’clock, 10:30, we heard the mechanisms of the ship moving. While we were on the ship already. People were moving and everything. The music. We had music. They escort us with music. But all of a sudden the ship begins to move and my mother wasn’t there. Somebody, a friend of ours, who work down at the port, he told my mom, “The ship is not leaving at 12. It’s leaving at 11.” My mom came, [pause] but it was too far. [cries briefly] I could see her with the kerchief in her mouth and I said, “The only way she can recognize me…” I took the ribbon from the roses and with the rose and the ribbon I was waving back and forth. So, I find out afterwards, she saw me. She didn’t actually see my face, you know, but yes, she saw me. I could not see her, because she was in a crowd no less, you know. There was a lot of people with all the families. But she could see me when I was waving those things. And so we got in America, April 29 and that’s the newspaper that you see over there.

MM: Can you talk a little about what it was like to spend two weeks on the boat?

LS: No, it was actually, not even ten days. We beat the time, because we got in New York, on Sunday let’s say. And they don’t dock on Sunday or on Saturday. But I mean we were left all night. That’s why the reason that we didn’t see the Statue of Liberty was not like it says in that [newspaper article] – that we were busy downstairs. But the ships weren’t allowed to dock. So they didn’t have to pay the guys so we were left in the Hudson River all night, you know, outside the port. And we dock on Monday morning. You know what I mean. And it also was a rainy day. I left on a rainy day, I came here on a rainy day, [laughs] always a rainy day. And then not only that. The port of Naples is beautiful. Well because we were left in the Hudson River and New York don’t have much of a beauty when you come in. There’s no, how you say, the port? The harbor, right. New York has got all kind of wood things with the boats and shitting all over. And we say, “Oh my God, where they took us?” Because the sea was very bad. We travel from Naples to this little Gibralta. And the captain, or the waitress in the dining says to us, “You ladies better eat today, because you will not want to eat tomorrow with the bad weather.” And it was. It was very bad weather. But with me on the boat there was a girl named Mary Colella – you must have saw the name in there. She was a war bride too. Matter of fact, I saw her yesterday and I told her about this. And we met, see on the boat, the name of the ship was “Vulcania.” And there was 500 war brides, and 120 children all belonging to us. Not to me. I didn’t have any. I didn’t even have my husband yet. We were just married. But the girls with the babies that were with them. There were 120 children, and all the rest were all passengers from Africa. This ship came from Africa and there was a minister. He must have been Greek Orthodox. I don’t know for sure. He had one of those big things on his head. And when the ship was flailing on one side then the other. He told us. This was funny. Because Jingle Bell it’s a song in that country in their own language. So he says, “All hold hands.” He was in the middle and Mary, my girlfriend and I, and two other girls and he was singing Jingle Bells. I think. And we were, “Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way, oh what fun it is to ride IN A ONE HORSE OPEN SLEIGH!” [demonstrating the sway of the boat while singing] [laughs].

MM: While the boat was rocking?

LS: While the boat was rocking because they stabilize you, you stomach. And instead of to resist, you went with it. [laughs] We going to erase that. [laughs] If you think you want to leave that, it’s all right with me, but [laughs]. So anyway, and there was the trip. And then when I came in New York it was a rainy day, but I met my Carmen. Carmen came with, it was Carmen, Sam, Jim and Tommy. The four brothers, and my sister-in-law Betty. She had family in New York, so why she was there. She was the only one who could come because in the car there was no room for all these people. So she was the only one who could come and greet me. And also they greet me in New York with a beautiful bouquet of red roses. It was nice it was very nice. You know what strike me the most on the way home? There were a lot of cemeteries. We went the old way you know, but you have to come through Ansonia. It’s the back road. Well, there were a lot of cemeteries coming home. I says to Carmen, “Carmen, where do we live? Where’s our house?” I was afraid, you know, coming from a big city, very populated. I said, “Oh my God, where am I going to end up here?” You know? And he say, “Oh, long way, long way, long way.” So we travel a little bit a way. Another cemetery. All stone . “Carmen, how far from here we live?” “Oh, long way, long way, long way.” “Oh that’s good.” When we got down to South Main, in Waterbury I ask Carmen how far away we live from here, because I like what I saw. I saw the center of Waterbury, downtown. And He say, “We live right around the corner.” I say, “Oh, praise the lord!” [laughs] And I find a nice family over here. Then as I said, because my in laws never saw us marry. I made a big mistake. The picture that I have upstairs, I’m going to show to you. Is like this, this big. So I cut the little picture, the one where Carmen doesn’t look good. He looks like a little skeleton. So I cut him off [laughs]. And I enlarge myself. And I sent it to my mother-in-law, because I figure, “Well, at least she sees me.” [laughs] But only later in life I realize, “My God, I wonder what she must have said when she got that picture?” You know? So anyway, when I came over here Michelle, because as I say I got married, white dress and everything, but my in laws didn’t see none of that. My sister-in-law Sandy sent me a gown. She had got married the same year in 45, one month after me. I got married August the 12, 1945, She got married September 16, 1945. Matter of fact, Carmen was in their wedding. He was here already. When I came over here, we were the same size. So, I find a beautiful bedroom, really well-put together. Carmen and his sister, you know being a young girl. We were the same age. !8, yeah I was 18. That’s it. So she said “Luisa, tonight, Carmen gonna go sleep over Jimmy’s house.” Their brother Jimmy. “You will sleep with us. Tomorrow you will get dressed as bride, in my dress,” because we wore the same size. “You will wear my dress, it’s all ready. And we will have a nice reception and then, you going to go to the Sterling studio[check] and take this picture.” That’s why you see that beautiful picture. I didn’t have any in Italy. That’s my sister-in-laws. Only the flowers were mine, the orchids. Everything, even the little string of pearls that I had on my neck. It was hers.

MM: So once you were in Waterbury, what did you two do? Did you move into a house?

LS: I live, no, no. I live with my in-laws. As I said. They had a bedroom ready for me. You know, and uh, well the rest you don’t want to put in there, because I don’t think nobody wants to know those things. I’ll tell you though, because at night, after we got married and everything. At night, our bedroom was right near the kitchen. You know. And at night in the month of April, it was still cold, and everybody used to gather by the stove. My bedroom was right there! We can’t do nothing. So my husband and I, we sit on the edge of the bed, and we see a lot of pictures, and then “Good night, good night…” [laughs] So this went on for quite a while. That’s why I said. So one night we went to Wilby high school on Grove Street over there. There used to be a beautiful park over there, with all this light. And Carmen and I would sit there, and we were making love. We were hugging each other and everything. But the police came by. I mean they come and survey the property. And Carmen says, “This is my wife.” And the police, he say, “Then go home!” So at this point, you know Carmen, he say, “You know what I’m going to do?” Because we didn’t have no money for a honeymoon. He says, “Our family in New York,” they had a cousin in New York, on Long Island. He says, “We’re going to go on a little vacation over there, and then maybe we can have a couple of days alone someplace and we can be by ourselves.” Instead, my aunt, through marriage, she says, “You know what Carmen, send your wife with me, let her spend a week with us. We can give her a good time, and you can come the weekend for vacation.” Because it was his doing for the, you know vacation from where he work. He can take a vacation only and he can’t in the middle of the week. So I went with them. I spent a few days with them. And the weekend he came over there. And my aunt, his aunt, she say, “Don’t go to New York. Jeanette,” which was her daughter, “they’re going to go away, and you have all the house for yourself. And you can have your honeymoon over there.” And that’s where we spend it.

MM: What did your husband do for work at the time?

LS: Carmen work in Scovill.

MM: Was that the factory?

LS: Yeah.

MM: Doing what?

LS: When he worked, he work in the roller mill, because he was very muscular.

MM: Is that what he did after the war?

LS: No, because he had the malaria in Italy, he never really got his strength back. So when he went back after the war, when he went back to work, he couldn’t do that job in the shop. So he applied to the city of Waterbury as truck driver. And that job he worked for 38 years. He was a machine operator, you know, like operate the snow, snow plows and all those big machinery. He was first operator.

MM: Can we go back and talk a little bit about what it was like growing up in Naples during the war. When did you first realize that there was a war going on?

LS: 1939. I was about 11 years old. And at 11 years old, you don’t really. You don’t take it all in. You know? I mean the bombs could be dropping and you jump rope. You know what I mean? You don’t really see the reality of the destruction.

MM: What was it like living at that time? Because you mentioned things like how the post office was bombed. …

LS: This was. See, Italy and Germany were allies. OK? So when the Americans came in what? 1940 maybe? Naturally all the nation was in second world war. So Germany being our Italian allies. At one point, we became enemies. Americans could not land in Naples or any other part, unless the Germans would be thrown out. And that’s what, that’s what the problem became, when we got the bombs and destruction. It is part of what is expressed in war. It was inevitable, so to speak.

MM: Back in 1939, what did you know about the war?

LS: Nothing.

MM: Did you see anything in newspapers or anything?

LS: No. Not for me, you know? Not for me. Because maybe there were people who had more education, and monetary stature who could go to the movies and things like that. But only the old people discussed these things in those days. Not like today. It’s not like today where, you know, my little grandson says to me, “It’s a good thing those 24 American people came back or we’re going to have a war with China.” Who ever heard of anything like that? A seven year old will make a comment like that? So I mean, this is today, but yesterday, everything was different.

MM: Did you know anything about the concentration camps?

LS: No.

MM: When did you hear about the holocaust?

LS: I was here when I saw the Life magazine that had all those pictures. And again Michelle, keep in mind that the kids over there in those days … We didn’t have no radio or television where you could keep up with the news. And somebody would have to tell you or you would have to speculate about things like that.

MM: Did you hear about Pearl Harbor when you were in Naples?

LS: No. I learned that. Not over there though. You know. When was that? It had to be 1941? When did that happen? 1941? Naturally it was in the newspapers. It was worldwide news, but naturally at the age I was I didn’t take interest in things like that, you know?

MM: I heard you thought the empire state building had been bombed when you first came to America. Can you tell me about that?

LS: Well, the thing is that when we left the port my husband and his brother. They had to go buy a spray paint machine. You know, they paint the cars and things? And it was located some place in Manhattan. So while they went in the store to do business, I was looking at this thing and I would look up like that, and I asked, “Was New York bombed too?” It looked like it was bombed. And they told me, “No.”

MM: Back in Naples, what was it like to live with bombs being dropped around you?

LS: See we had English bombers. English. The English took all the time. They were very objective. They didn’t just drop the bombs and go away. They didn’t go for the hospitals. They go for the main roads and factories and ships, right. So when they dropped them in the middle of the night, my sister Rosa and I, we slept in the same bed. We say, “Let’s cover up our bed, so when we come back, we’ll find it nice and warm.” But when we went into the shelter, because we had to run into the shelter, we thought, if we were lucky, we would find our bed cold, but we would find our beds. Many times we came out and there were other places, not too far away from us, that were to the ground. They were bombed. They were destroyed. And of course it goes without saying that a lot of people died. You know and so that’s what went on and on. But when the Americans started to drop the bombs, there was one, two, three! They came about four o’clock in the afternoon. And it was almost always the same time every day. All the time. Woo!! You know, the siren goes on. You felt that impact of them wherever you were, if you were lucky enough to be far away, and you just felt the gravity, you know the wind. It’s like raw wind you know? And next thing you know, you look outside, and you see people walking to the hospital with their guts hanging out, and uh. There you were.

MM: How do you feel that affected how you felt about the Americans?

LS: Well I’ll tell you. Evidentally I felt pretty good because I married one. [laughs] It was a war time. You know? No hard feelings. I mean most of the people were very much against it, especially when an 18 year old girl left the country and family and married a stranger and he was our enemy up until not long ago. But nevertheless, you can’t explain these things. It just happens.

MM: Do you remember what your parents felt about the war?

LS: Well, you see Michelle, my father. [long pause] My father got killed by the Germans.

MM: I understand this may be painful for you, but can you tell me how?

LS: My father got killed by the Germans because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He fought against the Germans to help out the Americans. Because the American troops came and said, “If you don’t help get rid of the Germans, we cannot land to help you.” So, one afternoon, my daddy was lying on the bed resting up because his shop was closed because of the bombs. My momma had to go into the country to get some apples or potatoes because it was in the month of September. So this fellow, a friend of ours, knew how my daddy felt. And he came in, and he said. His name was Alfredo. And he said, “This is the time to fight against our enemy.” So my daddy gets off the bed. He had a pair of shorts on. Short. And he had a cossack. You know the shirt with the zipper on the side like that? And he left and he went to fight. He found a machine gun on the corner of this particular road. It’s called Via Duomo. It’s a main road. And there was two machine guns from a fight that had just finished between the Italians and the Germans. And so, he kneeled down and he began to take action. But the German army. He did get some, one of them on a motorcycle. But a bigger convoy came over and they shot him in the thigh. And he actually was brought to the hospital and take care of. But after one month, he died. Although the American soldiers were already in Naples, because they land October 2, about three, four days after the fight had finished. And they even went to the hospital and brought mineral water, penicillin, but he was too far gone. Gangrene had set in. And so he died October 28. And in Naples there’s a piazza, for the Four Days of Naples, or Le Quattro Giornate Di Napoli. And there’s all the names of the heroes, and my daddy’s name is there. [cries] Alfredo Mauriello.

MM: So how did your family, what did you all do after your father died?

LS: Oh, it was bad. Let’s see, we were left seven, as I said, seven children. But the Americans knew, and that was the reason they came to our door. Because somebody told him. They said, “Be nice to these kids.” The kids would sit around the edge of the kitchen, to wait for food. And the mess, the sergeant, they didn’t want the kids to hang around over there. [Tape change]

LS: What was I talking about?

MM: We were talking about conditions during the war after your father died. Was there enough food to go around during the war in Naples?

LS: No. There wasn’t enough food.

MM: Can you just kind of describe to me what it was like with your day to day, on your average day during the war?

LS: Ok, there was a ration. Each one, each member of the family had a ration. We only got, each one, 300 gram of bread a day. It’s about a half a pound. Now, for you and I that eats everything else, half a pound of bread is a lot. But when that’s all you have from morning to night, it’s not much. So when momma got to the bread and she had to divide among the seven of us, chances are, her portion was eliminated. By the time she went down the road, her bread was gone. And it was rough. There was a ration over charcoal. No milk. I mean a mother get up in the morning with a family and she don’t know what to feed her family, her kids for the day or the following day. Unless there was black market, because there was always people making money on the poor people, on the misfortune of other people. But a man who had a little job and a family and the circumstances the way they were, because there was nothing, there was not much that can go around.

MM: Did you do anything to help support your family during the war?

LS: Work? Well in those days, you know what they used to do? Let’s say you had a seamstress, so, maybe after school, I come over your house, and I learn how to sew a little bit, and in turn if you had enough for yourself, you might give me a little dish of food. So the kids were kept out of the street, they learn something, and that’s it. There was no way that you can get a job. There was no work for the adults, for sure they don’t have no work for the little ones. But as I say, people in Naples, they’re very very careful. They’re poor, but they always have a smile in the first place. They sing through their troubles. Believe you me, they can have the biggest problem and they make a song out of it. You know? Really. And they take life the way it comes. You know, if trouble comes today, I told you. With the bomb comes and people comes up out of the shelter and somebody have blood all over their face and they walk to the hospital. So they’re very courageous people.

MM: Did you lose anyone else during the war?

LS: Only my daddy.

MM: You said you went to school. What was that like?

LS: Oh good. Good. We had every morning. We had every day we had about half an hour of all the gyms. I said to Rosa, “Well what do they do? Don’t they know those things are primitive?” You know, like stretch and bend over? We used to do that every day. Every day. We had a period for that. Now let me tell you something, by third grade in Italy, if you don’t know your geography. I tell you, if you by the third grade, you don’t know your geography and you don’t know how to read and write and solve problems. Little poem or something? Oh, if you don’t know that by the end of the third grade, forget about the fourth and fifth and so on. Those three grades are the ones that really kill you, and the teachers were marvelous.

MM: How many grades did you go through?

LS: Grammar school.

MM: While you attended, did you and your classmates talk about the war?

LS: As I said. It’s like a dream. You heard about it at the time. You heard they conquer, at the time, they conquer Africa, Ottowa, Abysine. It was brought up to us, but it didn’t enter your mind. You know. They talk about it, but the kids they just don’t. The only thing that was the girls had to wear the black and white uniform. They’re called the Piccole d’Italiana. The little fascist. You know. They dress black and white with the emblem of the “fascia.” You know what fascia mean? It’s a bunch of wheat tied with the how do you call, the, sickle. Yep. That was the emblem. And the little boys, dressed like the young marines. Something like that. They were like the little soldiers. And that was what they had to wear. Not every day. Not every day. On certain occassions. On holiday. If it was a national holiday then they’d wear those things. But every day we’d wear our own uniforms. We wear black from the first to the fifth grade. We’d wear black jumpers and for the first grade it was a red rosette like and a big red ribbon. You wear every day. And the second grade it was pink, white collar, and just like a little rose, a black jumper, and a big pink ribbon in your hair, big bow. Third it was green. Same thing. Fourth grade it was dark blue, and fifth was the red, white, and green. And everybody went to school, I suppose like the same as they did over here. And when we came home, it was our responsibility to wash that ribbon and to wash that white collar if it got dirty and to have it clean for the following day. Because we didn’t have no change. It was only one.

MM: What did you do for fun during that time?

LS: We played in the streets.

MM: You played in the streets?

LS: We played in the streets. We danced the karaoke. [laughs] Back to back, we’d have turn around. Jump rope.

MM: Did you ever go to the cinema?

LS: Not too much. Not too much. But sometimes, my mom used to give me some money and I used to take my little brother. We went in there with a bottle of water and we spent about six hours. We saw [a western movie.] It’s a cowboy. Over and over again. There was Boris Carloff [laughs]. But we had family times, when we were together.

MM: When you came over to America, did you ever hear about Rosie the Riveter?

LS: Who?

MM: Rosie the Riveter.

LS: Who’s she?

MM: Well, she was kind of a symbol of the independent American woman in World War II, and this whole image of women working in factories until the men came home from the war.

LS: No.

MM: Ok. Well, I guess it was more an American cultural thing. But did you ever talk about the war making more job opportunities for women?

LS: When I came over here, you mean? After I was here? No. Know why? When I came over here, I was here a few days. I saw everybody reading the newspaper. And my mother-in-law. I said, “Those people are very educated.” They were looking for a job. For me.

MM: Did you find a job?

LS: Yeah. I went to work down on South Main. It was called Coats and Clerks. And I went to work over there and it was all Italian people. It was all end work. Finish work. Button holes, you know. So one day I was singing. My boss, he never gave us a problem. So actually one day I was singing, and my boss, he say, “You work, you don’t sing.” And I can say very little, very bad English. I say, “Me work, me sing. Me no sing, me go home.” So, he just didn’t know what to say. He was the boss. He was the owner. So then, a girl worked with him. She was like the head boss. She came over. Her name was Melanie, also a Jew. She says, “He said ‘You work, you don’t sing.’” I said, “Melanie, me sing, me go home,” because I didn’t know how to say it any other way to say. I wanted to say, “I’m working. My work is good.” But I can’t put in words. So she says, “You sing.” In other words, “You OK. Don’t worry about him.” And after that, I didn’t have no problem with him no more. When I left, I left because I got pregnant right away. And they were very nice to me.

MM: Did you know any Jewish people in Naples?

LS: No. If I knew, they didn’t let them know us that they were. There were a lot of people from Yugoslavia that didn’t want to be identified. I met a lot of Jewish people over here. They were very nice people.

MM: In Naples, what was said about Jewish people? Did you hear anything?

LS: No Michelle. You know what? Naples is like New York. It’s a big metropolitan, you know. An intercom. You don’t know everybody, who they are until you really speculate. A lot of people don’t want to be identified and you won’t know.

MM: Did you hear when you were in Naples about the atomic bomb?

LS: No. Well sure. It was 1945. It was right after the war. I came in 1946. The bombing of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. It was in 1945. Yes? So we were over there and we heard about it.

MM: What did you think about it?

LS: Personally, I was feeling sorry for those poor people. We had just gone through a war and we were alive, and now these people. They were worse. They didn’t have no chance at all.

MM: Do you think America should have dropped the bombs?

LS: I can’t say anything. By my standards I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t know. I learned later on, yes, that if America didn’t drop the bomb, the war would have never ended. And that’s what they said, but we don’t know that.

MM: Did you hear anything about the Japanese when you were in Naples?

LS: No.

MM: So the atomic bomb was pretty much the first you had heard about the Japanese in the war?

LS: Yeah, right. It was just like another news. “You know Americans dropped the bomb in Japan.” Yeah.

MM: So when the war ended, how did you feel when you heard the war was over?

LS: Oh, when the war was over, Carmen was still in Italy. Was he in Italy then? No, no. That was after the invasion of Normandy. Because Rosa was making the bed, and Rosa was very fussy. After she’d make the bed, she used to get the broomstick, cause those mattresses were not like ours. They were lumpy or something. I can discuss these things with you, because you have no idea, how those mattresses were made. Some were made with cornstalks. You know the things you undo the corn? So, and after she made the bed, she comes back with the broomstick and goes back and forth, back and forth with the broomstick. So Carmen comes in so happy. “Oh!” I think. No it wasn’t the end of the war. I think it was the armistice was signed, I think it was May the 8. And that’s why he was there, because he left the first time in the month of June. And he jumped right on the bed, you know, and Rosa was like, “Oh, don’t touch the bed!” after she had made the bed so nice and neat.

MM: What did you think when you first heard the war was over?

LS: Oh, we all had tears in our eyes, because we were so relieved. Everybody was hoping for peace, you know? And it was a long time he spent. 40 months in there. Carmen spent 40 months, you know? Carmen did the whole campaign. He did the invasion of Normandy, Monte Casino. He was in the combat to engineer. Company 591, combat to engineer. It means that if there was a destruction of a bridge, they went ahead to build it, so the other companies could follow them. But you know, Michelle, we never talked about it. Never. The only thing that he would like to do… Someday I’d like you to see a movie. Something to do with Normandy. And it shows the ship, when they transferred from one ship to another with the ropes, you know, and it’s Carmen coming down the ship. And how do we know? Carmen’s brother Sam sends away for the Life magazine, and he get the whole videos, he send away for the whole set. Then he gave them to us and we made a copy.

MM: Did he ever talk about it at all?

LS: Never talk about it. He never talked about it.

MM: Do you think the war affected him at all?

LS: When he came home, I would say that it was like robbing your soul. People just can’t get close to them, they jump so fast. But I would say after a year, about a year or so, he was better. He never swear. Never. The most bad word you would hear from him was “Damn it to hell!” He got mad, you know. “Damn it to hell.” But that was it. Or if he got really, really mad, then he’d just punch some wall. But that never happened. Only once in Italy. But he never sweared. He had a temperment. Because he held, he held, he held it in. But when he let go, uh huh. But he was really a wonderful person. Everybody loved him. All the time in Italy. He was in Livorno, at a hospital for the TB, and he used to bring the nuns – you’re talking about how bad it was. He used to bring the nuns the coffee grounds that they threw away, the soldiers, so they could make coffee. You know the Americans make the coffee with just the first one. And then they throw it away? It’s good coffee, more or less, and they used to get more coffee out of that. And they all love him. They all love him. He told them that he had a girl in Naples. They send me a little gift, you know, some kerchief that they embroidered themselves. He was very liked, very lovable.

MM: Did you know anyone who you would have married?

LS: You mean beside to a soldier? No. Because I didn’t have no other, no.

MM: Right. I mean, how do you think the war impacted your life?

LS: The war changed my life. The thing is that I got married at the age in my life when everything was such chaos in my mind. You know. Sometimes I say, “Was I a good mother when I was 19, 20 years old?” Was I a good mother? Did I pay attention to my kids the way mothers do today? They hug their kids and say “I love you, I love you.” I didn’t even have that for myself. How can you give something to somebody if you didn’t experience that? You know. I don’t mean that my mother and Daddy didn’t love me. But they had so many problems, that they would just come and kiss us when we were in our sleep. It didn’t have the meaning at the time. It changed my life. I think it changed my life in my old age.

MM: What do you think you and your generation learned from the war?

LS: We didn’t learn nothing. If these things teach us something. I often say my daddy, and so many thousands of thousands of people died. They just died. Nobody learned nothing from all those people. They gave their lives to give us the freedom that we have today, because so we don’t follow the same mistakes that we did so many years ago. But it don’t matter. The way I see it, if you make a mistake once, you wanna make sure that you don’t go right back and make the same mistake again. But we just do it over and over and over again. So if there’s anger in this, I am. And I think that people that know so much. They should do something and think about it. I mean, I don’t know if I make sense.

MM: How do you think World War II has been viewed in general?

LS: You know, I think it changed the world. I went in Italy, in Naples. I don’t want to be there no more. They’re not the same people there were before. Yes, they achieved progress. Oh, they achieved progress one-hundred and fifty percent. But what good does it do to the rest of the world? It don’t do nothing. They don’t sing no more Italian. They sing American. They dress sloppier than the people dress over here. I went over there and I except them to sing Italian songs. My niece says to me, “Luisa, we don’t sing those here no more.” I say, “No, you don’t. You don’t do nothing over here no more that I remember.” That it was a national interest to the people who were born and raised over there and for all those cultures of so many million, thousand miles away and you wreak it and you destroyed them, because the structure went into their heads. It’s unbelievable over there. So I think, all in all, it changed the world, but not for the better. Except that we got everything, but we lack of one thing – we lack of love. We lack of interest and care for the fellow man. We don’t have it. The younger generations don’t even know how to put it in words, because they don’t have it. WE know, because we had that, and we saw that it’s vanished. But young people, not through their fault – ones younger than you. Maybe you still remember some good days. You know? But the young ones. A few years down the road, you’re going to say the same things. Because these kids, they don’t know what it is to have what I had. It’s so sad, Michelle. It’s sad. There’s nothing to do. I mean, I don’t want to be 16 again. I don’t want to be 13, or 14. But the youth, it’s so precious. I don’t want to go back again. Because I didn’t have anything, but I begin to know what was a little better – to obtain a little peace, serenity, tranquility. You know, these things. Because during the war, there was none. Although you care, and you don’t know as I say, and you see destruction, and you still jumprope, but there’s pain in there that can’t be erased. So when I came over here, although I left my family, and we were very close and we still are close, with my brothers and sisters. But that’s when I begin to have these things. Not the wealth. I never had the wealth to have this and that. He went to work, and he made sure that he loved me, and now we have anything that we need. Not because we didn’t want to make supper and we went out to eat. I didn’t want to make the supper. And that to me was a lot of gratification. Things that I never had in my younger years.

MM: Do you think that this is just the way you feel, or most people from your generation?

LS: I think they all feel the same way. Because we all went through the same steps.

MM: What do you think of younger generations and their perceptions of World War II?

LS: You don’t. You don’t. You can’t even imagine. It’s not your fault. You cannot imagine. My kids tell me, “Ma, you never told me this, or this, or this.” I said, “But how could I tell you something when you don’t even have the time to listen?” What I gotta do? Pull you down and brainwash you with these things? “Ma, you never sat down and told us.” “No, because you never showed interest, to know what life I had when I was your age.” “You ask me, ‘Ma when you were my age, how do you spend your time? What did you do? How come you came to America so young? How come you left your family so young?’ I could tell you that my mother used to say. ‘Luisa, it must be your father from heaven looking over you, that God has sent you this man.’” I used to say to Momma, “Ma, I don’t want to marry Carmen. I like him because of what he did for my family, but it wasn’t a love at first sight, you know.” She used to say, “I know, but this your father from heaven. He send him to you. Look, he adore you to your toes.” In May, mostly in May … [tape change] In the month of May, the old ladies would sell flowers in the street. He’d come home and he brought me a rose. Every day. He used to say, “a rose for my rose.” It was after these things, that made me love him. Because nowadays. You know, Michelle, You know, you’re not a ten-year-old girl. You know what life is about today, you know. In those days, a 15-year-old girl, 16-year-old girl didn’t have no sexual … Because your life was finished after that. If a girl have something like that with a man, Ok? You would not find a fellow to marry you. And I’m talking about the cities, never mind a little country place. So the virginity in those days, to a woman, was the whole possession of your body. You could be a getting married and you went to bed with your husband and you were not a virgin, and he knew it. And the following day of the marriage, his mother had to know. Do you believe in that? Now, how can you understand those things if you never experienced an experience like that. You know when someone says, “You know when I was your age.” So therefore when I was going out with Carmen, I was afraid, because I say, “My God I don’t want to marry this man because how do I know he doesn’t try to do something to me and then he abandon me?” What am I going to do the rest of my life here all by myself with no precious thing? At that time, it was a precious thing to have your virginity. It was the whole thing. When the girl went to marry, with the white dress. It wasn’t a uniform. It was the sign of purity. Now we see today, they’re nine months pregnant. They have a big belly like that. They have a big shower, big wedding. Well, that’s all right. That’s what today we are allowed. But not in those days. So it was all those things that made me love Carmen. And I come over here to a little bedroom. And him. That’s all.

MM: Before you said that you didn’t want to marry him. Did you have other things, other plans for what you wanted to do with your life?

LS: I was just, you know when you get on the track, and you go straight, straight, straight. And you don’t know where you’re going. There’s just no way out. It was my first man I met. So I fall in love with him. And that’s it. Of course after he left, you know, before I could marry him, I was a little bit older and I had a little job. Just little odds and ends for these people at a little shop. And Rosa and I, Rosa. Rosa is my sister, and she’s my shadow. What I tell you now, she can tell you the same story all over again. Because she was always with me. She also tell me, “When Carmen used to go to PX;” because she used to wash his clothes, and press them, the shirt in the back with the pleat, you know. So when he came home with chocolates and things from the PX. PX was the place where soldiers used to go and shop and buy everything that they need. So when he’d come home, he’d bring me something small. And I wasn’t home yet. And she’d would want him to give her something. She’d say, “Carmen, can I have a piece of…” “No, no, no, no, no, Unie’s not home,” he would say. Because everything had to be ready for me. She’d say, “I even pressed your shirt and your pants.” She used to comb his hair, comb his hair down the proper way, because he didn’t care. He had a hat. He’d put it in his pocket. [laughs]

MM: You mention your sister. Now how many of your family members came to America?

LS: They’re all over here. I told you. I was here for quite a few years. I call every one of them. The year after the affidavit, the immigration was closed. Then in 1954 it opened up. Under the refugee article, refugee law. So my sister Mary came over. Then for many years, then they close it again. So Mary and I, well not Mary. Mary couldn’t do anything. Carmen, my husband, and I, and I was the one to call them They were my sisters. But Carmen backs me up, with the money and whatever we had to do. And so we call for my brother Angelo, my brother Vinnie, and my sister Rosa, and my sister Olga. All of them. My momma didn’t want to come, because she was working in the school, and she had a pretty good job. So she didn’t want to leave something that she had a pension and everything to come here. And why do you want to start something here when you’re an old lady, you know? So in 1969, my first brother Angelo with his family came over and they sold the home over there and he had a job, you know. So they’re settled down pretty good. In the month of June, we got another telegram from my brother Vinnie, and his wife, and three kids, and one on the way. They’re coming over. March, April, May, June. Three months. So my sister Mary and I say, “The first one, you know Angelo. They brought money with them. We help them out a little bit. She has them in her house for a little bit. I have the two girls in my room, in my house. And so, after that they got the rent and they’re out. Now, he’s coming, with three kids and one baby, and one on the way. What are we gonna do? These people on Locust Street, I think. Anyway, they were going back to Italy, and they sold, they gave us the rent and they sold all the furniture. You know where Stanley Bakery was? Right across the street from Stanley Bakery. It was a little red house with a little Madonna in the front. Anyway, we bought all the furniture from the people, so when they came over, they went right into their own rent. Four days later. June 29. I get a phone call. Carmen was over their house doing window rods, and I’m over there. I pick up the phone and somebody say, “Mrs. Solomito, I have a telegram from Naples from Mrs. Parziale. [Luisa’s sister Rosa] They’re arriving in New York, July 5.” Huh? July 5? I say, “July 5? What the next year?” She says, “I don’t know. That’s all I have.” I says, “Oh my god.” I go, “Carmen what’s going on. I just got a telegram. They tell me that the Parziales arrive in New York – July 5.” He says, “July 5? Two days from now, three days?” I say, “yeah.” He says, “Well, we’ll go get them too.” And we went and did that. Then my sister Olga. We called for her too. She was supposed to come over, but because her husband didn’t want to leave Naples, she refused for six months, an extension actually. After six months, the consulate wrote me a letter saying “Miss Cotumaccio refuses to be entering the United States, therefore we going to disrupt everything.” So she never came. Her husband is dead. She’s widowed with kids, very poor, and that’s the end of the story. She can’t come here, because she’s older now. She’s sick. And in this country, if you don’t have insurance. But over there, she was telling me in the letter that she had to go for tests. And because the hospital is quite away from her, so she’s going to be admitted. Ok. Over here you can break your neck trying to make it into the hospital in any way you can, but before they used to do that. No more.

MM: You were in the south end of Waterbury when you first came over?

LS: I was downtown where the Phoenix library is right now. 79 savings street. Now there’s the elderly apartment over there. 79 savings tower. It was nice.

MM: Now that was with his family?

LS: It was mom and dad, and a whole lot of family.

MM: When did you get your own place?

LS: Oh my first rent. It was on the project. 173 Rolley Avenue, and we were almost all soldiers and soldiers’ wives. 1947, because Mary Lou was born in May, and we moved over there for July. 1947.

MM: What was it like?

LS: It was nice. There were all the younger English. There’s an English bride that I still see her. She lives in Waterbury – Irene. And you know, we all had some things in common. One warbride was from um, not Switzerland, oh oh, Ireland, Scotch, Scotland. And yeah, we all got along. We were all young girls, 19, 20 years old. I had two nurse live in my, what do you call? The uh, Duplex. No it wasn’t duplex. It was big thing. But it was up and down, big family in the building. Betty Scriven. She was an RN in Saint Mary’s Hospital. And May Homeck She was a nurse at Waterbury hospital. So I live on the second floor. By the time we live there, Mary Lou had got a little older and she go play down the stairs. And I said, “If you gotta move your bowels, you call me.” You know? “Don’t do it in your pants,” I said to my little girl. So Brock Hall used to deliver the milk in this brown bottle and they leave right in the stairway. So Nancy, I mean, Mary Lou used to run right down the stairs, you know? And she goes, “Ma, I gotta move my bowels!” Me, I from upstairs, “Mary Lou, come up to move your bottles! Bottles.” I didn’t say bowels, so May Homeck open the door and say, “Luisa, bowels, not bottles.” [laughs] That is the bitch when you have to learn English. To know things. You know I saw May Homeck one time, and she’s 86 years old, I think. And I introduce her to Nancy. And she says, “Oh Nancy,” she says. You know, she never knew Nancy of course. “I knew your mom, when she was younger. And she used to say, ‘Mary Lou, don’t go move the bottles down the stairs!’” I want to say, “Come up to move your bowels. Don’t go down in your pants.” But the “bottles” came out, not “bowels.” And there you see.

MM: Did you and your neighbors ever talk about your war experiences?

LS: Oh well, those girls, they all want to hear the story. These girls up here. “How did you meet your husband?” Because I was the only Italian war bride over there. The rest, they were all probably war brides from this country too. From California, people who were married in the states and then they move off. No, we have a nice crowd of people. And me, I get along with everybody, you know. Takes a little time to understand me, but that’s Ok. And speaking of which, my sister Rosa, she’s [unclear] me. Because I find out that I have a problem saying some of the words that I know. Because some of the words, after a while, they come out. But some of the words, they just don’t want to come out. [Luisa later explains, post-interview, that her sister Rosa never learned English, so when the two sisters talk, Luisa reverts back to her home tongue.]

MM: Talking about post-war. How did you adjust?

LS: How did I adjust? Not very well. Although I am the type of person, that I make the best with what I have, but you talking about coming to country, a young girl, left the family behind. As I said, I was 18? I was 18 when I came over here. No, I was going to be 19. 19 in May. I came over here in the end of April and May 5 was Carmen’s and my birthday. We had the same birthday. So I was 19. No language barrier. The worst thing, because you feel, like stupid. You might be smart, but you can’t express yourself in what you want to say. And the WACs, although we were instructed by the Red Cross, the WACs used to tell us that when we were in America, all the different things that you would encounter, you know. But still in all, it’s one thing when you tell something to somebody, and when you have to experience these things yourself. And what I find the most difficult was I didn’t know how to cook. I was Ok, when I was with my Ma. My mother-in-law. But now I’m on my own, and so now I think, “What am I going to cook today, and how am I going to start?” [laughs] “What am I going to cook? How am I going to do this?” You know? But I think I’m going to make some nice muffins. I had a small apartment stove, with the window, you can see inside. I made the muffins all right. But they didn’t go. They didn’t rise at all. They were just less as more and more time went by. But they smelled beautiful. I looked in the window and they were just shrunk down. I go, “They not going to cook no more.” [laughs] After they been down in there for so long. So I took them out, and you know this little six-muffin pan. And Carmen came home and there’s a nice smell in the house, and he want to know what’s for supper. I said I made a pizza for supper. Fried dough. I made a lot of dough. I must have cook about 20 pizzas. I put them in the frying pan, you know, they got big. There was about 20 pizzas. This size. [demonstrates] He says, “Are we waiting for company?” I says, “No. I made some dough. And that’s what comes up.” He says, “Oh yeah? Well I’m only having one.” [laughs] So then he says, “What’s that?” I say, “cupcakes.” [laughs] Cupcakes! He says, “How did you make those?” But he was very, very... He tried. He never made me feel bad. He said, “What’d you put in?” I says, “I put in flour, and whatever.” But evidentally, I didn’t put in no baking powder. But I put in a lot of raisins, and all the raisins sat on the bottom. And then they got burned too because of what was on the top. He says, “What’d you put in?” I says, “Well, I put in the raisins, and…” He says, “They went too low.” I says, “Yeah but what was I supposed to do? They went done.” So he took one and he says, “Oh, looks like rock. We better throw them away. Let’s give them to the birds in the backyard.” [laughs] So that was rough. So I decide, well there’s only one thing to do. Go down to the library, downtown, and ask for the Italian section of the cookbooks, which they had. I went in there and I began to get the books, and I began to read, and I began to put things together. You know? Then one day, this girl, Irene Lanoie [check] that I said, this warbride, English warbride. She run a club. It was called the better, Better House? The Better Homes club? Where if you have ten dollars you can buy things. Nice gift. At the time, I choose a pressure cooker. Me. Not knowing how to read. I got a pressure cooker. So big, big, you know, I think ten quarts. Big one. So I read that you can cook a cabbage. She told me. Irene said that you could cook a cabbage in nine minutes. I say, “Oh good.” So this particular Saturday morning I says to my husband, I say, “Honey, I bought a cabbage, and I’m gonna cook the cabbage today.” He says, “Oh that’s good.” He says, “How you gonna make it? With beans?” I say, “No. I’m gonna cook it in the pressure cooker. You’re going to teach me how to use it.” He says, “Oh no. Mary Lou, let’s go.” He says, “Come on, we going to the park.” Washing ton Park. It was right next to the project. So, I said, “Don’t you want to teach me?” He says, “I think this too dangerous.” And he left me with the pressure cooker and he left. Said to myself, “I’m gonna cook that cabbage if it kills me.” Got this little booklet, and it was all picture, this jiggle and this and that. So I know one thing, when that thing start to jiggle, jiggle, I put it under the water. I gathered that much. And you put it under the water and you turn the gas off. So I says, “all right.” Put that thing on and I put in a quart of water, whatever. And I’m afraid of that thing. I’m afraid of the jiggle, jiggle. All of a sudden “[demonstrates pressure cooker noise].” Uh huh. Now what am I going to do? But the first thing I’m going to do. I’m going to turn the gas off. Because I started to get ‘fraid. This thing’s going to essplode. That’s what they told me. After that, I said, “Now, I’m going to put it under the water.” All the water went on, and all the steam went, you know. So I opened that and that cabbage was beautiful. It stunk like hell, but it was good. And I cooked the cabbage and Carmen came home. Said, “How did you make out?” I said, “I cooked the cabbage thanks to you.” He said, “I know you could do it.” And then, when I learn how to cook. And that was, that was big problem – to learn how to cook. But not because he was a demanding man. He didn’t care if I put boil eggs on the table. But it was me, with the upbringing of, the background that I had in Italy. That a girl get married. Knows how to cook things. But see my mother she tell me, “You better learn how to cook something, because then by the time …” See, by the time… See if I wanted to learn how to cook, my mother didn’t have things to teach me. If, when she got a little, some meat, maybe once a month we got meat with the ration. And she make the meatballs with it. And, I said, “Ma, you want me to make the meatballs?” She goes, “Luisa, if you ruin this, I don’t have no more meat to make nothing. You just look. You watch and now you learn.” And you know, when a girl’s 16, 15 years old, I say, “Aaaah, I don’t care. You don’t want me to do. I don’t care. I’m not going to do. I’m not going to watch.” So, I never pay attention. I never stand there and watch what she did. So when I came here, I find it very hard. But then once I got in the library. Of course, I could read Italian, naturally. Eh, so it was really a small problem.

MM: How did you think your life would have been different if there hadn’t been a war?

LS: If my daddy was alive I would have never married a soldier. You weren’t allowed. Because you don’t get a girl that she’s inexperience. No experienced of her life at all. And you, not sell, I don’t mean that. But it sound like when you get a girl, certain age, and you send her to another world, when as I say, in those times, when you send a daughter in America, you lost her. You just give her up, mostly. So you were never allowed to go. It was very. My daddy love us dearly. And he wasn’t a man to verbalize. To bring it out. He used to come and kiss us when we were in bed, and when we were in bed at night, you know? Rosa and I slept together in the same bed. I slept on this side. Think I told you this, and she sleep on the other side, in the single. So, “Move your feet that way! Your feet are touching my chin!” So we are a riot, so my father comes in. He say, “What goes on in there?” “Papa, I want to sleep with my head on this side.” [laughs] “Oh yeah? No problem.” He takes the bed and [indicates father moving bed around] turns the bed all around. But we, we didn’t want that. We want the big part of the bed. My head on the other side. So, again. “OK now?” “Ci Papa. Yes.” He went again and [indicates whispering] we start again. “and now what’s going on?” “Well she wanted and I wanted to sleep over there.” “You mean, you want to sleep over there?” And I wanted to say, I wanted my head on that part of the bed over there. “Ok, let’s turn the bed the other way again.” So he did that about three times the most, or twice. The third time there’s no getting away. The third time he took the blankets off our fanny and he whack us real good. Our ass got really hot, you know. Then we went to sleep without say one word. We don’t care who sleep what way. So he was a man of this. He never let us do nothing when he could afford. When he could buy things. You know? Like he used to. He always had things but we were numerous family with the seven and the two of them were nine people. So a five-pounds bag of potato didn’t do. We always had a hundred-pounds of potatoes, down the cell where they were kept cold. You know, and the prosciutto, the wine. The wine! We used to have the bottle of wine on the top of something. My mom used to make eggplant, pickled eggplant that were a little hot. So I used to make myself a little sandwich, little prosciutto and eggplant sandwich. Then you get thirsty. There was a hose coming out of the wine. I’d go and [indicates drinking] [laughs]. Then I had to go to sleep. My mother knew. “Luisa. Did you drink wine?” “Aw Ma, little bit. Just a little bit.”

MM: What did your father do before the war?

LS: My daddy? He work in the toolmaker. He used to make with the Stanley steel, rings, like a snake. He used to do beautiful work.

MM: What about your own children?

LS: I didn’t have no children from 1949, let’s say, to 1952. I started. And we had Mary Lou and Michael. And Carmen was with me. We used natural means, you know. But after ten years we were surprised by Nancy. And when I says to Carmen, I say “Carmen.” I was you know, I was ashamed to tell him. Because my Mary Lou was 16 years old. I says, “Carmen I don’t know, but I think I might be pregnant.” Oh my God, he was so happy. He says, “If you give me another girl like Mary Lou, I’ll be happy.” And, we had Nancy after ten years. So actually, Mary Lou and Nancy were 16 years apart. And between Michael and Nancy, it’s ten years. Michael was born in ’52. Nancy was born in ’62. It was like having two family, because I had got rid of everything. So Mary Lou is 53. Mike is 49 and Nancy is 39.

MM: I think that’s all the time we have, but are there are any final things that you want to say about the war?

LS: As I said, because I came here so young, those years. There’s not too much that I can concentrate. I can think afterwards, what would it be if my daddy didn’t die. Well, and the war went on? We’ll I would never marry an American boy. And if there was no war, who knows what the future would bring, you know?