Leonardo

On his discharge from the Army, Leonardo worked for Santa Fe Railroad. During the depression, he worked 3 days a week - good for those times. A job opening came up for someone with his own toolbox. Tom remembers his dad coming home and making his own tool box to get one extra day of work a week.

Leonardo became a citizen because he was in the army. He was proud to be an American and he never let anyone forget it. He loved his new country and was loyal and true. During WW II, he often was chided by some Italians. He was called, "The American", and they would stop talking when he came around. Their loyalties were not the same as his.

When any of the kids would be fussy over what they were eating Leonardo had a couple of stories to tell them. "If you are hungry enough you will eat rocks."

Then there was always the story of two young boys, who were hungry. They smelled the meat cooking at a feast, but didn't have enough money to buy a sandwich. So they pooled what money they did have and bought a bit of bread. They inhaled the delicious aroma of the meat, took a bite of bread and that was their dinner for the day

Be lucky you have food to eat. So, eat.

Mama loved to cook, to have company and to play cards. When our kids were little she would put one of them up on her kitchen stool and show them how to make caviteed with their little fingers. She would come over to our house for several days and brind shopping bags full of food, already cooked and ready to eat. It took her a while before she would try my cooking, but Tom persuaded her!

She was a good sport, she always was there to give a hand, like when she used the sledge hammer to start tearing down our kitchen wall because she got tired of hearing us talk about "going to enlarge the breakfast room". She got us started! She came camping with us, crawling into a little 2-man tent, came to the beach with us and all the kids, walked on the gangplank under piers to the end of the pier, stepping over missing boards. That got to her, tho. She had to go back. We were just a little bit over the water !

Domenica and Victor Dituri
Rosanne 1943, Diane 1947