Arlenes World

Two people, strangers, yet their lives intertwined by fate.  One, an expectant mother of three, on the side of her bed, crying while praying, beseeching Heaven for a miracle.  The other, a mobster, huddled in the corner of a dive apartment.  He thought he’d be safe, up there on the top floor.  Chain-smoking, sweating in the dark.  Gun in his lap.  Ears straining to hear the footsteps that he knew would eventually come.

Both praying for their life.

The year was 1918.  The Great War (WWI) still raged overseas, even though peace would eventually come to the planet by the end of the year.  Yet, as men began coming back from the terrible war, death continued to take its toll.  For 1918 was also the year of the most devastating flu pandemic the world has ever known.  Named the Spanish Flu.  Before it was over it would cause the death of between 20 to 40 million people worldwide.

Yes, a scary time, to be living.  Especially for a pregnant, Sicilian immigrant mother of three young girls.  They lived in South Philadelphia in what is known as the Italian section.  Her husband, also an immigrant from Palermo, Sicily, and an American citizen, worked at the Stetson Hat factory.  The pay wasn’t much.  But it kept a roof over their heads and food on the table.  Now even that was in jeopardy.  For the last couple of months thugs waited outside her husband’s workplace on payday.  They would beat him up and take his hard-earned money away.

The situation was becoming desperate.  Bills were coming due and they had to sell or pawn possessions in order to eat.  She begged her husband to go to the police but he refused.  The people that were taking his money didn’t look kindly on snitches.

Instead he tried to think of different ways to avoid the thugs.  Leave a little earlier or later from work.  Go out a side or back door.  Walk home a different way.  Sometimes it worked; most times it didn’t.

Frightened, not only for herself but for her young children, especially for the one heavy in her womb.  The young mother prayed to her favorite saint for help.

“St. John the Baptist, cousin of Our Lord, please help my family.”

Every night she’d prayed, becoming more and more desperate as time went on.  Her prayers reflected the frantic panic in her soul.

“St. John, please protect my husband from these men.”

But as time went on and the robbing continued her prayers took on a darker side.  The young mother had come to a conclusion.  The only way the thieves would stop bothering her husband and the other men he worked with, was for their leader to be killed off.  But not by the hands of one of the workers.  No.  And there were stirrings of some of the men taking justice in their own hands.  They were tired of being pushed around and their families had to eat.  But if that were to happen there would be retribution to pay among the other victims and their families.  So, now she knew how exactly to pray.

“St. John the Baptist, if you will kill the man who is boss of these terrible men, I will name the child that I carry after you.”

It had already been decided by her and her husband that this bambino was going to be a son.  After three daughters her husband’s patience was wearing thin, for he wanted a son.

But the robbing still went on.  Bitterness swelled up inside of her as her husband came home each pay day with empty hands.

“St. John the Baptist,” she began, “if you kill this terrible man I will name my bambino after you.”

She thought that if the boss were dead, killed by one of his own, then the gang would be in an internal war.  Hopefully, in the confusion, the gang members would leave her husband and the other men alone.

So her prayers each night became more and more descriptive until finally she was very specific on how the man was to die.

The next week her husband came home with his wages.  The young couple were surprised, elated, yet wary.  The next week the same.  No more thugs.  People at work were shrugging their shoulders.  There were rumors.  Then a newspaper article answered their questions.

In a small apartment, at the top of a long stairway, amongst his own cigarette butts and ashes, the police found the mobster’s body. There were rumors that he double-crossed his fellow gangsters.  Evidence showed that he had been expecting his assassins.  He had enough hardware and ammunition to fight off a small army.  But they still got him.  Even though his body was riddled with bullets the examiner was able to pinpoint which bullet did him in.  It was a single bullet in the mouth that killed him.  It was the exact cause of death that the young mother had requested from her Saint.

My mother was born in April, not long after the above incident.  Since she was yet another girl her mother called her Giovanna, which is suppose to be a female directive of the name John or Giovanni, in Sicilian.  Though later, when Mom was entering school, her older sister Americanized her name to Jennie, yet she was always Giovanna to her mother.  Keeping her promise to her Saint.

I’ve done a lot of research over the Internet recently because I knew that I would be writing this article and wanted to be historically correct about the events.  Unfortunately I couldn’t find anything to substantiate this story other than it was told to me by my mother and validated by her father, older sisters and other family members.  If nothing else, it does make a dramatic story.  About the prayer to have the man killed, well, you have to put yourself in grandmother’s shoes.  She was poor, desperate, with child and like many Sicilians, very superstitious.  Unfortunately, the pure belief in Our Savior and the dark side of superstition become intertwine and muddle people’s beliefs.  I have learned to believe in karma and not to wish ill of others because it will come back to haunt you.  Like it eventually did to my poor grandmother.

My mother was the last of four daughters (two boys came after her) and though her father was disappointed not to have a son, he still dotted on this new one.  She always caused a twinkle in his eyes.  He would take only her to walks with him.  Introduce her to his friends and let her watch while he played poker on the steps of the apartments outside.  Born curious she would always be asking questions, some so silly that it made her father laugh.  A beauty, she was, with straight black shiny hair and big brown expressive eyes.  Always very meticulous about her appearance, a lover of pretty things.  He would complain to her mother upon their return how she hounded and nagged him insistently for things she saw in the stores windows.

“Daddy, can I have some of that candy?”  Or, “Oh, Daddy, look at those shiny black shoes.  C’mon,” she tug at his arm, “let’s see how much they cost.”

Her mother would shake her head.  This daughter was a strange one.  Always active, never sitting still for a minute.  “Then why do you take her with you?” she admonished her husband.  He would always agree to take one of the other girls instead.  But when the time came for him to go to the store, it was always my Mom that he searched out to go along with him.

Her mother would try to sit my Mom down and show her how to knit or sew.  But Mom was too fidgety; she’d rather be outside running and playing.  “Why can’t you be more like your sisters,” her mom would say.  To her husband, “Can’t you do something about this one.  She’s always asking me questions and under my feet.”

Mom was somewhat of a tomboy.  When the son her parents had always prayed for finally arrived, Mom was always the little mother.  She would look out for her young brother especially at the playground.  Bullies would try to push my uncle around.  Mom would hear his friends yelling for her.  Dropping what she was doing, she’d race to her brother’s side, jump on the bullies and pound them with her fists.  They would laugh at her, shake their heads, and surrender.  But they never bothered her brother again.

My mother’s maternal grandparents lived in the same house.  During the summer months, to make extra money, they would go to a farm in New Jersey and pick tomatoes.  Mom was always pestering her mother.  So, at the urging of her mother, Mom’s dad would take her to the New Jersey farm to visit her grandparents.  Sadly he would leave her at the farm with the intention of retrieving her in a couple of months.  But life without her was boring.  Even his poker friends would inquire where she was.  So eventually her Dad would pick her up earlier than anticipated.

Everyone at the farm loved Mom.  She’d make them laugh at her antics.  Once she chased the goat around and the next day it wouldn’t give them milk for breakfast.  But the farmer’s kids were scolded instead because they should have know better.  Another time she left a gate open and the chickens got away.  Everyone had to chase after the birds and capture them.  Except Mom.  She didn’t like to get dirty.  All day long she get out of one sweaty dress into another until she didn’t have any clean ones left.  The farmer’s daughter had to lend Mom her dress to wear while they washed Mom clothes.

Her grandparents use to try to make Mom help them pick tomatoes but they settled for her fetching them water or another bushel to fill.  She was a ball of energy that you couldn’t get to sit still for too long.  She’d pick flowers for her grandparents and the other pickers.  Sometimes they’d make a salad out of daisies which she didn’t like because it was bitter tasting.

Mom was always sickly most of her life, suffering from asthma and very anemic.  A picky eater, her dad use to dip Italian bread in red wine to give her an appetite.  Sometimes it worked.  Her mom use to make her roasted peppers.  Or else make a sandwich with huge Jersey steak tomatoes and salt and pepper.

When Mom was young her oldest sister use to tell them bedtime stories, made up from her imagination.  Some were funny and silly but they had no television back then.  Plus it was more interesting to have her sister tell stories than to listen to the radio.  Since they didn’t have a lot of money for snacks, they would munch on huge sweet onions sprinkled with salt.  Sometimes they would break off large pieces of Italian bread.  Mom’s sister use to send her to get more food and had to promise that she wouldn’t continue her story until after Mom returned.  Sometimes she’d lie and Mom would get mad when she heard her continuing the story without her.

By eighth grade Mom finally learned to sew.  Her sisters and she would buy material for a couple of pennies and make beautiful fancy dresses.  People in the neighborhood thought they were expensive clothing.

For her eighth grade graduation all the girls in Mom’s class had to have a white dress.  They would wear that dress on graduation day in front of family members and classmates.  Mom begged her dad to buy her some material so she could sew her own dress.  But, even though he had the money, he refused her.  Mom was too proud to tell the teacher that she didn’t have the money for material.  She considered not attending her graduation.  Yet, at the urging of her oldest sister, she decided to try something.

Mom got a couple of burlap bags, washed and bleached them.  Then she took the bags apart, cut the pattern out, and sewed a beautiful white dress.  Her oldest sister, who was married by now, with kids of her own, gave Mom a couple of pennies for ribbon.  Mom sewed the ribbon onto the burlap dress and meticulously ironed the whole outfit.  When the day came for her to wear the dress, she was embarrassed, knowing what material she had used.  Some of the other girls, with store bought dresses, snickered at Mom’s outfit.  But her sewing teacher, knowing what Mom had accomplished and with very little, praised her in front of the whole graduating class and their families.  She told everyone how Mom had made the dress and with what material she used.  Afterwards, everyone complemented Mom on her beautiful dress.

The next year saw Mom starting high school.  She tried her best at academics and was intelligent, like her mother.  My grandmother never spoke English, but she could tell the gist of what was being said.  She use to keep a diary, in Italian, where she’d spend long hours writing.  Unfortunately, no one in the family knew how to read Italian so her diary was a secret only she knew.

When Mom was 15 years old, another boy was born to her parents.  But instead of happiness and joy at his birth, there was sadness.  My grandmother had fallen ill, too sick to care for the newborn.  There was talk of maybe the oldest sister adopting him.  Yet she already had a couple of children and it would be too much of a burden on her family.  Plans were being made to have the boy adopted.  Mom wouldn’t hear of it.  She volunteered to quit school which she did.  The social workers admonished her against this.  She was still a young girl with her whole life ahead of her.  They warned her that people would say the child was hers, out of wedlock, a bastard.  But Mom was stubborn.  She did what she wanted.  So she quit school and cared for her younger brother and the rest of the family.  The social workers were right.  Ugly rumors spread around the neighborhood.  Yet armed with the truth, Mom always held her head high in the mist of all that ugliness.

The depression came.  People were despondent, throwing themselves out of office windows.  To make ends meet, Mom’s father and her brother-in-law went out into the streets selling flavor snow cones.  They would have two carts containing blocks of ice and bottles filled with different syrupy flavors.  Snow cones were shaved ice, put into paper cones and flavored syrup poured over them.  At the end of the day, both men returned with their carts and what was left in the bottles.  Her dad would have very little of the syrup left in the bottles because he use to put more of it onto the snow cones.  Mom’s brother-in-law use to deride her father because he used very little of the flavoring on his snow cones.  At the end of the day the bottles were almost still filled.  “But the people like me, they come to me,” insisted her father.  “They only go to you when I run out of flavors.”  Her brother-in-law would laugh.  “Of course, they like you.  But I make just as much money and come home with almost filled bottles.”  They would continue this debating and still go out and do the same thing the next day.

Mom use to wash the bottles and the carts and put them away.  In the early morning hours she would fill the bottles and put the blocks of ice in the carts.  It was how they survived the Great Depression.

There’s a lot more about Mom’s life that is somewhat unique to her but that would take many, many, many more pages.  Right now I’ll continue by concentrating on how I remember Mom.

She was strong and active, never standing still.  Stubborn.  She’d do a lot of comical things that my brothers and I still recall and laugh about today.  Barely 5 foot, slender and beautiful.  Lucky for me she eventually sat still long enough to learn to sew.  She was always sewing dresses for me.  The only thing she had trouble with was sewing pants.  So my brothers never got the benefit of her sewing unless it was to hem the length of the pants.

Dad always worked night shift for as long as I could remember.  Which left Mom alone at home with the three of us at night.  Mom was frightened of the dark and didn’t like to sleep alone.  So she use to stay up late at night.  To while the time away until Dad came home in the morning, Mom would sit me on her knee and draw for me.  She would always draw a bride with curly hair and a groom with a top hat and a mustache.  She inspired me to love drawing even though I’m not really good at it.  She tried to teach me to knit which she eventually learned on her own much later in life.  But I wasn’t good at knitting.  She use to crochet these beautiful handkerchiefs that I use to give to my friends and co-workers as gifts.  She would crochet comforters, sweaters, even little baby clothes, without any pattern to go by except the one in her head.

Being a picky eater like her, Mom use to make meals especially for me like roasted peppers.  She’d put the peppers on the gas stove and burn the skin until it was black.  Then using her bare hands she’d peel off the still hot and blacken skin.  I remember how red her hands would get and worry how much it must have hurt her.  But she never complained.  She’d make me pickled eggplant and asparagus and eggs and a lot of other non-meat meals.

When Thanksgiving Day rolled around Mom would wake up real early to get the turkey ready to bake.  I’d get up early, too and watch her cleaning and preparing the bird, listening to her instructions intently.  “When you get big you’ll have to do this for yourself,” she’d tell me.  “So you better listen and learn how to do this now.”

On special occasions she’d bake us cookies and make them into different shapes.  Sometimes Mom would bake biscotti or pizza from scratch.  I loved to smell the fresh dough and marvel as it rose to twice its original size.

Mom would play cards with us, tell us stories and take us for long walks.  She took care of us when we were ill and made us laugh and have fun.

When I got older and could drive, Mom and I would love to go on long rides into Brandywine and Valley Forge.  We’d go to Mass and then I’d take her to McDonald’s for breakfast.  She’d get tea, never coffee, pancakes and round sausage.  Then we’d go driving for hours and on the way back home we’d stop off at Dairy Queen and get a strawberry sundae.

I remember giving her flowers for birthdays and holidays.  When I was in my teens and early twenties we were close to the same size in clothes and we use to share the same clothes.  Then I got too tall and too heavy while she was still small so she inherited my thin clothes.  For Easter I use to buy each of us a corsage to match our new spring outfits.  At times, we were a lot like BFF (Best Friends Forever) instead of Mother and daughter.  I always wanted to be more like her.

In the future, I’ll be writing about my life and my Mom will be a large part of those stories.  Just as she was a large part of my life.  I miss her.  Sometimes, I’ll catch myself and think, “I’ll have to write Mom about what just happened.”  Then I’ll remember that she’s not around anymore.  Though I’m sure she’s up there looking down and knows already what’s going on in my life.

Happy Birthday, Mom.

Her favorite perfume when I was growing up was “Evening in Paris”.  Later, when I had moved away from home, I started wearing vanilla perfume.  After she passed away, searching through her things, I discovered that, unknown to either of us, she, too, had been wearing the same brand of vanilla perfume that I was using.