Chapter 16: Life on the Homefront

We called it the homefront, because it was everybody's war, not just those men and women in service who volunteered and were drafted and were committed to doing their part for the noble concept of freedom.

World War II was a war during which everybody did their part. It meant making sacrifices. Materials that were needed “over there” were rationed over here. Gasoline couldn't be bought without coupons. The same held true for anything made of rubber. If you were lucky enough to have a car, you had to make do with worn, patched tires and inner-tubes. Meat, butter and sugar were needed to keep our troops fit and fighting.

Every smoker saved the aluminum foil that lined cigarette packs, formed them into shiny round balls and donated them to the war effort.

Scrap drives were common, too. It seemed that nothing was wasted – if it was metal and no longer of use, it would be collected, melted down and turned into a weapon of war.

At 13 Liberty Street, the backyard garden was expanded, and even the venerable Italian custom of growing your own vegetables became support for the war – they suddenly became Victory Gardens, turning a tradition into an act of patriotism.

Eddie Case tried to enlist, but with a wife – Esther – and a child, me, and a heart murmur from his undernourished childhood, he was labelled 4F by the Selective Service, known as the draft board, and so kept his job at Cluett, Peabody & Company, now turning out army issue clothing, and joined the others in the Case clan in following the progress of the war on two fronts.

After dinner, the family would gather around the big console radio in the living room, and hear commentators like Edward R. Murrow, H.V. Kaltenborn and Lowell Thomas report from exotic locations, spewing names of places and battles that we had never heard before, but would become famous or infamous in future history books.

My father was an early graffitist – I told you earlier how he painted the romantic words of a song on our backyard wall to impress my mother when they were courting. Now, he turned the stone retaining wall into a kind of memorial of honor, listing the names and titles of our relatives who were serving overseas.

And as each of them came home – and as fate would have it, they all did – he would make a banner of letters that spelled out each name with a big “Welcome Home.”

The children of the Case family followed the lead of our fathers and uncles, and put on our own fund-raising shows. I was pretty young, but the older cousins always found a way to include everyone of us kids in our USO shows. We'd learn dance routines, songs and poems. We'd perform our versions of the popular musical stars of the day, like Al Jolson. I'm sure we didn't raise a lot of money in those days, simply because there wasn't a lot of money to be had, but whatever it was, we felt like we were doing our part, and it was a good feeling.

Trains ran through Troy's Little Italy in those days, and passenger trains were given over to transporting troops to the various training camps and points of embarkation. Those troop train schedules were noted by the families, and the women would pool their resources and make sandwiches and whatever sweets they could bake with limited ingredients, and hand them up to the uniformed boys as they eagerly reached out of the train car windows. Of course, the USO was always there, with coffee and doughnuts, cigarettes and smiles.

Keeping up the morale was important, because as prevalent as the propaganda was, the news from the front was not always good. The Allies – Britain, the US, Canada, Australia and Russia – were playing catch-up in troop strength and war machinery. Factories in American became dedicated to turning out tanks, jeeps, airplanes, guns, rifles, bombs and bullets. Shipbuilders turned out battleships, tenders, PT boats and landing craft.

We listened in early June of 1944 as D-Day was launched, and despite the terrible losses of so many Allied soldiers, we felt that the might of our forces and the rightness of our cause would prevail. There was hope building for success in Europe, and in the Pacific.

One by one, the welcome home signs went up, and all our cousins returned to Liberty Street sound of body and limb, but forever changed by the experiences we could only imagine, and the stories they were so reluctant to share.

Things were never going to be the same again, even though an era of prosperity was on the horizon. Tensions in the Case family had been put on hold for four years. But when the last bomb had been dropped overseas, the battles on the domestic front were just being joined.

©Copyright 2010 Frank LaPosta Visco

Next: Peace in the world, war at home.

Chapter 15: War Stories

(Author's note: Talk about timing -- these stories, although fictionalized, reflect the experiences of several of my cousins. The last of these heroes -- my personal, life-long hero, passed away this past week just after his 86th birthday. To Anthony G. Visk, I dedicate this.)

Once FDR declared that the US was at war, every American's focus shifted. There are always people opposed to war, but anti-war protests subsided, German sympathizers were stifled and if there ever was a unanimous national will, it came sharply into focus in late 1941.

Troy's factories were dedicated to providing our exponentially-growing military forces with clothing and other materiel. Underage boys pleaded with their parents to let them enlist. As men left their jobs to fight overseas, women who weren't already employed took their places in factories, offices and the local Watervliet Arsenal, which had been turning out cannon since the War Between the States. Women who were nurses, secretaries and language specialists were called into service.

The country's national symbol, Troy's own Uncle Sam, was once again pointing at each and every American, emphasizing the need for personal involvement in the war effort.

For four years, from 1941 to 1945, boys – and some girls – who were in high school one year were in uniform the next – forced into grown-up roles, facing the horrors of war, yet writing letters to their teachers, friends and families that hid the facts and bolstered our hopes.

Of course, there was genuine fear and conscientious objection to war. I remember hearing a story long after World War II ended, about a young man -- not from Troy --who was determined not to be drafted. He was so fearful of being shot by the enemy, that he shot himself in the foot, only to discover that he was too short to serve in the first place.

The story is apocryphal of course, because no one was “too short” to serve. In fact, two of Aunt Giovi's boys, who lived upstairs over Eddie and Esther Case and me, their baby son, were just over 5 feet tall, and the Army found important work for both of them.

Willie, known forever after to the family as “Smilin' Jack,” was recruited into the Army Air Corps (later the US Air Force) as a tail gunner. They had to be small – there was barely enough room in the tail of a bomber for a man and a machine gun. But it was a vital position, because once the planes took off from their bases in England, and were over German-occupied Europe, the tail gunner's life expectancy was something like seven seconds. The Luftwaffe fighter planes would attack from below and behind, as shrapnel – or flak – filled the skies ahead of our planes, protecting the industrial targets below.

Our “Smilin' Jack” was given a small stuffed creature, called a gremlin, by his beautiful little sister, Michelina – known as “Mike” – before he went overseas. He took it with him on every flight, held on to it even when his plane was shot down over the English Channel, and brought it safely home and later, gave it to his daughter. I remember hearing about other things he and his fellow flight crew members carried – false identification papers, currency and compact emergency rations – necessary for survival in case they were shot down and survived after parachuting into enemy territory.

Anthony, who was known as Kokomo, or “Coke,” from a popular comic strip of the time, graduated high school a year after Willie. Although even on tiptoe he barely reached 5 feet, he became a jeep driver in Patton's army. His legs were just long enough to reach the pedals, and his diminutive size left more room in the jeep for the mail he would deliver from mobile headquarters to the GI's on the front line.

Stories of amazing feats and heroic deeds mingled in the local newspaper with lists of dead, wounded and missing soldiers from all over the area. I still have a yellowing copy of a clipping about “Coke” when he was written up for disobeying orders, and took off for the front lines with “Victory Mail” from home for the fighting men on the front line, in the middle of a ferocious battle. Instead of being reprimanded, he was awarded a medal for bravery.

Vittorio, or Vic, another Case cousin fresh out of high school, found himself, in the last year of the war, slogging through Italy, pushing the retreating German Army northward, where the weary and mostly disillusioned enemy soldiers were eager to survive and return to what was left of their ravaged homeland. That didn't make them any less dangerous, of course, and incredible as it may seem, even today you can see film from the US National archives, on your home computer, of my cousin's unit rounding up German soldiers amid gunfire, as they liberate a northern Italian town!

The video was found and uploaded to the website of a resident of the town, Cornuda, whose main street has been renamed for the date of the US liberation. There are plenty of grateful Italians there, and no “ugly Americans.”

As I write down these family tales, and watch that black and white film, I find it hard to believe that, back then, boys just out of high school were forced to become men of such strength and courage and resolve. No wonder we owe them so much.

©Copyright 2010 Frank LaPosta Visco

Next: In Book 2, Chapter 5: Life goes on.

Chapter 14: A Date That Will Live in Infamy

I was almost a year old on December 7, 1941, so I really don't have a first-hand recollection of the shocked reactions on the faces of those around me. I'm pretty sure no one in Troy's Little Italy even knew where Pearl Harbor was, or what it was.

They just knew that it had been attacked, our Navy was in ruins, and that we were now at war – a war not just with Japan, but with Germany, too. A war against two countries, a hemisphere apart. Today, it's remembered and commemorated as an ancient and honorable victory over two evil empires, won at great cost to much of the world and to virtually every American family.

But try to imagine what it meant to those families – the instant change in attitude, in purpose, and the life-changing decisions facing the young men and women of the time.

World War Two was every American's war – even those whose grandparents had come from the very countries that were attacking us and our allies. Little Italy, especially the enclave of Tory Hill, which encompassed the part of Liberty Street across the railroad tracks, St. Mary's and Havermans Avenues, was a pretty closed community back then – but the Italo-Americans who made up the great majority of the population had to go outside its imaginary walls to shop, work and go to school.

Of course, it was easier for people of European backgrounds to blend into the general population. We didn't know anyone of Japanese extraction back then, but the wave of ugly propaganda was especially hard on them, and, frankly, the resulting focus on their incarceration in the western states probably brought some sense of relief to my relatives, as well as to those of German extraction.

Not that it was easy, even for a family whose name had been “Americanized” from Caserta to Case. Even though it had been an innocent enough change, there were people who suspected that the name had been changed to facilitate spying for the “Old Country.” Any communication with relatives in Italy – or Germany – was now suspect. Social clubs that had been founded to help equalize the ethnic communities were mistrusted and even reviled.

Despite that, the Case brothers helped rally the community and used their talents at organizing and producing plays and musical reviews to continue their efforts, redirecting the proceeds of their shows to the USO, the United Service Organizations.

Begun with foresight in February of 1941 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, The USO was – and is – a private, non-profit organization created to provide on-leave recreation for the rapidly growing United States armed forces. In response to the increasing world crisis, U.S. troops grew from 50,000 to 12 million between 1940 and 1945! USO clubs all over the world provided a touch of home – a place to dance, to meet, to watch movies, to find solace, to write letters home, and to enjoy free coffee and doughnuts.

Before the war would end, over a million and a half volunteers would work on the USO's behalf. Everyone in Little Italy pitched in. People who once played, sang and danced just for family gatherings, now brought their talents to the stage for the whole community to enjoy, and contribute to the war effort.

Everyone seemed to pull together back then, under the commonly heard phrase, “For the duration.”

Backyard gardens suddenly became “Victory Gardens,” and with rationing of tires, gasoline, meat, butter and other supplies needed for the war, cooperation was the watchword.

Blackouts were common, and men and women who were unable to fight became neighborhood Wardens, patrolling the streets at night, making sure no lights could be seen and used as targets by possible enemy aircraft. Children were trained to recognize and identify aircraft by their silhouettes, and to report any suspicious shapes in the sky.

Summertime lemonade stands now supported the USO, as did the traditional backyard “circuses” that the neighborhood kids put together, with performing pets and acrobatics. Breaking news of the war came from our radios, war action film was shown in newsreels at the movie theaters, and detailed reports of the fighting – as well as lists of the dead and missing in action – came from newspapers.

No one who was in the neighborhood at the time, in early 1942, can ever forget the screams of a mother on Havermans Avenue when she was told of her son's ultimate sacrifice in the very country she had left many years before to escape the hardships of life.

Her wailing sobs struck deep, and awakened the fears of every family with a member in service, or about to be.

©Copyright 2010 Frank LaPosta Visco

Next: War stories.

Chapter 13: November Surprises

Anna Caserta, matriarch of the Case family, was dead. Her youngest son, Eddie (Egidio) had committed adultery, and was found out. His strong-willed wife Esther, about to give birth, considered moving back with the Campobasso clan, but was rebuffed by her equally stubborn father.

So she locked the door on Eddie and forced him to find solace elsewhere. Fortunately for me, he moved in with his widowed oldest sister, Aunt Giovi (Giovanna), who lived upstairs with her 3 sons and one daughter, and not with Yolanda, the town “flirt” (to use a gentle euphemism), who it was said had seduced him. To tell the truth, my father was easily seduced.

It's time I introduced myself, because this is just before I appear in the saga of the Cases and the Campobassos. I'm Eddie Case Junior, or “Little Eddie” as I was called as soon as I was born to Esther and Eddie, on the last day of December, 1939. I'm the one who's been telling the story, and you'll learn more about me later.

But right now it's late November of 1939, Europe's in a mess, America's having a very slow recovery from the Great Depression, and things aren't much better at 13 Liberty Street, home of the Caserta/Case clan.

Eddie slept uncomfortably upstairs on his sister Aunt Giovi's living room sofa. She already had three mischievous teenage sons, her lovely introspective daughter Michelina and the lifelong bachelor brother Vincenzo living with her, and Aunt Giovi tried in her quiet way to effect a reconciliation between her youngest brother and his very pregnant wife downstairs. Esther's sister Rose and her husband, Eddie's brother Joe, who lived next door, downstairs, tried to help the estranged couple, as did Michele, the head of the fourth Case family in the other upstairs flat, next to Aunt Giovi's clan.

Esther, the wronged wife, visited St. Joseph's Convent House and had a serious discussion with her piano teacher, the wise Sister Mary Magdalene. A very talented musician who was born Margaret Mary Bonaccio, she had left Little Italy after high school for New York City, studied with world class musicians, sampled the favors of rich and powerful men and women, then renounced it all and returned to take her vows and devote her talents to her religious community.

She and Esther had a rapport, and while they had chosen different paths, were more spiritually attuned than Esther had ever been with her quiet, reclusive sister Rose.

The beautiful nun, the daughter of an Italian fruit peddler and a South Troy girl of Irish descent, advised Esther to let Eddie back in, make him promise to atone for his faithlessness, and rebuild their marriage. “Deal with the devil you know – it's better than with the devil you don't know,” Sister Maggie said, as a look of wistfulness appeared in her blue eyes.

Although all the relatives took credit for facilitating the reunion, it was really the nun who convinced Esther to forgive. But, ingrained in the steel-spined daughter of a long line of blacksmiths and forgers of scissors and revenge daggers was a reluctance to bend and forget.

Although Esther took the nun's advice, she would never completely trust her husband again. Eddie moved back in from his sofa upstairs, and life resumed, with more of an edge to it. Esther continued to take solace in playing Chopin's etudes on the piano next door, waiting for me to leave the comfort of the womb.

But my scheduled appearance was still a month away. Whenever Maria Campobasso, Esther's mother, could leave the confectionery store, my tiny and spry maternal grandmother would walk the few blocks to Liberty Street and visit her two daughters who were now part of the Case family. But never on weekends when the men of the family were there – only during the week when the husbands were at work. Perhaps that was because the same characteristic unwillingness to forget was engrained in her, too, having been so long a part of the Campobasso tradition.

She was generous with food from the store, even if it was day old bread and produce, or a dented can of imported plum tomatoes that wouldn't sell. But Maria Campobasso never told her husband Francesco, because he refused to forget the sins of his daughters, Esther and Rose. One had defied him and kept him from her wedding, the other was complicit in a secret that no one dared to discuss aloud.

Of course, later in life, when the old ones would be only faded photos and half-remembered stories, I would discover the family secrets, and, as writers do, use them to tell my stories. And use them I will, when the time is right in the saga I'm relating to you.

Meanwhile, I hope you'll continue to follow the ups, downs, laughter and tears of what may or may not be a typical family with its roots in Troy's Little Italy.

©Copyright 2009 Frank LaPosta Visco

Next: In Book 2, Chapter 2: A child is born.

Chapter 12: Dark October

Esther Campobasso was Esther Case now, but she found it difficult to adjust to her new role. You'd think that moving closer to her sister, Rose, who had married Eddie's older brother Joe, would have eased the transition to life as a stay-at-home housewife on Liberty Street, but it didn't.

Moving up Tory Hill to Liberty Street, literally on the other side of the railroad tracks, and across the street from “The Dumps,” seemed to Esther more like moving down. Here was a young woman who had enjoyed a taste of freedom, earning her way, rebelling against the oppressive rules of la via vecchio – the old way – finally succumbing to a traditional role, and about to become a mother.

Eddie Case had won one prize and forfeited another. His childhood sweetheart was his wife, but his dream of national and international fame was gone. He still performed in local plays and musicals with his brothers, raising money for St. Anthony's, and reveled in the attention of the community.

With the imminent arrival of a new baby, Eddie and Esther faced their growing family's budget with some trepidation. In order to supplement his wages as a pressman at the Cluett, Peabody shirt factory, Eddie and three of his friends from the neighborhood formed a band, the Music Men, and picked up some extra cash performing popular music and Italian tunes on weekends at some of the roadhouses on the outskirts of Troy.

The Music Men consisted of Eddie on fiddle, Johnnie “Helmet Head” Marano on saxophone, Rocky Agnone on drums and Lefty Bernous on piano. The sound they developed was vaguely reminiscent of the Jean Goldkette band that Eddie admired.

Besides the few extra dollars the extra-curricular activity added to the family budget, Eddie also enjoyed the attention of the crowd and the escape from the drudgery of factory work. If he were completely honest, he would have admitted that he didn't mind escaping the uneventful home life he shared with Esther, either.

Esther was seven months pregnant and “eating for two” had resulted in her gaining close to fifty pounds. The stress of daily housekeeping wore her down, although she did have whatever help her sister Rose could offer. It wasn't much, because Rose had two children to tend to.

Whenever she could find the time, Esther found solace in reading and playing pieces by her favorite composer, Chopin, on Rose and Joe's old upright piano. Occasionally, on a brisk, sunny October day, Esther would wrap herself in her cloth coat and trudge uptown to the elegant Troy Public Library, with it's glorious Tiffany windows, and return home with one of its collection of romantic novels.

As Esther lost herself in her reading and her classical music, Eddie, who craved attention, felt increasingly ignored, and on weeknights spent his evenings after supper by his mother's side. Anna was now bedridden, unable to eat, and seemed to be losing weight as fast as Esther was gaining it.

The Music Men found themselves a regular gig, out at the Country Grove in East Greenbush, and it was there that Yolanda Caputo took an interest in the handsome fiddle player. As they used to say in the 1930's, Yolanda had a reputation. Today, we might call her liberated, but her overt sexuality and obvious interest in “playing the field” back then marked her as a loose woman.

She took an active interest in Eddie, exhibiting her voluptuousness close to the bandstand during practically every up-tempo number, and stalking Eddie during the band's breaks, offering him sips from her flask, cigarettes from her case, and carnal promises from her libido.

Eddie was needy, lonely and vulnerable. Yolanda was giving, willing, and predatory. On Friday night, October 29, 1939, Eddie did not go home to Esther.

Esther would have stayed up worrying all night, but this night, she and the Case clan that Esther and her sister Rose had married into had another reason to be awake. Father Sebastiano from St. Anthony's was administering the Last Sacrament to the matriarch, Anna Caserta, who was breathing her last breaths. And with every one, she demanded to see her baby, Egidio.

But Egidio – Eddie – was in the arms of Yolanda Caputo, and they were in the middle of violating a totally different commandment.

©Copyright 2009 Frank LaPosta Visco

Next: In Chapter 13, the 1940's begin with separation, reconciliation and revelation.

Chapter 11: A Wedding & A Birth

It was almost the witching hour on a moonless April night in 1935 when the ostetrica (midwife) Viorica DiPaolo, was summoned to the home of Francesco and Rose Campobasso to receive her instructions. The last time she had attended their daughter Rose, at the birth of Joseph Anthony Case, complications required a trip to the hospital. The Campobassos wanted to emphasize that that option was to be avoided.

The old woman made her assurances, gathered her bundles and proceeded the few blocks to the Liberty Street flat of Joe and Rose Case.

The next morning, it was announced that the newest Case had arrived -- a healthy 9-pound boy, and that he would be christened Joseph Anthony, the same two names of his older brother, but reversed.

Esther, now released from her confinement, and pale from not being allowed in the sun since the previous summer, was eager to help her older sister with the care of the infant.

House calls were common then, and Dr. Positano, the physician who had attended Rose after the complications of her first difficult delivery, called frequently at the Case household to check up on Rose and the infant. The fact that Esther was there every time he visited was far from a coincidence, for the good doctor had been enamored of Esther for as long as he could remember. A shy man, he barely managed to speak to Esther, experiencing that all-too-common male fear of rejection when faced with the object of his affection.

One day, though, he spoke more than the usual banal pleasantries, and berated himself for it afterwards

After examining Rose and the baby, the doctor was offered the usual hospitality of sharing coffee and biscotti at the kitchen table, and he accepted.

Esther, aware of his interest in her, tried to keep the conversation limited to the most banal of topics, the weather, but she sensed an undercurrent of seriousness about the physician, as he nervously stirred his expresso. What she couldn't know was that he was trying to tell her something he had rehearsed over and over, phrasing and rephrasing it, never quite satisfied that he had the right words, and worried that he would be betraying a confidence and his Hippocratic oath if he revealed the reason for his speech.

Being lost in these thoughts caused an embarrassing silence that he suddenly became aware of, when he was asked the same question twice.

“What's that? Oh, yes, I'll be back again on Tuesday,” he stammered out as he stood up from the table and prepared to leave.

“Esther, could I speak with you, please?” The doctor gestured toward the door, hoping Esther would escort him to it for a private word. She went with him, a concerned look clouding her face.

When they reached the front door, the doctor said, “Esther, I've known you and your family for a long time. I wouldn't do anything to hurt you in any way. I – I just want you to know that if there's anything I can do to, um, help in the, you know, situation, I'd be honored.”

Despite her smile, Esther's eyes turned cold. “Thank you, doctor. I think we'll be all right,” was all she said.

As the doctor had feared, getting out of the Campobasso house and into the Case compound was an opportunity for Esther to reestablish her relationship with Eddie, despite the strong objections of the parents. Obviously, when Esther was with Rose and the baby, everyone concerned made sure that the two were never alone.

In spite of the obstacles that the families put in their way, courtship resumed, and two months later the strong-willed Esther had her way; another Case male would wed another Campobasso female, although as far as the couple was concerned, it was their second wedding to each other.

These days, when the modern-day descendants of the Campobasso and Caserta/Case families look at the June 1935 wedding pictures of Esther and Eddie, they see something unique. Actually, it's who they don't see that makes it so – Francesco Campobasso isn't there.

It's not that he was deceased in 1935; he would live another ten years, passing on just as the second world war ended. No, he's not there because Esther refused to allow him any part in it.

Esther blamed her father for her imprisonment. True, he was the enforcer of the strict rule, but it was the women of the family, led by Esther's mother Rose, who decreed the punishment, in order to clear the family name of any taint that could result from the elopement of Esther and Eddie the previous July.

Francesco had made no exceptions – Esther had had no contact with the outside world since her return from the civil ceremony in Vermont – a non-wedding in the eyes of Troy's Italo-American community.

And although he didn't say it to Esther, Dr. Positano understood what that would mean if everyone knew what he knew.

©Copyright 2009 Frank LaPosta Visco

Next: In Chapter Twelve, Double Trouble.

Chapter 10: The Punishment

Italian tempers flared. Curses and damnation spewed forth in a raging torrent of biblical proportions.

The hot July Saturday that Esther and Eddie returned from their civil wedding ceremony in Vermont, neighbors of both families, from Ferry Street to the Canal, and from Havermans Avenue to the River, closed their windows -- more to shut out the mournful wailing than the burning rays of the sun.

The shame of an unconsecrated union was almost too much to bear for the Campobasso family. While Francesco fumed and railed, the women of the clan met in what can best be described as a council of elders. In Italian families, the decisions in cases like this would come from the woman, who was the heart of la famiglia; the enforcement would come from the man, who was merely the family's figurehead.

The ruling came down. Esther was forbidden to leave the Campobasso house – for any reason – for nine months. And, obviously, she was to have no outside male visitors.

Anna Caserta was summoned to the Campobasso household to confer. Her indignation at the elopement of her son and this strong-willed young woman didn't rise to the same level of contempt as in Maria Campobasso's family, but her resentment exceeded theirs. Actually, Anna was more upset over the threat of losing her youngest son's contributions to the Caserta/Case coffers – already two sons had married, and while their brides had joined them in the Liberty Street house, more of their income was diverted away from Anna.

Eddie Case had no recourse but to follow the dictates handed to him by the Campobasso family – he would have no contact with Esther until the end of April of the following year. If he wrote letters, they would be destroyed. The Campobasso phone was in the store, so a call would be futile. No matter how anxious he was to see Esther, Eddie would simply have to go on with his life without her until the matter was resolved. He would go to work, perform in plays with his brothers to benefit St. Anthony's Church and School, but he wouldn't date and he wouldn't “go out with the boys” on weekends. But, if Esther's keepers thought that Eddie's passion would die, they were wrong.

As for Esther, Eddie was the only man in her life. Now that she had known him intimately, she knew that he would wait, and be faithful. She, on the other had, had no choice. Esther was now the princess locked in the tower, and the drama of that reinforced her determination. She understood the reason for the imprisonment – the stain of carnal knowledge must be erased in the only way it could be – by time. If at the end of nine months she were still childless, then it could be argued that the family honor had not been besmirched.

Such was the strict code of the old way. For centuries, the key to the survival of the contadini of Italy was neither the state nor the church. The rulers of the fractured Italian provinces were feudal lords; even when the country was finally united in the late 1800's, the rulers were from the north and actually increased the repression of the southerners. Although individual priests might side with the peasants, church leaders made their deal with whomever was in power.

So la famiglia was all you could count on. And if the family was dishonored in anyway, extraordinary means were necessary to restore it. Esther had committed one of the worst transgressions of the old way – she had completely ignored a basic tradition, in which the family arranges the union of its children.

As so often happens in large families, there was other news that year, and not all of it was bad. Just weeks after the shame that Esther and Eddie had brought on their families, the Campobassos and Cases had a reason to smile: it was announced that Esther's older sister Rose and her husband, Eddie's older brother Joe, were finally going to have their second child.

©Copyright 2009 Frank LaPosta Visco

Next: In Chapter Eleven, a wedding, a birth, and a break with tradition.