The last input I made was after the death of my father. It's been a while. But this week his youngest sister succumbed to two cancers. Her death brings an end to a generation of Laurita's.
There were three offspring of Donato and Maria. They set foot on the US shore with my father in arm as a 3 month old (I learned that he was the youngest Italian immigrant to pass through Ellis Island).
They were sponsored by my grandmother's ex- brother in law. Maria was married before and had already been to the US and had a son. Her first husband and son died in the Great Influenza Epidemic of 1918. She returned to Italy and there met my grandfather in the village of Pietragalla.
Once back with her new husband and newborn son they settled in Corona, New York. An Italian immigrant community in Queens, NY.
There the begot Mary and Antoinette. My aunt mary died from breast cancer many years ago while I was still in high school. Antoinette was the youngest. My first memory of her was visiting her while she worked as a seamstress at a dress making sweat shop on Corona Avenue. She was a vibrant lady. As i posted before she was the Aunt who took me to Radio City Music Hall for the Christmas show of 1958. I thought she was a "woman of the world" because she knew her way around Manhattan. There is a picture of her and my mother sitting at a table at the famed Copacabana, cigarettes in hand, dressed up and partaking of something alcoholic. She taught me to do both the lindy hop and the cha cha. ( this was back when couples actually danced)
Annette married " later" to Joe Paesano, a brick mason. For the majority of their life they lived in a two bedroom apartment in Whitestone NY. Their first children were twin boys, JOSEPH and STEPHAN. Followed by two girls LISA and RENEE.
When ever I was home on leave we would visit. Coffee was made, cake was eaten.
She was always present at the family gathering. She made sure that "she made a plate for Uncle Joe".
She danced at my wedding(s).
She was an avid poker player long before poker was televised, while Uncle Joe "played the ponies".
But she always had her prayer cards.
As the Laurita progenitors are laid to west, the wave of one's own mortality looms larger and larger.
The Church says in its funeral prayers "life had not ended, rather life has changed" because the Perpetual Light of Christ is always before us.
Requiesat in pace Donato and Maria; Joseph, Mary and Antoinette!
