MY FATHER WAS BORN 100 YEARS AGO IN DECEMBER

About four months ago, I started thinking about my parents, specifically my father, who separated from my mother when I was six and died when I was eleven. Obviously, I have very few memories of my dad, so I never had any desire to walk on the land he walked on. If I did, all I had to do was go to Grand Street in Manhattan and/or Avenue "W" in Brooklyn. For whatever reason, at this ripe age, I decided that I wanted to know a man who was my biological father even though I felt he never cared for me.

For whatever reason, there was an emptiness in my heart that I wanted to understand. When I was growing up, my mother used to take my kid brother and me to her parents every Saturday and my father's sister, my Aunt Lucy, on Sunday. I knew my aunts and uncles and loved them so I figured it didn't make sense that my father didn't care for my brother and me as he was from the same parents as them.

Before I embarked on this project, my only memories of my dad were bitter, sad and only a few of kindness. Two or three that I can remember. I was very lucky that my mother was so caring and loving to my my brother and me to the extent that she almost took the place of two parents.
We were very poor, but very rich at the same time, if you know what I mean. I now had an overwhelming desire to know something about my father, other than living with him for a while when he died and kissing his forehead in his coffin when he was 38 years old.

I decided to join an ancestry site and do some genealogy to find out. As I looked like my dad and had his genes, I figured he had to be a little caring and I wanted to know why or how he could be so cold as to desert a wife and two young sons. I found out a lot about his short life that I was not aware of, but maybe not all the answers I was looking for. I wish I could have gotten to know him, but it wasn't meant to be. I have to be thankful I had a wonderful mother, a good brother and great friends as I was growing up. I think they gave me the empathy and compassion I have today. I truly believe my dad had the same qualities based on things I discovered from my research and family stories from my mother, aunt Lucy and some of my uncles.

I found out that my father's father ( my paternal grandfather) died when he was only 29 in 1920 of a burst appendix leaving a wife of the same age and six kids. His name was Francesco and I was named after him. His wife, my father's mom (my grandmother) Maria, remarried and had two more boys with her second husband and she died at age 38 (the same age and the same date as my dad). My father survived all this as a young boy and young adult at the height of the great depression. The reason I am now convinced that my dad was a good man is a story his brother John told the family. His brothers were in Catholic homes as orphans. When my father was 19, he borrowed a car from a friend, drove to Long Island to see 2 of his brothers and took them for a ride. He took them to NY City and left them with his older brother William, who was recently married. I am sure it was pre-arranged. The amazing thing was, according to his brother John who told this story, it was the first time John had ever met his brother Jimmy (my dad). John was12 and his brother was 15.

I am sure my father remembered them as children and feeling responsible for them did it out of love and family. I truly believe this was my father and whatever happened to break up our family I believe my dad was basically a good man. There are many other things I have discovered but will leave it at this at this time.

My father was a good man with faults as we all have. He did the best with what he he had in a tough and short time on earth. Now, after all these years, I can heal the bonds and love my dad.

Sorry you had it so tough dad.

(to be continued)