Ever wish you had asked a parent or relative about things in their past? Do you regret a lack of curiosity about the world while you were young? “If only I had asked… ” ” I wish I could go back and find out why…”
At my June birthday party, I half-jokingly asked two of my teenaged grandnieces if they would like to ask me questions about the 1950s or 60s. They looked up from their cellphones and shrugged. It was time for the cake.
Admittedly, I don’t recall asking my parents or grandfather about the early 1900s at family gatherings. Maybe I didn’t need to. They used to have fun reminiscing and we kids just listened – no phones, no earbuds, TV off. I was particularly receptive to any kind of history, but it wasn’t until I was 16 that I really wanted to compare their experiences to what I was learning in high school.
Was the Depression a hardship on them? I was surprised to learn that our extended family survived the times quite well. My maternal great-grandfather Luigi was a green grocer in an Italian neighborhood where fruits and vegetables were the staples. He managed to buy four adjacent Brooklyn row houses in the 1920s and 30s – one for each of his children and himself. Even Prohibition had no effect on our family. The law allowed households to make up to 200 gallons of wine, which every Italian family did like clockwork.
When Luigi married off his daughter, my grandmother, her husband not only got an apartment in one of the row houses, but later the old grocery space to build a small soda bottling plant. My grandfather had his own brand with flavors like Lemon (7-Up), Cola (Coke), Cream (like Sarsaparilla), and Coffee (like today’s Manhattan Special). He manufactured and delivered the soda to apartments (sometimes 4-flights up!), well into the 1950s.
During the summers of 1954 and 1955, I was sent to Brooklyn from my suburban home in Amityville, Long Island (made infamous by Hollywood movies!) to stay with my aunt and cousins. One of my perks was walking to an Italian deli for a salami hero and eating it on the sidewalk in front of my grandfather’s soda shop – of course, I had my pick of free sodas. I didn’t see much of my grandfather because he was either out with the delivery truck or ensconced in a tiny “syrup” room mixing up the flavors. He never gave me a tour of that mysterious room or any of the operations, and to my regret now, I never asked.
He sold the business soon after and moved to the suburbs. In the many years that followed I never asked him how and why he got into that business, questions that bug me now as I see how difficult life can be. Both he and my great-grandfather were immigrants who achieved the American Dream with a strong Italian work ethic.
My father was also an immigrant, who lived under Fascism until 1930. He had stories from his childhood that I only learned about by asking endless questions. From the time I was 16 to the end of his life, conversations with my father filled in so many blanks in family and world history. He told me things about his father that brought to life sailing ships and the trans-Atlantic “commuting” of Italian immigrants – men who frequently worked their passages on ships to return to Italy and back to their jobs in America.
Dad recounted having to walk to a distant farm from his seaside home to get “jackass” milk for his ill sister – Italian doctors prescribed the stuff! He told me how he was apprenticed to a blacksmith until his mother saw how filthy his clothes got; she reassigned him to a carpenter, his life-long trade. Then, there was his mandatory enrollment in the Fascist Youth as a black-shirted Balilla (ages 8-14), where he was taught the very Roman legends that I was learning in my high school Latin class. This same man served in the U.S. Navy during World War II – he saw the world from both sides.
So many interesting stories, so much insight into old times and family history just by listening and asking questions. Isn’t there a board game or app that can initiate family conversations?
We would have fewer missing pieces in life. -JLM
Many of us grew up with these stories and I think it’s the reason we are so connected to our history and roots……I find them all fascinating, many defy fiction……it’s also the reason why many of us find all the Hollywood and general stereotypes so distorted.
Ironically, it’s interesting too that those who show little interest in these rich slices of life, jump onto the latest movie version of an Italian American stereotype…I hate to think what’s going to happen to information in general when the tic-tok generations can’t handle a message that’s over 30 seconds.
It’s kind of scary to think of how sound bites are replacing any sort of critical analysis and discourse. The gap between knowledge and technology and assessment skills is really creating a divide bigger than the Grand Canyon. Having an anchor or lodestars of family history really serves as an investment in the future of personal identity. At least we can say we know who we are……
The Tik-Tok generation! Indeed. And I would add those whom I call the Twitter Twits, Facebook Fools, and Instagram Idiots (i.e., the majority of social media users).
What a misnomer: social media. It is ANTI-social media. No one truly ‘connects.’
As a now-retired teacher, I saw the impact of cell phones on student learning both post cell phones (prior to 2007) and after (when all kids had one). Communication and critical thinking skills deteriorated. Then COVID came and increased their isolation even more.
As for getting family stories going, I sneakily (and successfully) got extended family members at a party to play a simple card game called, “Do You Remember?” No points, though you can make some. A person picks up a card which asks questions like, “Do you remember a scary incident from your childhood?” My mother related how, as a five-year-old hawking newspaper in downtown Chicago with her older brother (all of 8!), they got lost going home one day as a bad snowstorm hit. It had redirected their bus ride home and they were disoriented. With the help of a few strangers, they were directed to another bus route that would take them to the same destination. Everyone was all ears!
BTW: Cell phones are banned during the game.
Many of us wish we asked questions, but we were not aware at the time how important their answers were. I am sorry to say I will never have the answers. I am the Founder/ Executive Director of the American Italian Heritage Museum where we have in exhibits, in documents, in our library, in photos etc. some answers. I urge everyone to put the names and dates of old photos on the back. If possible, ask older members of the family for that information.