I think in Chapter One, I ended with Grandma and the 4 children moving in with my other grandmother, Caterina Dainotti.  They lived this way for a little while, with everyone crowded into one apartment in New York City.  Caterina's older children befriended Marietta's children, and began teaching them English.  My mother, being the oldest of the family, had already completed 3 grades in Italy, but when she enrolled in the American public school system, she had to be placed in Kindergarten until she learned English.  (They don't do that any more.  All the Cuban and South American immigrants now are placed in grades according to their age, and in some schools the administration insists on the TEACHERS attending Spanish classes).  Personally, I think the old way was better.  It's up to the immigrant to learn the language of the land.

Anyway, while my mother was in kindergarten, Caterina's daughter Concetta ("Connie") became my mother's tutor and before long, Mom spoke English.  The others learned from Mom and each other and before long the family spoke good enough English to blend.  Of course it helped a lot that when they migrated to the U.S.A., New York (the lower East side) was mostly Italian and the language was very much alive in that section.  Caterina helped Marietta get an apartment of their own, and before long, they had settled down and become an extension to Caterina's family. 

Grandma found a job in the garment center, and she was bound and determined to get my mother out of school and get a job.  Things were decidedly tight and Grandma was too proud to accept any more from her cousin, Caterina.  In the meantime, the three little ones were cared for by Angie, my mother, who was all of 9 years old.  She still went to school, and soon Joe was old enough to go too.  It is not clear who took care of Mary and Lily, but by the time my mother got to 6th grade, Grandma decided she would take my mother to work with her and teach her the trade.  This worked out exceptionally well, as my mother was a fast "read" and learned in no time flat.  But trouble loomed it's ugly head, and truant officers came after Angie (who in all honesty told me she missed school and wanted very much to go back). 

But the extra salary was very important, so once again, it was time to get the better of the law, and someone forged my mother's birth certificate to make her older than she really was, and she got her working papers, finally after much hiding under sewing machines and in closets when the truant officers visited unannounced.  For this reason Mom was forced to end her schoolgirl years very early (she was 12, and the acceptable age for working papers was 14).  From that time on, she became the breadwinner, and she and Grandma became very close, more like girlfriends than mother and daughter. 

Years went by and men started showing an interest in Grandma, who was a beautiful woman.  Men came and men went, all of them wanting to marry the beautiful Marietta, and help her raise her children, but she made a promise to the almighty when Calogero (her first and only true love) died, that his children would never know another father, and she stuck to this promise for the next 17 years.  I never learned what her private life was like, but she did finally marry an attractive single neighbor of hers who had been asking regularly and had been turned down again and again.  I have a marriage certificate dated March 17, 1937.  She had been reluctant to marry while her children were still with her, again, because of a promise she made to her beloved husband when he died, that his children would never know a stepfather!  So it was only when the last of her children (Lily) was married that she finally let the poor man move in. 

I don't have the exact dates straight in my head, but the way I remember it,  Joe (Gesualdo) married Mary Roselli,  who was a friend of his sisters, Mary and Lily. They were involved with a group of  young women who met every Wednesday night, and Mary Roselli known to them as "Cutie" because she was very diminutive in stature.  I don't know what year they married, but it was an elopement with no fanfare.  Then,  Mary married Michael J. Caccuitto (whom we all know and loved) in September 1938 (I think...maybe it was 1937 after her mother married.) Then Lily married Joseph LoCascio, her girlfriend's Kitty's younger brother in December 1938 or '39,.and the three sets of newlyweds, Grandma and Henry, Mary and Mike, Lily and Joe all moved into a big house together. 

Grandma's husband, Henry Russelle, had been an actor in silent pictures and on stage and was never a good provider, but I remember him well, and even as a child I was aware of how much he loved Grandma.  He called her "beloved" and I never heard him say a harsh word to her.  He was a classy man with impeccable manners, who did not fit into this immigrant Italian family.  The marriage only lasted 10 years, and poor Henry died of some urinary tract infection, very unexpectedly.  Their certificate of marriage is in my possession and is very old and quite large, or I'd send it to you.  It is dated March 17, 1937.  I also have a picture of him which must have been a part of his portfolio as an actor.  Okay, back to the story. 

All 3 couples continued to live in that big old house, and Joe LoCascio was born to Lily and Joe, and Franklin followed for Mary and Mike.  I lived a lot of my life in that house too, as my parents were working, and did not own a car, so Marie and I were cared for by Grandma and Henry all week long.  We got to go home with our parents on Friday night, and come back on Sunday night.  It was during these times that the stories began, and I don't think I ever forgot a one.

Meanwhile, Caterina Tropia Dainotti, still stayed in touch.  With the absence of the telephone, people traveled by subway to visit each other.  The Dainotti's were getting married, too.  The first of Caterina's daughters married and had a son, who was killed when as a toddler, he tumbled into a large bucket of boiling water that poor Caterina was using to scrub floors.

Caterina and her husband were dead before I was born...Caterina got some sort of influenza that turned into pneumonia, and she died at the age of 52, leaving my father, Charlie, to care of the remaining girls who were still unmarried. Her husband, Alfonso had died before her, at an even younger age, from complications of diabetes. My father's youngest sister, (Amelia, called Mimi) was the same age as Lily Ala Lo Cascio, and lived with my mother and father in the early days of their marriage.  She and Lily played together, but Mimi did not last long in this home, as my mother went back to work and she moved to New York City to live with the eldest of Caterina's daughters, her sister Mary.  Mimi lived with Mary and her husband Jimmie Brancato and their daughter Lily, and their twin girls Angie and Catherine) until she got married, herself  in around  the year 1945! (It amazes me how these people lived on so little, and loved each other so much that they would give up their own comfort to take care of each other!)