L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2 2023 www.italoamericano.org 14 L'Italo-Americano LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE D e a r r e a d e r s , N o v e m b e r 2 n d i s A l l S o u l s D a y . T h e e a r l y Christians, like their pagan ancestors, remembered their dead on certain days of the year. *** An assassin's bullet ended the life of our 35th Presi- dent, John F. Kennedy, on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was 4 6 y e a r s o l d a n d t h e youngest US president ever to die. *** Joe Petrosino (1860- 1 9 0 9 ) , t h e f i r s t I t a l i a n - American detective in the N e w Y o r k C i t y P o l i c e Department, while working u n d e r c o v e r , r e p o r t e d l y learned of a plan to assassi- n a t e o u r 2 5 t h P r e s i d e n t , William McKinley. Petrosi- no's warning was ignored and President McKinley was assassinated on September 6, 1901, while attending a public reception at the Pan- American Exposition in Buf- f a l o , N e w Y o r k . B e c a u s e McKinley had always made a point of his accessibility, the guests evidently were not checked very carefully, a n d M c K i n l e y w a s s h o t t w i c e a t c l o s e r a n g e b y a y o u n g a n a r c h i s t n a m e d L e o n K z o l g o s z , w h o h a d concealed his revolver with a large handkerchief. After McKinley's assassi- n a t i o n , h i s v i c e president, Theodore Roo- sevelt, took office at age 42. *** Accolades for Joe Petrosi- no from the Italian Ufficio Postale. Grazie to Signor Enrico H. of New York, I learned that a €0.85 Italian stamp was issued in honor of Joe Petrosino, the New York City Police Department's first Italian-American detective, on the 150th anniversary of his birth. Joe Petrosino was b o r n i n P a d u l a , I t a l y , i n 1860 and emigrated to New York City in 1873. He joined the police department ten years later and was promot- ed to detective sergeant in 1895 by Theodore Roosevelt, the police commissioner at the time. A pioneer in the f i g h t a g a i n s t o r g a n i z e d crime, Petrosino headed the c i t y ' s f i r s t b o m b s q u a d , established in 1903. Also known for his undercover work, he is sometimes called the Italian Sherlock Holmes. Petrosino himself was assas- sinated on March 12, 1909, while working undercover in Palermo, Sicily. *** Gina Lollobrigida, who starred in films like Beat the Devil (1953), and Trapeze (1956), died on January 16, 2022, in Rome. She was 95. The internationally-known talented actress was quoted as saying: "We are all born to die. The difference is the i n t e n s i t y w i t h w h i c h w e choose to live." *** W i t h A r m i s t i c e D a y (now called Veteran Day) coming up on November 11, I got to thinking about the many bambini born world- wide in the 1890s, who were destined to become cannon f o d d e r d u r i n g L a P r i m a G u e r r a M o n d i a l e , W o r l d War I, when Italy was allied with Belgium, France, Great B r i t a i n , R u s s i a , a n d t h e United States, in the war to end all wars. My father Vin- cenzo, born in 1896, was one of the lucky ones, in that he served in the Italian army, fighting against the Austriaci (the Austrians), and came home to tell and swap tales with his paesani ex-combat- t e n t i a t t h e i r w e e k l y t r e sette card sessions on Sun- d a y s . A s a c h i l d , i f I w a s within earshot, the words I r e m e m b e r h e a r i n g m o s t w e r e " f r e d d o , " c o l d , a n d " n e v e , " s n o w , a s w e l l a s "poveri figli di mamma," poor mama's boys, usually uttered by my mother, who w o u l d s a y i n I t a l i a n t h a t m o t h e r s n u r t u r e d t h e i r young sons like prized hot- house flowers, making sure they buttoned their sweaters o r p u t o n t h e i r g a l o s h e s before going outdoors, and then the government would harvest this fiori di gioven- Advancing our Legacy: Italian Community Services CASA FUGAZI If you know of any senior of Italian descent in San Francisco needing assistance, please contact: ItalianCS.org | (415) 362-6423 | info@italiancs.com Italian Community Services continues to assist Bay Area Italian-American seniors and their families navigate and manage the resources needed to live healthy, independent and productive lives. Since Shelter-in-Place began in San Francisco, Italian Community Services has delivered over 240 meals, over 900 care packages and made over 2000 phone wellness checks for our seniors. tù (flowers of youth) when they bloomed, for servizio militare, and they would go, often poorly equipped and clothed, to fight, and fre- quently froze to death in some terra straniera. I also got to thinking that, since old men declare wars, but it is the young who must fight them, if it were mandatory that those declaring wars had to fight them or had to send their sons and daugh- ters to be the first in line, there would be fewer wars indeed. *** An abbondanza of good w i s h e s a n d b u o n a s a l u t e fino a cent'anni to all you veterans of World War II or t h e w a r s t h a t f o l l o w e d . There was a time when our m i l i t a r y p o w e r b r o k e r s s t e a d f a s t l y i n s i s t e d o n "nothing but the best for o u r b o y s . " P r e s i d e n t K e n n e d y q u o t e d t h i s unsigned indictment by an unknown soldier etched on the wall of a sentry box dur- ing the Cold War, back in 1960, and assured all that this country does not forget. I hope so: "God and the soldier all men adore in time of dan- ger and not before. When the danger is past and all things righted, God is for- g o t t e n a n d t h e s o l d i e r s slighted." *** Italian-Americans were the largest ethnic group in t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s A r m e d Forces during the 1940s.

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