Independent minded

By the time Carlo and his mother returned to America in 1937, Bruno had set up an apartment on Saint Marks Ave. between Grand and Classan Avenues in the Adelphi section of Brooklyn, just north of Prospect Park. Carlo had finished elementary school in Sant’Andrea, but hadn’t received any schooling in English. His entire American school experience came in the three years that followed.

His first stop was P.S. 109, located on the opposite side of Prospect Park, about 2.4 miles from Carlo’s new home.

Rather than spend the 50 cents his mother gave him each week to ride the trolley to school, the entrepreneurial youngster either walked the whole way around Prospect Park – about 30 city blocks – or hitched a ride on the trolley without paying. He kept the money for the movies at the end of the week, spending nearly the whole day with his new friends at the theater for only 10 cents. He’d also buy first-edition comic books, including Superman, and would even save some for the local club on Bergen Street, where he was a regular.

Many of Carlo’s classmates had similar Italian histories, which made it easy for him to adjust to his new world. They spoke the same language and shared many of the same customs.

To offer even more comforts of Sant’Andrea, only three months after Carlo and Elvira came to Brooklyn, Bruno decided to move the family near his paesans to a brownstone on Kosciusko Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant, about a mile northeast of the Saint Marks Ave. address. The new apartment was off Nostrand Avenue, near Nostrand’s intersection with DeKalb Avenue and only a few blocks south of Bruno’s cousin, Vittorio Nero, on Sandford Street.

P.S 109 was now more than 50 blocks from his new home, but that didn’t stop Carlo from occasionally walking the distance. The added effort was worth it. He would be left with plenty of money to spend at the movies or on other treats. He was so used to walking the long stretch that he would often double back to his old neighborhood after doing his homework to the Bergen Street club near his old apartment on St. Marks.

Returning to Sant’Andrea

Never expecting that events would lead them back to America, Bruno and Elvira were committed to returning to Calabria.

In March 1940, they began to put their plan in motion. Carlo, now 15, was sent to live with his maternal grandmother, Maria Teresa Sama, in Sant’Andrea.

With the belief that American schools were slower, Carlo’s uncle, Bruno Sama, admitted him into the first grade of a school about 30 miles south in Locri, a ninety-minute train ride from Sant’Andrea. Having just finished junior high school in America, he was supposed to start at a faculty trade school.

It was then Carlo realized that without his parents by his side to guide him, he would have to rely on his own instincts. He would follow his family’s direction, but when it came to tough decisions that affected the direction of his future, he would make them on his own.

For his first tough decision, Carlo dropped out of school without informing his family. He didn’t belong in first grade. It was frustrating, embarrassing and entirely unnecessary. But he needed to complete a high school exit exam in order to move on to college.

So, again without his family’s knowledge, the young man sought out and hired four tutors to fill in the missing pieces. To avoid the pain of explaining his decision to his family, he operated as if he were still going to elementary school. He took the 5:30 a.m. train to Locri each morning, but instead of going to elementary school, he secretly spent his days with the tutors – one hour each every school day.

All this was happening as Carlo tried to cope with the tremendous anxiety that came with being a teenager separated from his parents who were an ocean away. Though he was surrounded by family members he had grown up with as a small boy, he felt alone and different from his friends who had gone to school together the whole time. He missed his father’s kind advice and reassurance. He missed his mother’s caring attention.

Then it got worse. In May 1940, only two months after Carlo’s return to Sant’Andrea, Benito Mussolini plunged Italy into World War II on the side of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany. With no warning from American embassies in Italy, all lines of communication were cut off to the West. Carlo would not hear from his parents or receive any funding from them for the next three and a half years. With little money of his own, he became even more dependent on the good graces of his grandmother, uncle and aunts. This was especially frustrating given that his parents had saved 25,000 lire in a post office account – enough to buy three houses at that time. But Carlo couldn’t touch it. The account was in his parents’ name.

If there was any salvation, it was in a budding relationship with Vittoria, the girl whom he had insisted would one day be his wife. Now a beautiful signorina, Vittoria’s elegant blond hair, brown eyes and feisty temperament made her stand out from the crowd.

Constantly reminded by her mother that boys her age were up to no good, Vittoria had denied the advances of the young men in the town. She was more interested in her parochial-school education and singing lessons with Mother Superior, who believed Vittoria should pursue a singing career and feared that her voice “would get lost in a town like this.”

Carlo renewed courting Vittoria soon after returning to the town. He brought along as cousin to pay her a visit. She noticed that his emotions were running high as he once again stated his intentions, which he asserted in long letters that followed. As he made his way to the train station each morning, Carlo passed under Vittoria’s window serenading her with love songs to woo her over. Vittoria was half afraid that her mother would hear and wreak havoc, but she was just as overwhelmed by his tenacity and romantic flair.

Carlo asked her to commit to a relationship, but she resisted. Then he wrote a letter suggesting that if she wasn’t willing to commit openly, he would be willing to have a relationship “that is silent to the world.” He promised not to take advantage of her and would even ask her mother for Vittoria’s hand in marriage. When the war was over, he would bring her to America where they would not have to live in a land torn up by bombs.

Vittoria warmed to his proposal for a silent courtship, and the two started a correspondence that gradually built into a platonic love affair. Carlo wrote to her every chance he had, leaving notes for her on her windowsill as he left for school. When he didn’t have blank sheets of paper, on the train ride home he would use the bare spots of magazines that were not covered by text or photos featuring the latest stars from the silver screen.

The first kiss

One day Carlo went to Vittoria’s house with the excuse of returning a book he borrowed from her brother, Romolo, one of his closest friends. It was wintertime and Vittoria was in the home alone, huddled around a brass pan filled with soft coals from the mountains used to keep homes warm. Carlo sat with her around the coal pan, the light from the fire flickering off the walls in the otherwise dark room. If ever there was a time to kiss her, this was it.

He was afraid, but found the courage to take her hand. They sat for awhile, enjoying what they knew was a short opportunity to spend time alone. Finally, both of their hearts racing, he leaned over to kiss her. It was the first for either of them.