Michelle McCleary
May 10, 2001
Excerpts
I was born in
Naples Italy, May 5, 1927, and I was the oldest of seven children, the oldest
one. Needless to say. I learned how to be a mother and housekeeper before I was
a wife. But in 1940, … 43, my daddy died and after he died, we were left seven
children and no father and in the midst of the second world war. So, my mom
didn’t have a job, because we were seven children, but she tried to do odds and
ends, you know, to raise us the best that she could.
But in 1944,
in the month of January, the Americans were already in Naples. They liberate,
they liberate us actually, from the Nazis ... [Carmen] was, he was stationed
across the street from us. … They made it their headquarters, and so one day,
you know, somebody must told the soldiers, and particularly my husband, that my
daddy had died during the war and we were seven children and we were very poor.
And so he came
at the house, and knock on the door, and I opened the door, and he says little
bad broken Italian, because naturally he was American boy, Italian descended
but he didn’t speak good Italian at all, like I don’t speak good English. But
at the time I didn’t speak English, he didn’t speak Italian, so it was quite an
ordeal try to make, you know, sense. But he says “Mama’s home?” and I said,
“No,” so he say “Ok,” and he left. Because he was actually cross the street
from my house, so he came back again, and this time he spoke to my mom, and he
said, “I was an Italian, and uh, I was told that you husband died during the
second world war, and uh you can use us … I work in the kitchen.” He said, “and
I can help you bring you some food, and we can bring you some clothes. I have
all Italian friends” … They were all Italian descended soldiers.
So they made
our house as if it was their home, their family ... They brought us like
pancakes, and uh, you know, you name, all the food they cook over there and
they brought to us, and in a few months. At the time I was sick. At the time, I
was diagnosed with, uh, with pleurite, but actually go into TB, because
pleurite is so close to the lungs, that it, you know. So I was pretty sick. And
my momma said, “You know, Luisa just got over, came home from the hospital.
Rosa is very young. My sister Rosa.” So [Carmen] says, “Mom, I would like to
make Luisa my wife.” My mother said, “Luisa’s sick. She’s too young. She didn’t
know hardly nobody either.” He says, “I’ll get her on her feet in a few
months.” … And in a few months I begin to fill out my everything. You know nice
color, I begin to get healthy. …
He call me
“Unie” … He says, “Unie, I want to
marry you.” So, and he told my mom, and she says “I never see my daughter
again.” And he says, “well” he says “I promise that I will love her, but I
cannot promise that I will bring her back.” Because in those day, people came
here to marry, they come here, they die here. They never go back. They die
here. They never went to see their family. Because it took about two weeks
before you can go over you know, by ocean.
And so my
momma says “Ok,” so we went together from January through the month of June.
June 13, St. Anthony day, he left. He left, and he took me by the sea, and I
never know where he go, and there was no way to communicate, because the post
office was destroyed. In those days everything was destroyed by bombs and so
on, you know.
And so one
day, somebody came in Naples, to tell me where he was. And then July 2, we saw
somebody that it was coming toward the street, you know, and somebody said,
“Luisa, Carmen is coming back.” So he came back to, um, tell me, that for sure
he wants to marry me and that I had to go for blood tests over at the Red
Cross, and to get all the documentation so that he could present it to his
captain. Because they couldn’t do anything without their permission and it was
not allowed for them to get married without that boss. …
He says, “You
sure you want to marry me?” He says “Because I am 25 years old.” I was born
1927. I was not even 17. So I said… I love him. I mean I didn’t come here, I
didn’t think of coming to America as an adventure. By that time I love him for
what he did for me. It wasn’t love at first sight. And it wasn’t that. You know
when you see somebody and you fall in love. He had a beautiful build, he was
very handsome. But I never went out with nobody. I didn’t have the feeling of
having this man. It was what he did for me that it mattered that made this love
blossom in my eye.
And so he
left, as I said, he left again, and I didn’t see him for a very long time, and
still there was no transportation and still no communication, so every time
somebody came in Naples, he send the letters. Hey letters! And I mean ten,
twenty letters. One day I was in the beauty parlor having my hair done, and
somebody came in and said. “Louisa somebody came over the house.” I say,
“That’s what they left?” There must have been about 20 letters, big package
like that. Beautiful. … But anyway, at this time, it was 1945, and I got a
letter from Carmen saying, “I will be in Naples in the month of August to marry
you.” It never happened. Because they were changing stations going from Rome,
Pisa, you know, up and up, and then in Germany, you know Marseilles, France,
Germany. So they lost all the documents. When Carmen had to come to marry me,
he didn’t have nothing to prove himself.
In the
meantime, in the meantime, his friend, Raphael, the one from New Jersey? Came
in Naples to marry his girl, and because we were good friends, he says to me, I
say, “Where’s Carmen?” He says “Luisa, Carmen can’t come, because they can’t
find no documents, the blood test, everything.” He said, “ But he told me to
tell you that no matter what, he will come back in Naples, even he’s going to
be discharged, he will come back and marry you.” Well, at this point, my heart
is sunk. I says, once he’s going to America, he better forget. I mean that was
my, you know. So I says, “Well, there’s only one thing to do, write him a
letter, you bring it to him and tell him that I’ll wait for him.” But if he
changes his mind, to let me know and I will wait no more.
In the
meantime, while he was in Germany, the war was over and he had to leave to come
in the United States to be discharged, so without his documents, he could not
come in Naples and marry me, because the army want him to come home. They don’t
care that he got a girl over there. They don’t care. So Carmen was ready to
come in United States to be discharge. His friend, Leonard, says to him,
“Carmen, they’re going to have a raffle, not a raffle, but I’ll put your name
in the box, and they pull your name and you will go in Rome for 15 days. A
furlough. Fifteen days.” So Carmen said, “No.” He put the name, Leonard, put
Carmen’s name and they pick out Carmen’s name.
Now, Carmen
supposed to go in Rome, not in Naples. I mean, these are things you never
forget because they’re too uh, touchy, so he figure, and Leonard say, “You go
to Rome, and then from there you can go to Naples.” Well, Carmen got to Rome
all right. But he can’t come in Naples, because there’s no transportation. As
I’ve said, everything was destroyed, railroad, telephone, everything, lights. I
mean it was bad time. So when he went
in Rome, he figures, “Look I’m here, I’ll hitchhike.” When he got in Naples,
but I didn’t know anything. By this time it was August 6. When he came in
Naples, I was over my friend’s house. I was on the balcony. This young lady
came to me and she said “Luisa, Carmen is back!” … So when I heard that, I
started to run, and I must have been about five minutes of good running, when I
can begin to visualize the spot … And as I get close, and I said, “Oh my God,
my God it is Carmen.”
I got close
and Carmen picked me up like a little bunch of flowers. And he’s swinging me
all around, you know. We got home, my sister Rosa, look at me and she say,
“Carmen, why you here for? For to marry Luisa or what?” He say, “No I just want
to take a walk from Rome to Naples!” [Laughs] So we went home, you know, and
two days after and my momma was so happy, and right away we had to rent a
wedding gown. I couldn’t buy a wedding gown. At the time, we didn’t have no
money, but in the meantime, I say, “Carmen, you got all your papers?” He says,
“No.” He says, “Everything got lost.” He says, “But I’m going to see if there’s
still,” not a station, headquarters, where all the, and they were all English
headquarters over there. A lot. He says, “I’m going to go over there and see if
I can find out something about it.” And we walk for miles. … And we went over
there and he ask for information, and they couldn’t find it. … Now this was August 6 the day he arrive,
right? We at August 10 and there was no way that we could get married. There
was no way to get the documents that we need.
And the last
time we went, there was this Chapel, chaplain? Chaplain, and his name was Furi.
I don’t know his first name, but his last name was Furi and he says to Carmen
and I, he says, “You two are so sincere, that by 12 o’clock tonight, if I don’t
hear anything. You come tomorrow and you give me all the information and I make
a duplicate of whatever.”
And we went
the following day, and so everything was Ok. Now we had to go to church. The
church has got to OK everything. But don’t forget, he was an American soldier.
They were afraid that he might have had another wife over here. That’s how they
did things, some of the soldiers. You know, so he want from Carmen, the
document that he was single, and he never had that, he never had no document.
So the priest said there was two more things to OK by the church and they were
looking at us, and he says to my momma, “You gonna give your daughter to this
guy? Something is hiding someplace. He’s hiding something. In other words, he
might be married and you give the OK for him to marry her.” So Carmen, he looks
at my mom, and he looks at me, and he says to my momma in Italian. By that time
he learn how to speak Italian. He say, “Ma the way he put it, you have
something underneath.” You know, hiding, he says something, under. He says,
“Ma, you believe I got something underneath?” [Laughing] My momma look at him.
It was a double meaning. She says, “I don’t know.” So everything was Ok.
And then, that
night we go home, and Carmen has got a temperature hundred and four, with a
case of malaria. So, he went to bed. We got everything ready because we decide
to make the invitation, little things like this, just to address our wedding
day. And momma said, “We can’t have a big wedding. When you come out from the
church, we pass some candies to the people coming to the church and that’s it.”
I says, “That’s all right momma, I don’t care, I love him.”
My best man
Dom Rosa, he pass away now, he was a lieutenant in the air force, stationed in
Naples and through him, I used to get all the responding letters. And I used to
go to him. I used to write to him. Carmen used to write to him through the army
naturally and Dominic used to get all his letters and give them to me. So he
was very happy, and I say, “You want to be our best man?” He says, “I’d be very
happy to do that. So and I’ll bring my jeep and I will take you to the church and
the pictures,” because we didn’t have no money to go to the photographer … Well
Carmen still has a temperature of a hundred and four. So we go to somebody that
we knew and they give us quinine before the wedding and that’s for malaria. And
for our wedding day, he was pretty good, but our best man couldn’t come with
the Jeep. So we had to walk from my house to where the mall used to be, maybe,
about half a mile? And a whole lot of people you know, and we walk. So we got
married.
What do you think of younger generations and their
perceptions of World War II?
You don’t. You
don’t. You can’t even imagine. It’s not your fault. You cannot imagine. My kids
tell me, “Ma, you never told me this, or this, or this.” I said, “But how could
I tell you something when you don’t even have the time to listen?” What I gotta
do? Pull you down and brainwash you with these things? “Ma, you never sat down
and told us.” No, because you never showed interest, to know what life I had
when I was your age. You ask me, “Ma when you were my age, how do you spend
your time? What did you do? How come you came to America so young? How come you
left your family so young?” I could tell you that my mother used to say.
“Luisa, it must be your father from heaven looking over you, that God has sent
you this man.”
I used to say
to Momma, “Ma, I don’t want to marry Carmen. I like him because of what he did
for my family, but it wasn’t a love at first sight, you know.” She used to say,
“I know, but this your father from heaven. He send him to you. Look, he adore
you to your toes.” In May, mostly in May. In the month of May, the old ladies
would sell flowers in the street. He’d come home and he brought me a rose.
Every day. He used to say, “a rose for my rose.” It was after these things,
that made me love him. Because nowadays.
Nowadays … You
know what life is about today, you know. In those days, a 15-year-old girl,
16-year-old girl didn’t have no sexual … Because your life was finished after
that. If a girl have something like that with a man, Ok? You would not find a
fellow to marry you. And I’m talking about the cities, never mind a little
country place. So the virginity in those days, to a woman, was the whole
possession of your body. You could be a getting married and you went to bed
with your husband and you were not a virgin, and he knew it. And the following
day of the marriage, his mother had to know. Do you believe in that? Now, how
can you understand those things if you never experienced an experience like
that. You know when someone says, “You know when I was your age.”
So therefore
when I was going out with Carmen, I was afraid, because I say, “My God I don’t
want to marry this man because how do I know he doesn’t try to do something to
me and then he abandon me?” What am I going to do the rest of my life here all
by myself with no precious thing? At that time, it was a precious thing to have
your virginity. It was the whole thing. When the girl went to marry, with the
white dress. It wasn’t a uniform. It was a sign of purity.
Now we see
today, they’re nine months pregnant. They have a big belly like that. They have
a big shower, big wedding. Well, that’s all right. That’s what today we are
allowed. But not in those days. So it was all those things that made me love
Carmen. And I come over here to a little bedroom. And him. That’s all.
Are there are any final things that you want to say
about the war?
As I said,
because I came here so young, those years. There’s not too much that I can
concentrate. I can think afterwards, what would it be if my daddy didn’t die.
Well, and the war went on? We’ll I would never marry an American boy. And if
there was no war, who knows what the future would bring, you know?