Ida by Olympia Simonetti Normandy  -7-

My parents wanted me to bring Jack (whose real name was Sebastian Sylvester) to the house since he was a Normandia son,  instead of meeting him at lunch on my job or on the street corner. Jack wasn't all for going to my house but he did it to satisfy me.Then he had to tell his mother. Next his mother and father had to come to my house.The two families were already making plans for us.This was in June of 1921. Jack had already been in the Navy for three months in 1918. He got as far as France on the U.S.S. St. Louis and when they landed they told them the war was over and they came right back. He was discharged when the Armistice was signed. So now we kept company, as they used to say.

Around this time, my sister, Jennie, and her husband, Frank Devine, lived downstairs at 60 Conselyea Street while we lived upstairs in the same house. I worked for Jennie minding all the kids. Frank was a big shot with an Oldsmobile and a chauffeur. Mike DePrisco was his chauffeur.

The trouble started when Frank Devine wanted me to marry an old man for money. This man would give him, let's say, $10,000, if Frank could convince me to marry him. I said, "Never in a million years." I didn't even know this old man except that once they invited him over and I had to make dinner for them.

I said, "What do I need an old man for?" So then I went to my parents about it. My mother said, "What is he, crazy? My daughter is 19 years old and they want her to marry an old man?"

It got to me so much that I was disgusted and wanted to leave home all by myself.  It didn't have anything to do with my boyfriend, Jack, at all.

After a day or two I got so nervous because Frank got so angry.  He hated Jack because he wanted me to marry this old man.  I told Frank, "Not me.  I'd rather go far, far away. You won't see me any more." That got him so angry that he got his gun and wanted to shoot me. He always carried a gun.  I used to dust the dresser and move the gun around.

Frank was really mean and I told my father. Poppa said, "If he don't stop, we're gonna move." In fact, that's how we all moved to Maujer Street. My father sold the house to my sister Jennie and we moved. One night I had gotten so upset that I told my parents, "If he don't stop bothering me, I'm going to go far, far away." Well, they never thought I would. Wait till you hear what I did.

I told Jack I was so disgusted that I was going to leave home. My folks were so good, they didn't deserve that, you know. So I packed a whole suitcase of clothes. Nobody knew I was leaving but Jack and when I told him he said, "If anyone is going to take you out of the house, it's going to be me. If you're going to go, I'm going with you." I thought he must really love me to do that. So we planned it all.

My mother and father used to sit downstairs on the stoop and talk. While they were sitting there, I went ahead and took clothes, tablecloths, even silverware for myself, never thinking Jack would go with me at that time.

My best man, compa' Noli, helped with the whole thing. He had a Chrysler car. He told me to get everything ready and wait for dark. Then I had to carry that big, heavy suitcase up the straight ladder to the roof.  We passed the suitcase from roof to roof and then took it down through a house two houses away. After all, I couldn't just carry it past my parents on the stoop. So Noli took care of the valise.

The next morning I was supposed to go to work and had a whole day to travel before I would be missed. We went to Pennsylvania. Philadelphia. I had money and Jack had taken the pay that was coming to him from his father.  It was the 26th of June. That's not the date on my wedding certificate but I remembered the date and so did my sisters. They all made sure to remember the date in case I got pregnant. They were worried.

Everything went smoothly. Noli met me at nine in the morning. I had gone to the shop and told my boss I would be gone for a couple of weeks. I wanted to hold my job for when I got back.

In Philadelphia we got a nice boardinghouse and we paid ten or fifteen dollars a week. I had all my clothes, tablecloth and silverware. I'll never forget, all I could cook was eggs, sunnyside-up. It was bacon and eggs every day for two weeks! I don't know how we didn't get sick. So that's how we started off.

When I didn't come home, the alarm went out. They looked everywhere for me and finally called Jack's mother, Giovannina. She admitted that she hadn't seen her son for lunch that day, although he always stopped by. Then they figured out that we probably ran away together. My mother said, "If they did, good." Frank had made her so angry and was driving her crazy.

When we arrived in Philadelphia, the first thing we did was go to City Hall. I told Jack, "I don't want to go no place unless we get married." I figured this way if I gave the news to my folks, they would be happy. What do you think that Frank Devine did? He had notified City Hall and we couldn't get married. He had connections with everybody, everywhere.

At that time you had to be twenty-one to get married. I was underage. When we went to sign the marriage license application and they saw my name, they said we couldn't get married. They had been warned that we might show up in Philly and try.  That hurt my parents even more to think Frank Devine would interfere like that and stop us.

After I was out about a week, I called my sister and she said to come home, that Momma was so worried. So we went back to Brooklyn. Jack's mother, Jennie (Giovannina), came over and said, "You've got to get married in church right away." So they planned a church wedding in no time and on July 28, 1921, we were married by Father Saponara at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church on North 8th Street and Union Ave. Noli was the best man, Nolano Landriono, and the maid of honor was Elizabeth DiFazio, Jack's brother Tony's girlfriend. They made us get married. I can't say either one of us was really in love.

The Normandias moved to Bay Ridge and we went to live with my in-laws, Michael and Giovannina Normandia. Then I got pregnant and everybody was counting the months on their fingers, but it all turned out okay. Everyone was relieved. When they moved back to Brooklyn, we rented two rooms upstairs from my in-laws on Conselyea Street.

Then I had my baby, Jean. I got very sick with tomaine poisoning. I was in bed because back then you gave birth at home.

The doctor really couldn't come out. There were thunderstorms that were so bad. The doctor said my baby had to be taken away from me as I was too sick to have her. My mother-in-law had lost her beautiful 16 year-old daughter, Angelina, and had told me that if I had a girl, she had to be named Angelina. How Jean hates that name, but what are you going to do? That's why Jean was named Angelina.

My mother in-law was tickled to death because the baby would be coming down to her house and she would get to take care of her. She was like a midwife and used to work with my doctor. Anybody who had to give birth, they would call Mrs. Normandia. For ten days I didn't see my baby. My breasts were starting to get hard. They used to use a pump to get the milk out.

I wanted to see my baby. They kept telling me that the baby was fine. My mother in-law really wanted to keep my baby for herself. One day my sister Bobbie came and I asked her to please go downstairs and see if my baby was all right. She said the baby was fine, but I was so upset because they wouldn't let me see my baby.

I had a hard time for four years living in the same house. She had my baby more than I did. They bought her a big, pink carriage. Did you ever see a pink carriage in your life? Big high wheels and the little low wheels. $100 in 1922. They bought everything the best for the baby. They could afford it.  They bought a beautiful crib, too.

It was like Jean was her grandmother's baby instead of mine. Oh, I would get to take her out in the big carriage and all, but she was her grandmother's girl.

Next Page | Previous Page | Go Higher  | Family Album | Return to Mystic Planet

Now Playing: "Nola: a silhouette for the piano "
Ida loved this music!

 
Nola

(Verse)

I realize within your eyes
For me there lies a paradise
What other bliss is like a kiss
from pretty lips I idolize

You are so sweet and you are so neat
a girl like you I'd never meet
Just to behold you is a treat that's hard to beat

Nothing I do can show how true
I am to you my only one
Cuddle up near and let me hear
a word to cheer your lonely one

Your winning style my heart beguiles
For one sweet smile I'd walk a mile
Let me enfold you in my arms awhile

(Refrain)
When you're near the birds sing in the trees
pretty harmonies
All the world is humming a melody
When away from you I may be straying
Then my heart keeps saying you're the heart of me, part of me, all of me

Nola, heed and listen while I plead
you're the one I need
Life for me is nothing but misery
Nola, Nola, hear your lonesome
lovesick sweetheart calling Nola

[repeat verse]
[repeat refrain]

        By Felix Arndt, 1916
 

Next Page | Previous Page | Go Higher  | Family Album | Return to Mystic Planet

Copyright 1997-2013 Priscilla Normandy Greenwood