A History Lesson from My Grandfather
Not many people get to the great 100th year of life so it is often celebrated with great fanfare by families and even includes a letter from the President of the United States.
My Grandfather, Peter Anthony Chiarelli-Senior turned one-hundred years old this summer. It is overwhelming to think of all the changes he saw spanning a century’s worth of time. Taking a peak back since his birth in Manhattan so much has transpired in this great nation.
First of all, he’s lived to see seventeen Presidents. And is about to see a new one come November 2016.
Wikipedia tells us that the United States presidential election of 1916, the year he was born, was the 33rd quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 1916. Incumbent President Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic candidate, was pitted against Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes, the Republican candidate. After a hard-fought contest, Wilson defeated Hughes by nearly 600,000 votes in the popular vote and secured a narrow majority in the Electoral College by winning several swing states with razor-thin margins. Wilson’s re-election marked the first time that a Democratic Party candidate had won two consecutive Presidential elections since Andrew Jackson. Wilson’s election took place while Mexico was going through the Mexican Revolution and Europe was embroiled in World War I.
After President Woodrow Wilson’s reign, the soon to be one-hundred-year-old saw Presidents:
HISTORY; GOOD AND BAD
I am happy to report that even though Grandpa lived through many difficult times; including the Depression, the World Wars, the rise and fall of Communism, and the devastating destruction of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, the good still outweighed the bad.
On a more positive note, he was alive when women finally won the right to vote after a long battle across the nation known as The Suffrage Movement. He saw the creation of medicare and social security; the U.S. landing of both the first spaceship and man on the moon. He lived through the Civil Rights Movement which ultimately gained voting rights for millions of African Americans. When it comes to technology, he was around for the invention of the television, home computer and Internet! He also got to witness a most historic event with the election of the first African American President of the United States.
I recently had the chance to ask my grandfather some questions about his ten decades on the planet.
In 1905 at the age of 23 my Great Grandfather, Angelo Chiarelli, pronounced “Kiarelli”, traveled to America from Castrofilippo Italy. When I googled it, I found out that Castrofilippo is a commune in the Province of Agrigento in the Italian region of Sicily, located about 90 kilometers southeast of Palermo and about 15 kilometers east of Agrigento.” He and his sister Angelina came to America like so many other immigrants did at that time and for decades after, through Ellis Island. They immediately settled in the Italian ghetto in Manhattan. The story goes that my great grandfather was told the streets here were paved in gold . . . “and all he got was asphalt.” my grandpa joked, still holding onto his sense of humor.
He married Maria Carmella Milone, who was born in the United States. My grandfather was born on May 4,1916 in a house on 48th street and 1st Ave. and was delivered by a midwife which was a common practice for the poor then and for decades after as well. My grandfather was the oldest of three children born to Angelo and Maria. He had a sister Marcella and a brother Michael. “My mother told me I had two older siblings that were stillborn,” he recalls with a twinge of sadness in his voice. He went on to say growing up in an Italian ghetto in Manhattan, he and his family lived in a cold water flat {also called a tenement}, in which they shared a bathroom with three other families. They also relied on the ice man to fill the ice box, as refrigerators were an invention not yet on the horizon. They also depended on coal deliveries to heat the cold-water flat. Many cold-water flats had the bathtub in the kitchen, closest to where giant pots of water could be heated for a bath. He tells the story of how the lights were kept on by putting a nickel in the gas meter. In those days they relied on the druggist to yell up the stairs when a phone call was received, there were no phones in the individual apartments.
About his early years:
Street games:
When he was younger he liked to play stick ball and curb ball. He told the story that when he played with his friends, stick ball wasn’t allowed because the ball would roll away and damage the neighbor’s property. So, when they saw the cops coming they would throw down their sticks and run away! The next day when the boys went back to play the game the sticks would be broken.
My grandpa; the trouble maker:
He also told the story of how people weren’t supposed to wear straw hats after a certain date. So when he was behind someone walking down the street with a straw hat on, my grandpa would swipe it off his head and run off.
Schooling:
As a young boy he attended PS1 21 on 103rd street. He then went onto Dewitt Clinton, a boys High School in Manhattan. Always interested in drawing, he later went to Leonardo DaVinche School of Art to pursue it. Ultimately art became a hobby. “The very first drawing I did was of Miller Huggins a baseball player on a spaghetti box,” he reminisced. Many of his early drawings can be seen on the Dewitt Clinton website. An avid Yankee fan, today his den in Franklin Square is filled with his paintings of favorite Yankee players.
Working:
The birthday boy explained that he worked in the garment district in the city in the wrapping and shipping department where he swept, ran errands and pushed trucks; for $12 a week, “A week, not a day. It was during the Depression, so I was happy for whatever I could get,” explained the Centurion. He eventually made his way up from packing blouses and skirts to being promoted to salesman.
Then I inquired about what kind of father his own Italian born father was, particularly if he was strict.
“Very,” he started. “In fact, when I was dating grandma my curfew was 9:30 and when we came home at 10 he locked the door, my mother had to let me in,” he laughed. “When we did something wrong, we knew it: he just gave you a look that scared the hell out of me.”
In 1939 Peter Chiarelli found true love in Angelina Sarafinia Coniglio who went by the name Fay in 1939 at a Union Settlement Dance on East 104th street. “It was like a senior center for young people,” he recalls. They dated for three years before getting married in February 1942 in St. Joseph’s church located in Manhattan on 17th street. “We had a football wedding,” he laughed. “Which means you passed sandwiches around until you got what you wanted. If someone had a piece of cheese you wanted, they threw it over.”
When I asked what his happiest memories were he told me when he got married and had their three sons Andrew-my dad, Angelo and Peter-my two uncles. They moved to Franklin Square, in Nassau County when my father was three, (and my grandfather still resides in the same house 66 years later.) They had eight grandchildren. Christine, Jennifer, Wendee, Elizabeth, Peter, Patricia, David and Rebecca. Peter and Fay were happily wed 46 years before she died of ovarian cancer in June of ’88.
Some of my cherished memories:
I remember sleeping over my grandparent’s house with my cousin Wendee when I was young and them taking us out to breakfast. I also have a fond recollection of them letting us sit on their laps in the car and letting us take the wheel!
And more recently, after my grandma passed, my grandpa and uncle coming over for to visit my family and I in Kings Park.
Grandpa, (loved a good card game from his years at the senior center, he would often teach us new card games. And After a big home cooked meal would proclaim him famous saying, “So much time to make, so little time to eat!”
Now, grandpa has 6 great- grandchildren and lives with his youngest son Peter, his namesake.Here’s to 100 fabulous years . . . and counting! Happy 100th Birthday Grandpa – I love you!
The year 1916 saw its share of notable firsts and accomplishments in the worlds of news, entertainment and world affairs. Here’s a look:
AMERICAN HISTORY
Reserve Officer Training Corp – better known as ROTC – is established.
Boeing is incorporated in Seattle.
Jeanette Rankin becomes the first woman elected to Congress. She was the only member of Congress to vote against U.S. participation in World Wars I and II.
Louis Brandeis becomes the first Jewish justice on the Supreme Court.
The Federal Farm Loan Act creates regional farm loan banks to assist small farmers. The Keating-Owen Child Labor Act bars interstate commerce on child-labor produced goods. And the Adamson Act limits hours an employee could work without overtime pay.
Margaret Sanger opens the first birth-control clinic in Brooklyn, New York. She is arrested, the clinic is shut down, and she goes to trial.
A stamp cost 2 cents. A hundred years later, it’s 49 cents.
WORLD AFFAIRS
On Feb. 26, a German sub torpedoes and sinks the French ship Provence. Four years earlier, the Provence had been one of the first ships to pick up the Titanic’s distress call.
The bloody Easter Rising rebellion takes place in IrelanBetty Grable.Associated Press
ENTERTAINMENT
The America Film Institute’s list of 100 best American movies of all time includes one 1916 film, “Intolerance.” Directed by D.W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish, the 163-minute silent film was broken into four stories and subtitled “Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages.”
Born in 1916:
Academy Award winners Peter Finch, Gregory Peck and Martha Raye.
Gruff funnyman Jackie Gleason enjoyed a long career, made famous by a variety of serious and comedic roles, from pool hustler Minnesota Fats in “The Hustler” to Ralph Kramden in one of television’s earliest sitcoms, “The Honeymooners.”
Actress-turned consumer advocate Betty Furness.
In addition to being born in 1916, actors Keenan Wynn and Van Johnson both were former husbands to Eve Johnson.
Band leaders Ray Conniff and Harry James. The latter was married to pinup girl Betty Grable, also born this year. Grable’s legs were her stock in trade, and were insured for $1 million.
Singer Maxene Andrews, the middle sibling of the Andrews Sisters.
Jazz guitarist Charlie Christian, who had a brief but influential career; he died at age 25 of tuberculosis.
LITERATURE
Ring Lardner‘s novel “You Know Me Al,” a series of letters from a minor-league baseball player, is published.
Prolific children’s-book author Beverly Cleary is born. She is 99; her birthday is April 12. Her endearing stories cover the adventures of Henry, Ramona and many other characters.
Author Roald Dahl (“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”) and short-story writer Shirley Jackson (“The Lottery”) are born.
Writers Henry James and Jack London die.
Swedish writer Verner Von Heidenstam wins the only Nobel Prize awarded this year, for literature.
THE ARTS
The Cleveland Museum of Art opens June 6, 1916 – and is still going strong.
Norman Rockwell‘s first cover illustration for The Saturday Evening Post is published from the 22-year-old artist. It is the first of more than 300 from Rockwell that will run into the 1960s.
The roots of the artistic-social commentary movement Dadaism are traced to a group of artists meeting at a café in Zurich.
MISCELLANEOUS
On a trip to Japan in 1916, John Lloyd Wright became intrigued by workers constructing a hotel. It led him to create Lincoln Logs. Wright was the son of famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
The Boy Scouts of America are incorporated. President Woodrow Wilson signs a bill granting a national charter to the organization.
Grigori Rasputin – peasant, Russian mystic and guru to the czar – is assassinated.
Albert Einstein publishes “The Foundation of the Generalised Theory of Relativity.”
Newsman Walter Cronkite is born.
INVENTIONS
A fry cook invents a bun specific for burgers; he then goes on to co-found White Castle.
The cloverleaf highway exit system is patented.
Piggly Wiggly is established, giving birth to the supermarket.
The tow truck is created.