Ralph Schiavon - Part Four: Twilight

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Ralph Schiavon


January 27, 1898 - August 16, 1970


Twilight


(Last in a four part series about my wonderful grandfather)

Ralph Schiavon, at train station,
Chicago (date unknown)

My grandmother Alice had lost her eyesight in the early 60s.  Her diabetes worsened, and she died at home on New Year’s Day in 1963.  My parents moved our family to Mexico City the following year.  We stayed there until 1967, when my sister Joyce became ill and we had to leave the high altitude city.  We moved back to the States and settled in  California with its warm Mediterranean like-weather.

Now in his late 60s, Ralph began to think about retiring.  He spent more time with Tom and Angie and their family, as well as meeting old friends for dinner or an evening out.  He enjoyed inviting his brothers Leo and Tony and his cousin Ralph Sannella and their wives and children up to the family cottage, Bunny Rest, in Big Blue Lake, Michigan.  And of course, he continued visiting his mother, Emanuela, and his family back in Massachusetts.  

Emanuela Sannella Schiavone was now in her 90s.  For many years after Vito’s death, she had lived with Filomena’s family, but as she became increasingly bedridden, her children decided it was time to move her into a nursing home.  Ralph and Leo arranged a room for her at the Don Orione Nursing Home in Revere. 

Ralph loved his mother dearly.  He visited her twice a year, taking the train from Chicago to Boston for Mother’s Day in the spring and later in the fall.  He and Leo contributed to the building of a new wing for the nursing home, ever mindful of the loving care she had given them as children.  For these efforts, as well as for their philanthropic contributions to the postwar rebuilding of their native land, the Italian government had awarded Ralph and Leo the Stella della solidarietà italiana, or the Star of Solidarity, and made them Honorary Cavalieri, or Knights, of the Italian Republic.  The Cavaliere, similar to a British knighthood, is regarded as the highest honor that can be bestowed on an individual by the Italian government.

Order of the Italian Star of Solidarity,
originally established in 1947, recognized
expatriates and foreigners for outstanding
contributions to the reconstruction of post-
World War II Italy.

Emanuela, who had never learned English or even to read or write in Italian, had been relegated to a lonely life.  Unlike many immigrant women around her who worked in the factories, she had stayed home to care for her children and was somewhat limited to her Italian neighborhood.  Her granddaughter, Gloria Scicchitani Johnson, Filomena’s daughter, remembered that Emanuela prayed often throughout the day.  Unable to read, she recited from memory Bible stories and stories of the lives of the Saints that the village priest in San Sossio had told her many years ago.  Though she could converse with her own children, many of her grandchildren could not speak Italian and did not understand her.  She could watch TV, but she had no idea what the people on it were saying.  It was no wonder that she looked forward to her sons’ visits and seemed to come more to life when they came.  Pasquale was present during these visits, and the brothers held animated political discussions long after tucking Emanuela into bed for the evening.

Left to right:  Pasquale Schiavone, Emanuella Schiavone,
and Ralph Schiavon, Revere, MA, about 1960

Shortly after his 78^th birthday, Pasquale "Pat" Schiavone fell ill in early December of 1965, just as Ralph was preparing to return home from Boston.  He was diagnosed with uremic poisoning – the final stage of kidney failure.  He died a few days later on December 7^th.   His death came as a shock to Ralph.

Emanuela had been suffering from advanced heart disease, and she died five months later on April 18, 1966.  At the time, no one knew her exact age and believed her to be 103.  In fact, she was just a few months short of her 99^th birthday.  

In the years that followed, Ralph became acutely aware of his own mortality and growing loneliness.  He began to have health challenges of his own, and after being a widower for six years, he realized that he could not go on living alone.  In July of 1969 he married Emily Scheurer, and the newlyweds flew to Italy on honeymoon.

It turned out that for many years, Emily had lived two doors down the street from Ralph in a single-story, red brick Tudor house at 7133 South Luella.  I remember meeting Emily when I was a little girl of about 5, though we didn’t know her name at the time.  With our wild imaginations, my friends and I thought her house looked just like that of the witch in the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale.  Perhaps she unwittingly had perpetuated that impression one Halloween when she greeted all the trick-or-treaters wearing a pointy witch’s hat and stirring a large cauldron filled with steaming black ice. 

One afternoon, we were playing on the sidewalk when Emily appeared at her door and offered us some apple pie she had just finished baking.  To us, this could only confirm that she was a witch, because witches were wily and always used apples as a ruse to trick children so they could eat them.  My friends screamed and ran home, but for some reason I stayed behind.  She beckoned to me, and I found myself walking up the walkway to her door.  

Emily invited me in and gave me a piece of her witch-pie.  Terrified, I took it because I had been taught to be polite.  I gingerly bit into the crust, wondering whether I would be poisoned, eaten, or ever see my parents again.  To my friend’s and my own surprise, I lived!  Although my miraculous survival (not to mention the tastiness of the pie) should have been sufficient evidence for us kids that “the lady in the witch’s house” might just be a nice older lady after all, we continued to keep our distance.  

Ralph and Emily were married for two years, and her companionship surely filled a void during the latter part of his life.  During the summer of 1970, Ralph’s health worsened, and he began losing weight.  A lifelong smoker and recently diagnosed diabetic, he was suffering from emphysema and colon cancer.  

Ralph’s family kept vigil with him during his final stay at Chicago's Wesley Memorial Hospital as he drifted in and out of consciousness.  On the morning of August 16^th, before his family arrived to see him, Ralph asked one of his nurses to turn on the television so he could watch Sunday Mass.  She obliged and noticed a faint smile appear on his face as she left the room.  She returned just as Mass was ending in time to see him close his eyes one last time.  

He was 72 years old.

From what I heard years later, Emily Scheurer Schiavon lived for several years after Ralph’s death, and then her only child, Yvonne Cooksey, brought her to live near her in Madison, New Jersey, where she died a short time later.

Coincidentally, as I write this, it is Ralph Schiavon’s birthday.  How I wish I could tell my dear grandfather - my Baba - that I love him and miss him, but somehow I feel he must know.  I think he would be happy that his memory lives on through his grandchildren and great-grandchildren and that we are grateful for the many blessings he gave us through his legacy of devotedness to his family, strong work ethic, love of learning, unwavering integrity, and pride in his heritage.  Baba, grazie per tutto.  Vivrai sempre nei nostri cuori.  

You will live on forever in our hearts.

Copyright (C) 2011 Linda Huesca Tully

Did you know any of the people in this story, or are you a member of the Schiavon/Schiavone, Sannella, or McGinnis families?  If so, share your memories and comments below.

Ralph Schiavon - Part Three: Halcyon Days

Ralph Schiavon


Halcyon Days


(Third of a four part series about my maternal great-grandfather)

A self-made man, my grandfather, Ralph Schiavon, was not afraid of anyone.  Not even "Scarface" Al Capone.


In the late 1920s, Ralph was working as a supervisor for the Internal Revenue Service and lived on the South Side of Chicago with his wife Alice and their two small children, Tom and Joan (my mother), when two of Capone's henchmen summoned him to the mobster's infamous headquarters in the Windy City at the Lexington Hotel.  There, he was asked to help a paesan, "Mr. Capone" to straighten out the books," for which he would receive a handsome recompense.  As Ralph sat there listening to the men, his mind was racing.


As an employee of the IRS, he surely was aware that Al Capone was under scrutiny for tax evasion.  Though Capone ran a number of illegal gambling and bootlegging operations, he had made sure that all his assets and properties were not in his name but in those of his front men.  He had never filed an income tax return or declared any taxable income or assets.

Ralph knew he was in a delicate situation.  The request for an IRS agent's help was brazen enough, but the thought that he should regard Capone as his paesan might have rankled him, too.  While he knew there could be consequences for saying no to Al Capone or his henchmen, he was a moral man with a strong sense of integrity that was far greater than any fear he might have felt.  Thanking the men for the offer, he tactfully said he could not be of much help and was astounded when he was dismissed summarily.  He hurried home, looking over his shoulder all the way for fear of reprisals against him or his loved ones, but fortunately nothing ever happened.  He must have breathed an enormous sigh of relief in 1932, when Capone was convicted of tax evasion.


Like many Americans at the time, Ralph's job fell victim to the Great Depression, and he and Alice found themselves in dire financial straits.  To ease the burden, they sent my mother, then two years old, to live with Alice's mother and maiden aunt until they were able to get back on their feet some four years later.  It was as though history was repeating itself, as Emanuela Schiavone had sent her own toddler Ralph to live with two maiden ladies so many years before in San Sossio.


Ralph had always been resourceful and was able to find a job at a grocery store.  Though it was a better place than most to work during such hard times when many people were starving, it just helped the family get by.


Still regretting that he had not been able to attend college, Ralph determined to not let this happen to his youngest brother, Leo, who had shown great academic promise.  He mustered enough money to send Leo to college, first to the University of Chicago and then to Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana.  This was no small effort, considering he began the endeavor around 1928 and was somehow able to see it through to Leo's graduation from Notre Dame in 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression.  It must have taken a great deal of sacrifice, but Ralph loved his brother very much and believed Leo was worth it.


It was a proud day for the Schiavones and indeed, the entire town of Revere when Leo graduated from Notre Dame cum laude.  Leo was the first Italian-American from the town to graduate from college, and the mayor threw a party at City Hall and invited everyone to celebrate the accomplishment.  Leo went on to earn an advanced law degree at DePaul University in 1934 and was hired by a Chicago law firm, eventually repaying his brother in full.


Ralph established his own practice as a tax consultant with an office at the Title & Trust Building at 111 West Washington Street in downtown Chicago.  As things improved, he and Alice took a vacation to Cuba.  Upon their return in 1933, they brought Joan, then five years old, back home to live with them again.


On May 4, 1935, Vito Schiavone, Ralph's father, afflicted for several years with arteriosclerosis and kidney disease, suffered a cerebral hemorrhage.  He died exactly one week later at the family home at 33 Eastern Avenue in Revere.  Ralph brought his mother, Emanuela, to live with him and his family for a short time afterward.  She later returned to Revere and moved in with Ralph's sister, Filomena Schiavone  Scicchitani and her husband, Tommasso.  She stayed with them for most of the remainder of her life.  Filomena herself would die an untimely death a few years later on October 23, 1941.  That evening, she had just received an award at an American Legion banquet for her involvement in local Democratic politics and was returning to her seat when she collapsed of a cerebral hemorrhage, as had her father.  Her death came as a terrible shock to her brothers, who loved her dearly.


My mother worshipped her father and fondly remembered his tenderness to her as a child.  In contrast to his own stern upbringing, Ralph never spanked her or Tom.  Not long after Joan had been brought back home, she broke a favorite mirror of her mother's.  Alice was furious and sent Joan to her room to wait for a spanking from her father home when he got home from work.  My mother later described the incident in her autobiography:


"All afternoon, I worried.  My father had such BIG HANDS! 'This will be some spanking,' I thought.  The hours passed, the front door opened, and there was my Daddy...so BIG.  He had a smile on his face, which quickly disappeared as my Mother told him of my misbehavior.  A stern, serious expression crept across his face, and I stood there, grasping my Mother's dress hem, trying to disappear behind her.


"My father grunted, 'Come with me.'  I followed as slowly as possible, cringing inside with fear.  We entered the bathroom; my Father closed the door, turned to me, and asked if I was sorry for what I had done.  In a small voice, I replied that I was very sorry and promised never to do it again.


"In the meantime, my Mother, waiting outside in the hall, was having second thoughts about my punishment.  A smile appeared on my Father's face, and he plotted with me to clap his big hands together, and I would scream as loud as I could. . . My Mother called out for my Father to stop spanking me.  We opened the door with big smiles, I in my Father's arms.  From that time on, there was a special bond between (us), as through my life, (he) tried to shield me from harm."

My great-grandfather, Thomas McGinnis, built this home on
South Drexel Avenue for his family in 1913; after he
and my great-grandmother Mary Jane died, my grandparents
Ralph and Alice Schiavon moved their young family here.

When Alice's mother, Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis died in the summer of 1940, the Schiavons moved into the McGinnis family home on South Drexel Avenue, on Chicago's South Side, where they lived for several years before moving to a larger home on Saint Lawrence Avenue.  Ralph loved these homes with their large gardens, and he spent long hours digging out weeds, planting flowers, and trimming hedges.  He loved working with his hands.  Maybe he felt connected to his roots, especially his Sannella grandparents, who had been gardeners by trade in San Sossio.

Ralph Schiavon in his garden on
Saint Lawrence Avenue, Chicago.

Ralph traveled back to Italy at the end of World War II and was shocked by the poverty and devastation there.  The large numbers of children who had been orphaned during the war especially moved him.  He befriended a young priest, Father Piccinini, who ran an orphanage in Southern Italy, and he began sending funds to assist this and a number of other postwar relief efforts.  


In 1946, the Schiavon's eldest child, Ralph Thomas, known as "Tom," married Angelina Ciliberto, a strikingly lovely brunette from Iacurso, Calabria, Italy.  They went on have four children:  Ralph, Alice, Michele, and Paul.  


Alice had taken up several hobbies that included doll and stamp collecting.  Over the years, she also had become an avid collector of fine antiques.  Ralph supported her in these interests, and he helped her open an antique and gift gallery, Chatham Galleries.  In 1950, he sent Alice and Joan to Europe on the luxury liner Queen Mary on an antique buying trip.


While Alice was delighted at the prospect of going off to Europe to hunt for new treasures, Joan, 21 at the time, balked at the idea.  She envisioned herself trapped for months among a boring melange of older people and even older antiques.  Ralph saw the trip as an opportunity for his sheltered daughter to be exposed to a rich world of culture, tradition, and history.  He arranged for my mother and my grandmother to stay in the finest staterooms and hotels and tour the most beautiful cities on the continent.  It would be the trip of a lifetime for my mother, who returned to New York from Cherbourg, France on the cruise liner Queen Elizabeth I as a wiser and more worldly young woman, thanks in large part to her father's vision and encouragement.


Sometime during the 1950s, the governor of Illinois appointed Ralph as State Bail Bondsman Inspector.  He continued his tax consulting business, commuting by train daily to his office in the Loop downtown. He also joined the American Legion and the Swedish Club, where he held court with colleagues and clients alike and often hosted large banquets for them.


As much as he loved eating out, he was an equally accomplished cook who enjoyed inviting people over for his memorable Italian dishes, which he had learned to cook from his mother.  This was quite a godsend for all concerned, as Alice was uninterested in cooking and gladly relinquished kitchen duties to her gourmet husband while she used her artistic talents to decorate their home lavishly and create elegant table settings.  The house overflowed with family and guests on holidays. Thanksgiving in particular called for Ralph's signature turkey with a rich dressing of mascarpone and other Italian cheeses, Genoa salami, golden raisins, and pine nuts.  His daughter-in-law, Angelina Ciliberto Schiavon (my Uncle Tom's wife - and my godmother), once remarked that on these occasions, it was hard to tell by evening's end which was more stuffed - the turkey or the guests.

My precious mother and grandparents, Joan, Alice, and
Ralph Schiavon, Chicago, Illinois, early 1960s.

One day in 1954, a handsome young man walked through the door of Alice and Joan's shop to buy a birthday card for his mother back in Mexico City.  He and his landlady had been out shopping, and the landlady, having met Joan Schiavon on a previous visit to the store, dared the young man to go inside to ask her for help.  He and Joan were immediately attracted to one another, and they began taking long walks around the block together.  Walks turned into movies and dinners, and soon the young couple's relationship deepened into love.


My grandfather, still protective of his daughter, was not happy when the young man, Gilbert Huesca, came to the house to ask him for Joan's hand on the Fourth of July, her birthday.  He had assumed his daughter would marry an Italian, just as her brother tom had a few years earlier.  He looked down sternly at Gil.  "Do you have any insanity in your family?" he asked.


The man who would become my father looked squarely back.  "No," he smiled.  "Do you?"


Ralph knew he had met his match.  Had he remembered that he, too, had married a non-Italian?  He gave his permission and began planning a large wedding with a guest list that would fill the church with family and all his clients and professional contacts.

Gilbert and Joan Huesca in their first apartment,
Chicago, November 1, 1954.

My mother, who had wanted an intimate wedding, proved to be equally as willful as her father.  She and my father eloped one afternoon during his lunch break.  The date was August 19, 1954.  That evening they sent a telegram to Ralph and Alice, who were vacationing in Florida.  Though they must have been surprised by the news, they took it graciously and sent the happy couple a lovely floral arrangement with their congratulations and best wishes.


In 1959, Ralph and Alice bought a two-story residence on South Luella Avenue.  They moved into the upstairs flat and invited my parents to move our family into the flat below.  I was fairly young at the time but recall being greeted on moving day with a marvelous swing and slide set in the back yard, along with a yellow rectangular wading pool for my sisters and me.


Ralph kept his lawns in pristine condition.  Both front and back lawns were bordered by tidy boxwood shrubs and colorful flowerbeds of snapdragons, roses, petunias, geraniums, and birds-of-paradise (my grandmother's favorite flower).  He also had an herb garden with sweet basil, Italian parsley, and oregano that he used in his wonderful Italian dishes.  He was always telling us to keep off the grass, yet he seemed to understand that as children we needed to run and play, and he indulged us in the way that only a loving grandfather could.


My grandparents doted on our cousins and us.  They bought my sisters and me a large Swiss-made child-size surrey with a pink-and-white fringe on top that seated four.  We used to pedal it down the block or to the park with our parents or lead neighborhood parades on Flag Day and the Fourth of July.  Though he was not one to fuss over children, Ralph loved each of us, his grandchildren, dearly. His letters to my mother during the last decade of his life reflected his pride in all eight of us as we grew into young men and women.

 My grandparents, Alice and Ralph Schiavon, with me (at age 1),
at my parent's apartment, Chicago, Thanksgiving 1956.

I have a vivid memory of one Sunday afternoon, when I ran upstairs after Mass to visit my grandparents.  My Nana Alice, who had been ill of complications from insulin-dependent diabetes, was napping, and my grandfather was sitting in his big leather club chair in the den.  He was watching a Chicago Cubs baseball game on TV and listening to a Notre Dame ball game on a small transistor radio he had up to his ear.  He motioned to me to come in, and I clambered onto his lap. 


We sat there, he and I, in awkward silence together for quite some time, he puffing occasionally on his cigar and I wondering what to say to him.  Unlike Nana, who could be the consummate playmate to her grandchildren, my Baba - that was the closest I could come to as little girl to saying the Italian Babbo, or Grandpa - was not easy to talk to, and at seven years old, I really didn't understand why.  What I did understand in some obscure way, though, was that even on the lap of that silent, enigmatic man, I felt safe and loved.


Copyright ©  2011  Linda Huesca Tully




NEXT:  Part Four - Twilight