Behind the 'Masks'

By Robbie Daniels

This book tells the story of my family, my life in relationship to them, and later my own life, beginning thirty years before my birth, ending seventy-one years after. But it’s hardly a standard life story; my particular path in life simply doesn’t lend itself to the customary outlay of facts, dates and events.
It is definitely not a story for the queasy or prudish reader, as it is very graphic, and contains violence, brutality, cruelty, murder, sex and foul language.
Common - and not so common – details pertinent to my life and to my sense of who I was, were hidden from me, then revealed only eventually, in haphazard and thoughtless ways years after I’d settled into the falsehoods.
None of the stories I have written in Behind the 'Masks' were obtained from anyone outside of my family; it was a frustrating task getting hold of many of these stories, and more so the details.
Memories age, fade and are sometimes disputed with surprising vigour; however all the events are factual to the best of my knowledge.
There were numerous times my emotions got the better of me, reliving periods of my past. I spent countless hours researching data as well as trying to express myself clearly enough, enabling my readers to understand my feelings, my thinking, and perhaps even some of my bizarre and strange actions.
Had I been aware of many things during my youth, and perhaps not subjected to so many horrific events and beatings, aspects of my life would certainly have had a far different outcome.
I hope you enjoy reading about the journey of my life as much as I have disliked living most of it, and definitely writing about it.
I further hope my ultimate discovery about myself is as dramatic for you as it was for me.
The final climax being that I'm now at peace with the past and myself.

: Robbie Daniels

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robbie Daniels
• Release date: Nov 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310012822

Robbie Daniels

Born in Toronto Canada, widowed, retired. Love animals, fishing, card playing, movies, all types of music, and now writing. I am starting a Mystery series of novels starring Detective Morgan Jade....the first is called Penance by Death, and should be available in the next few months.After writing Behind the 'Masks, I discovered I enjoy writing, this was my first book and I am 72 years of age, hope to get at least 10 more done before I get too old....William Burlie, aka Robbie Daniels.

Book preview

Preface

Most of us hide behind a mask at some point in our lives, this is a survival tool that allows us to act out and be something we are not, to mask a flaw, a weakness, a secret, or to gain love, respect etc…

These identifiers are mostly a far cry from reality.

They are utilitarian in nature and used as needed, some we use for a brief time or longer, perhaps even a lifetime.

They’re chosen out of necessity, for personal or social reasons.

Historically masks have allowed my family to hide the reality about many issues and events that occurred during their lives and mine.

I’d often thought of writing this book, but resisted doing so, I think mainly because of the masks I’d have to tear off.

Not mine only, but those of dominant family members; who either had the most to hide, or the need to appear as other than what they truly were.

Surely focusing on a book, telling my story, would be too painful or just plain too difficult!

At some point in a very depressing period in my life, my closest confidant Reese convinced me that I needed to write this book. Her rationale was that in doing so, the sadness, guilt - anger - depression that I couldn’t free myself from, would surely be put to rest at last once and for all. .

All my masks are coming off in this book, as well as in my everyday life, perhaps my story will be of some benefit to readers who are for one reason or another hiding behind their own masks.

My decision to write this book came about long after most of the principal members of my family were deceased.

My family, including my children, have no idea about their tumultuous heritage, or about most of my life, for their sake I chose to give fictitious names to all our family members, and friends.

Readers will be challenged, as I was, in the sporadic fashion I learned about my life, my family and my heritage.

Except where absolutely necessary, certain episodes and facts in the book are not revealed when or where they actually occurred.

I felt the reader would benefit more in understanding my story, by learning about these along the same time-lines that I did.

Man is least himself while wearing a mask, remove the mask and he will reveal the truth! : Orson Welles

Chapter One

My story begins with the Patriarch of our Family: Dominic Vaccarello, born into a poor Italian Family the second oldest of seven children, on November 9th 1880 in the region of Reggio di Calabria, Italy.

Never having gone to school he was unable to read or write.

At twenty-five he joined the army and served for four years, saving most of his money to enable him to emigrate to Canada, which was his big dream.

Spring 1910: Dominic and his Cousin Jimmy Prince traveled by ship to the United States of America, immigrating through Ellis Island.

I have little knowledge of what they did during the two years they lived in the United States, most of which they lived mainly in New York City.

Dominic told me how difficult it had been for him unable to speak English, and about the loss of his brother who was coming to America to join him.

From what Jimmy told me many years later, they had managed to find accommodations in a house offering room and board.

This came about due to Jimmy’s fair knowledge of reading English; he had seen the notice for the house posted on a bulletin board, right after they had been admitted into the country.

With Jimmy’s help, Dominic found work as a labourer on a construction site.

Due to his slight build they did not hire Jimmy, as the work required a lot of physical strength, which thirty-year-old Dominic had plenty of; one week later Jimmy found a job with a printing company as a janitor.

When I began writing this book in 2007, my brother Mathew and his wife Mary were the last members of our family over the age of sixty with whom I had contact, they both passed away in 2010, at eighty-six and eighty-five.

I have heard nothing of my Brother Luke since 1973, nor my Nephew Danny Jr., since his mother’s funeral in 1997, nor do I wish to.... as I couldn’t care a rat’s ass about either of them.

Mary knew I was writing this book and helped fill in some gaps, Mathew didn’t know; he would have greatly disapproved, Let the past stay past, was his answer to anything I’d ask him.

In his younger years, if he talked about family with me at all it would just be of the rare times they had laughed.

If I’d ask him about anything else, he’d always answer, You’re better off not knowing about any of that shit.

The rest of the family was just as uncooperative, I will credit them for one thing they sure as hell knew how to keep secrets.

There were secrets that nobody would tell me, but I knew even as a child, I knew with a child’s hidden sense, it was how our family lived, and I knew there was something wrong, but what was it?

Spring 1912: Dominic and Jimmy were anxiously awaiting the arrival of Dominic’s youngest brother Antonio. Jimmy began corresponding with Antonio as well as the rest of Dominic’s family back in Italy, soon after he and Dominic arrived in New York, and was aware of his expected arrival.

Living fairly close to the New York shipping docks enabled them to go down and learn of the progress of Antonio’s ship.

Monday April 15th 1912: They went down to the docks after work, only to hear Antonio’s ship the Titanic was in trouble, then later learning it had sunk.

Dominic stayed off work the next four days, he would return to the docks early in the morning, staying till late in the evening, speaking very little English he tried to find out what information he could from anyone who spoke English or Italian.

Thursday April 18th 1912: In the pouring rain Dominic along with thousands of other anxious people, many now hysterical, waited and watched in anticipation later that night as Titanic survivors began to disembark from the rescue ship Carpathia,

When the last survivors had disembarked, Dominic wept upon seeing Antonio was not among the survivors, he returned home to tell Jimmy.

‘People waiting for survivors aboard the Carpathia’

Weeks passed news on the radio reporting daily the names of the passenger’s bodies that were found in the sea, it was finally determined Dominic’s brother Antonio had been lost-at-sea.

Dominic’s granddaughter Angelina discovered a list on the internet in April 2012 which had listed what we believe to be a record of Antonio’s having been buried-at-sea.

Angelina and I attributed this find to be correct by something we both were told by our parents.

We were told the only other detail besides his physical appearance Dominic was able to provide the authorities about his brother Antonio after the sinking of the Titanic, was that he had always wore a brass ring on his thumb.

When they found the body of the passenger on the list Angelina discovered, he had been wearing such a ring, and he’d also matched the physical description which had been given to the authorities by Dominic at the time.

After the loss of his brother, Dominic for some reason or other decided he would move across the border to the small town of Thorold in Ontario, Canada.

Back home in Italy his intent was always to live in Canada.

His Cousin Jimmy, knowing a few Italian people who had emigrated from Italy to Toronto, decided he would move there instead of moving to Thorold with Dominic.

At the age of thirty-two Dominic Vaccarello presented as a very polite and amiable man, possessing a swarthy-complexion with dark-brown-eyes, and black-wavy-hair, he carried himself with an air of confidence that was almost a swagger, noticed immediately by women.

He wasn’t particularly handsome or tall, at just 5’2", but he certainly had sex appeal, most probably the reason many women were attracted to him.

When he was not at work he always dressed in a suit and a tie and wore silver armbands on his long white shirt-sleeves.

He kept this style of dress and his ‘come-hither’ smile right up to his death at the age ninety-two.

Even now, friends of mine can still remember his sartorial sharpness, especially the gray fedora hat he always wore.

Dominic was quite the ladies’ man; I got to know a bit about that just watching him when I was a teenager, he told me he had several girlfriends in both the U.S.A. as well as in Thorold.

He spoke very little English and what he did speak was pretty broken, but I saw him, well into his seventies, turn women’s heads with nothing more than a smile, and his dapper-looks.

Winter 1914: Dominic met and soon became infatuated with a woman by the name of Jeanette Wilson.

Born in 1873, she was eight-years older than he, and at 5’5" she was also three-inches taller, with short, curly-auburn-hair, and beautiful pale-milky-skin; she had a moderate physique, despite having experienced seven pregnancies.

Looking amazingly unlike the black-haired, darker-skinned women from Dominic’s homeland; perhaps this was what had initially attracted him to her.

When they first met, Jeanette had been separated for nearly three years from her husband Stan Wilson who’d then been a Thorold police officer for twenty-four-years.

The personality traits required for this sort of career are at times not the best to bring to a marriage and a family.

Jeanette always felt that Stan was far too strict as well as demanding of her and their five children, and he often beat them far more than she felt was necessary.

At long last after 18 years of marriage deciding she’d had enough, Jeanette told Stan to move out.

He was good enough to continue supporting his family, until Dominic arrived on the scene, at which time he stopped.

Following a short courtship, Jeanette and Dominic decided they would move into a place together.

Dominic found a place big enough for the six of them not far from where Jeanette had been living and Jeanette brought four of her children with her: seventeen-year old Margaret, fourteen-year old Annie, thirteen-year old Jeanette, and ten-year old Stanley.

Twenty-year old Seth had left home two years earlier, because he and his father fought and argued a great deal; they just couldn’t ever get along with one another.

Jeanette and Stan had lost two other sons: the first one was stillborn, the second died at two months of age.

In due course Dominic and Jeanette had two healthy children together: Rosina Anne born October 31st 1916 and Dominic Anthony Jr. born February 15th 1918.

Both children were born with jet-black, curly hair like their father; neither of them really resembled their mother.

They also lost a child, probably still-born on April 7th 1921; they had named her Philomena after Dominic’s oldest sister.

Information of Philomena I discovered in 2012 while doing research for this book, the record showed the same date for her birth and death.

After the birth of Rosina, having his first child as well as his becoming a father, with mother and daughter both doing well, Dominic went out and had a tattoo put on his right forearm of a woman in a bathing suit, under which he had inscribed in fancy script Jeanette’s name, because he was so proud of her.

Following the birth of Dominic Jr., who I will call D. Jr. from here on throughout the book, Dominic soon began finding it very difficult to support Jeanette and her four children, along with the two they now had between them.

He was now faced with the task of finding a better paying job, leastwise some other way to make more money.

The money he earned working at a bottle-washing company, which was the only work available to him upon his arrival in Thorold, was already being stretched as far as it could be.

During those years there was no family assistance or child benefit programs to help families with children.

Prohibition had begun and for Dominic bootlegging seemed like a good way for him to pick up extra money.

He had made certain connections in the U.S. who put him in contact with people in Quebec also; from these two sources, Dominic acquired the liquor and beer he sold from his home.

Later-on he only needed to use the Quebec suppliers; since it had become unsafe to smuggle booze across from the United States, when government oversight tightened up.

The business flourished, enabling Dominic to provide for his family, as well as put aside a sizeable amount of money, Thorold police never bothered his bootlegging establishment. Ironically, Stan Wilson, Jeanette’s husband, was the reason.

Stan was the officer regularly patrolling the neighbourhood where Jeanette and Dominic lived; although he knew all about Dominic’s bootlegging business he turned a blind eye.

He also saw to it that any of the other cops who might be patrolling in the area ignored Dominic’s bootlegging.

Stan hated Dominic with a passion, always referring to him as that dago bastard, but he still cared for Jeanette and his children, and would never want them affected by any trouble Dominic’s activities might bring about.

Winter 1921: Rosina was five, and D Jr. was three; Jeanette and Dominic decided to call it quits after seven years.

Janette had never recovered from their daughter’s death.

Feeling the tragedy had been due to her age, she had no desire to get pregnant again and refused sex with Dominic.

She told him he was, ‘An oversexed bastard’.

Although not a church-goer, Dominic was raised a Roman Catholic and did follow a few rules of his faith.

Birth-control was not one of them, simply because the only form allowed by the Church was the rhythm-method, well that was just a lot of bullshit to him, when he wanted sex he wanted sex, and that was all there was to it.

Dominic soon began womanizing again, when Jeanette learned about it she would have absolutely nothing to do with him.

At which point he decided there was no point in their staying together without any fucking, which is how he put it.

He continued to run the business and took care of the family, but he’d decided to take a room in the house of a friend.

Jeanette’s second oldest daughter Annie had been a patient in a Toronto facility for a period of time during 1919-1920.

I was unable to gather further information as to exactly why she was there.

The facility was for young people who had been exposed to tuberculosis, to make sure they had not contracted it.

Upon her return home, it was quite evident Annie had matured quite a bit, having become quite a good looking young lady.

Her transformation soon caught Dominic’s attention, and it wasn’t long before he began courting her.

December 24th 1921: Dominic asked Annie to marry him, she answered yes and they became engaged, when they found out, Jeanette was quite disappointed and Stan was furious.

There were disruptive, upsetting fights but Annie held her ground, telling them both separately they had no right to interfere, as she was a grown woman of legal age, and whether they accepted her engagement or not was entirely up to them, furthermore it made no difference to her at all.

A few months later when Stan went to visit his children, Jeanette told him she believed Annie and Dominic actually were very much in love.

November 4th 1922: Dominic and Annie were married; she was twenty-two years old, Dominic fourty-two less five days.

Being the horny bastard that Jeanette had called him, Dominic had quite naturally wanted to get married sooner.

Annie on the other hand had wanted to wait and make certain of their love for one another, which in turn created a problem for Dominic’s sex life.

To address his problem she told him whatever he must do in order to fulfill his urges before they married was up to him, as long as she didn’t know; but he was to make damn sure it never happened after they were married, because the first time he did would be his last.

She also demanded that he see a doctor regularly as well as shortly before their wedding, to be certain that he had not contracted a sexually transmitted disease.

March 2012: I discovered that Jeanette had stood up for her daughter and Dominic at their wedding, and had also signed their marriage certificate.

Now bear in mind: Dominic and Annie were not related by blood, but Annie was the half-sister of Dominic’s daughter and son – Rosina and D. Jr. – because the three of them had the same mother…Jeanette Wilson.

…Confusing, or what?

After Dominic and Annie married, Jeanette and Stan became divorced, a few years later Jeanette met and married a gentleman from Ohio; soon after they married they moved to Ohio.

From old photographs I found of Jeanette with Mathew and Luke, her grandsons, I discovered she had visited Annie and Dominic during the summer of 1930.

She also attended her daughter Annie’s funeral in 1932, supplying the information required for her death certificate.

Fall 1922: After having put aside a fair amount of money, Dominic decided it was time for the family to move on.

Closing down his bootleg-business, Dominic, Annie, Rosina and D. Jr. moved to a place called Cabbage Town in Toronto.

Why Dominic had been allowed to take Rosina and D. Jr. with him to Toronto away from Jeanette, will forever be a mystery.

My belief is that she knew he and Annie would be better equipped to take care of them, perhaps she felt it was time for her to have a quiet peaceful life, since she was now fifty-years old.

Annie had agreed to their moving, thinking it best to be far away from her family, before they’d moved Dominic’s Cousin Jimmy had been able to find a reasonably priced house for them to rent.

Dominic again landed a job on a construction site; he worked on construction sites right up until he was seventy-six years old.

He was a very determined man; and worked hard to support his family, keeping them all together during the difficult and lean periods throughout the coming years, always managing to provide at least the necessities for them.

Unfortunately, he was a hot-blooded Italian with a violent temper, terribly strict with his children and his women, often beating them terribly.

Most men in those days had very little respect for women, believing all they were good for was fucking, cooking, and keeping house, many men were also infuriated when women were allowed the right to vote.

Dominic was no exception, except with Annie his true love who was a goddess in his eyes.

All things truly wicked start from innocence. : Hemingway

Over the next seven years, Dominic and Annie were blessed with the birth of two sons: Mathew Charles was their first, born on September 2nd 1923, next their second child Luke Christian was born on December 12th 1929.

Between the births of the two sons, they also lost a set of twins, a boy and girl born on March 9th 1926.

Edward’s records give his birth and death on the same date.

Viola passed away two days later on March 11th 1926.

Although both of the boys took on the Vaccarello features of their father, Luke had the pale complexion of his mother.

Dominic and Annie’s ’Family Tree’ becomes more confusing, and it’s starting to look more like a ‘Family Bush’ than a tree:

Mathew and Luke are half-brothers to Rosina and D. Jr.; because Dominic is the father of the four of them, Rosina and D. Jr. are aunt and uncle to Mathew and Luke, because Mathew and Luke’s mother, Annie, is their half-sister.

More confusing still!

Rosina and D. Jr. now become their own aunt and uncle; because they are the half-brother and half-sister of Annie, as well as the half-brother and half-sister of Mathew and Luke….

You may want to re-read the last few lines …

The day I figured this all out, I couldn’t stop singing an old song popular at the time; the title was ‘I’m My Own Grandpa’.

The diagram below may help.

Chapter Two

March 1923: Dominic, with the help of his Cousin Jimmy started another liquor-selling-business.

Different than before; this type of place was known as a blind pig because patrons could stay in the place and drink, or they could buy liquor and beer to take out.

Canada and the USA both being under prohibition law at the time should mean great business for their blind pig.

This new venture would enhance Dominic’s ability to support his ever growing family; soon there would be another mouth to feed, as Annie was pregnant with their first son Mathew.

Dominic planned to relocate the family to a larger house with enough space for his family and their new business.

Upon finding the right house he decided to buy it, he had taken seven-hundred dollars with him on a bus to close the deal with the current owner, which unfortunately did not happen.

Arriving at the house, Dominic discovered that he had been victimized by a pick-pocket and all his money had been stolen.

Hearing of Dominic’s misfortune, his friend Frank Miceli then purchased the house instead and rented it to Dominic.

The new business encompassed two large rooms on the main floor of the house, with a heavy red curtain separating them.

One of the rooms was furnished with several small tables and mismatched chairs, and was designated for Gentlemen and their Lady friends; eventually it was nicknamed the Parlour Room.

There was also a piano in this room patrons would often play, making sure playing it along with the singing was kept low.

Although most of the people in the neighbourhood were his patrons, discretion was still required to ensure there would be no cause for anyone to report disturbances to the police.

The second room was where a few patrons could stand and drink, contained a few tables and chairs, as well as a make-shift bar which Jimmy had made out of pine wood.

At the far end of the bar liquor and beer could be purchased to take out; next to the bar was a door to the toilet, this room was strictly for men, ladies were only allowed in this room to use the toilet.

Nor were ladies allowed to purchase liquor or beer to take out.

Naturally this room was later nicknamed the Bar Room.

Jimmy worked the bar, the booze take-out, and was also responsible for the cash-box which was kept under the bar.

Behind the cash-box there was a hidden sliding-panel, this was used to drop large sums of money down into the cellar, leaving little cash on hand in case of a raid or robbery.

Dominic served patrons in the Parlour Room; he also became their in-house bouncer whenever it became necessary.

There were some much respected people including judges, lawyers, reporters, several police officers, and at times the odd gangster, who frequented Dominic’s establishment.

His patrons were not only Canadian; due to prohibition in the States there were also many American customers.

Here they were able to sit - relax - drink, as well as play tunes and sing, or avail themselves to the take-out for liquor and beer.

In the Parlour Room only, there was home-made Italian red wine available for patrons to drink at their table.

Joe Prince, another cousin to Dominic, made the wine from the grapes he grew in his Brother Tony’s garden.

Jimmy, Joe, and Tony Prince were sons of Rosa Princi’s brothers; Rosa Princi was Dominic’s mother.

The three of them changed the spelling of their last name from Princi to Prince after arriving in America.

My Brother Luke, in the late 1940’s after having filled out many job applications without a single reply, also decided to change the spelling of his last name by dropping off a few letters, and then he received many job offers and interviews after changing it to a non-ethnic looking name.

We all felt his ass-hole wife Betty, who would have nothing to do with our family and hated our Italian family name, was most likely the real reason for his decision to change his name.

After returning from the war, Mathew also had trouble finding employment because of our family’s Italian surname.

He applied to the fire department and many other government positions throughout Toronto, never landing one interview.

He told the family a story once about placing his application on the desk of a potential employer, while leaving he looked back into the office from the hall and saw the man tearing up his application; he walked back into the office and accused him of prejudice.

Mathew had said to the man, Just because of my Italian name a dick-head like you won’t consider hiring me, me just home from a war to keep this country safe for ass-holes like you. I’d like to but I won’t waste my time kicking your ass; you’re not worth my time."

With that, he turned around and stormed out of the office.

Mathew always said he would never do what Luke had done, and he never forgave him saying, Your name is the one thing your father gives you that no one can ever take away.

He eventually found employment with The Toronto Hydro in 1949, where he worked for thirty-years before he retired.

I must add I was often called a DP at school, even by a couple of my teachers, in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s.

D. Jr. once told me Al Capone had visited the bar after arranging his liquor shipments in Quebec, before returning to the USA.

I never knew if this was in fact true, as he died soon after telling me however, Dominic confirmed it for me when I was in my twenties, telling me many interesting stories about Al Capone.

Confirming he was a gangster and yes, he was responsible for the deaths of many men.

Never the less, this gangster during the depression opened several soup kitchens in Chicago, feeding many needy people.

He also instructed stores to give food and winter clothing to the needy, and he later paid the stores for all the items.

He may have been a gangster, but he was also very charitable.

Capone was a very wealthy man and not at all affected by the great depression, for the simple reason that he like all those making illegal money at the time - Dominic included - did not use banks, instead he hid his money.

This practice was his eventual downfall as he was finally put in prison for income-tax evasion, where he eventually died.

Dominic also told me how they had first met and became friends in Thorold at his first bootleggers.

Capone had just dropped by with two guys one night just before Dominic was closing, supposedly looking to buy booze.

Recognizing who he was immediately, Dominic invited him and his two companions into his home.

They stayed a few hours in the kitchen, drinking and talking in Italian about their families and business acquaintances.

Before leaving, Capone told Dominic he had actually gone there to check him out, and was happy he had done so.

They remained friends for many years, and slowly lost track of one another over the years, although Dominic would hear on the news and from people from time to time, what was going on with Capone who was often in the limelight up until 1939 when he was released from prison, and moved to Florida, where he eventually died.

When Dominic started his first bootleggers in Thorold he had become known by the name of Charlie Lapshett to most of his clientele and contacts.

Someone had called him that name once jokingly, and his Cousin Jimmy told him he should use the name, for the sake of the family as well as any trouble they might encounter with the police, so Dominic used the name within his business.

For some unknown reason his marriage license with Annie has his first name as Charlie.

This is but one of the many strange things about Dominic I or anyone else for that matter knew or even understood.

During this period Dominic was the in-house bouncer at his blind pig, and there were a few occasions when he’d engaged in fist-fights with some of the problem patrons.

He may have been short, but he was one hell of a fighter.

On one of those occasions a man had been hollering loud in the back bar-room; not being busy in the Parlour Room Dominic went back to see what all the commotion was about.

Seeing the man leaning across the bar hollering at Jimmy and Vito behind him pulling him back, Dominic jumped on the man and he fell to the floor, with Dominic on top of him.

After they both stood up Dominic ushered him outside into the alley.

Several minutes later Vito went outside to check on them; Jimmy went to check on the patrons in the Parlour Room.

Vito saw Dominic kicking the man on the ground and yelled at him to stop; noticing the man was bleeding and unconscious.

Dominic asked Vito, who was a good friend and also owned a car, to take the man to the hospital, he also instructed Vito to tell the hospital he’d found the man lying on a street some place far away from the bar and thought he may have been mugged.

Before doing so, Vito had taken the man’s wallet and money to make it appear as though he had indeed been mugged.

The man unfortunately died from internal injuries, most likely from the brutal kicking Dominic had inflicted on him, and fortunate for Dominic, he had never regained consciousness.

No one outside had witnessed the fight, which had taken place in the alley where all troublemakers were either escorted or thrown.