Esther's Daughter: Remember Who You Are and Who You Wanted To Be

By Patricia Roush

Esther and David fell in love at a defense plant in Chicago during WWII. They were making engines for the B29 bombers.

The problem was that Esther had a husband in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The war ended and Bob came home. But there was a baby involved.

Esther chose to leave her husband and have the baby with David, the man she loved. She was from Italian immigrants and had a large family who loved her. After the baby was born, they showered her with all the love they could give.

David's family from southern Illinois adored the baby girl.

David moved into Esther's family home and things went well for three years. Then David wanted to change jobs often and move to California and other places.

Esther loved David and sacrificed so much for him but she did not want to leave her family and loved ones.

They separated.

Their daughter, Pattie Marie, was loved by her Italian family and her southern Illinois family. But as she grew up her life changed drastically.

Pattie Marie never wanted anyone to call her "Esther's daughter".

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9781663259158

Book preview

Copyright © 2024 Patricia Roush.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means,

graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by

any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author

except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

844-349-9409

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in

this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views

expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the

views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-6632-5914-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-5915-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023924267

iUniverse rev. date: 01/08/2024

When I was a little girl I used to tell myself stories, especially just before I fell asleep. I would lay in bed, and softly whisper tales about make believe people. When I got a little older and my younger sister asked me to tell her a story, I would conjure up some tales and lull her to sleep. Something like Scheherazade . . .

I became a rabid reader as soon as I was taught how to read in first grade. It went from Dick and Jane to Nancy Drew to Steinbeck, Shakespeare and the rest is history.

Then I started writing my own stories both fiction and non fiction. My love of writing is part of my soul. Shall we begin . . .

Contents

La Familia

Harry’s Good Fortune

A Home for Everyone - 54th Avenue

Finding Your Way Around

Alyce

The 1930s

Bob

David

Bridgeport

The End of the War

Warren Hayes

Not Quite Yet

The Crump Family and George Fox

Giovanni Enrico Stancato

Babe’s Wedding

Trailers and Trackers

Warren Again

Mamie’s Turn

The Restaurant

Restaurant Part II

The Fire

Escape to Florida

Dangerous Revenge

The Best Time

Joe Furtado Where Are You?

The Poison Letter

Back to the Basement

The McDermotts

The Good Mom

My Father at 54th

The Last Florida Winter

Where Do I Go?

Stella

Our Own Home

Getting Settled

Life on Wisconsin Avenue

My New Life

The Wonderful Cerza Family

From One Extreme to the Other

Alas! Bridgeport and Auntie Irene

George Lee

The Last Year at St. Pius, 1959-1960

The Beginning of My Anguished Years: 14 to 18

The Kidnap

Bad-Bad-Bad Boys

The Return to Normality?

Joe Zinn

The Crush

My Sophomore Year

Summer of ’62

Junior Year

New Year

Left Holding the Bag

My Prince in Shinning Armor

Another Close Call

My Own Life

Geraldine Bendel

Going Forward in Midland

Our White House in Midland

The Dow Group

Welcome 1966

To Leave or Not To Leave

A Wedding and a Birth

The Winter of 1968 in Chicago

San Francisco

Back to College

The Mistake of My Life

The Seventies

The Truth at Last

Another Stab in my Heart

Dearest Irene

The Elephant

St. Luke’s Hospital School of Nursing

Going Back to Chicago

Esther Just Esther

Christmas Day 1999

Then Bobbie

California Dreaming

The Dave Baioni Story

Peter Aragon - Pietro

A Very New Life

Carry On

Photos

53244.jpg

La Familia

It was the middle of World War II. Great sacrifices were asked on the home front - rationing of gasoline, butter, sugar, canned milk - coffee was down to one cup a day per person.

The war effort came first and companies like Ford Motor were ordered by the government to build airplanes and the parts to make them run. The Chicago Ford Plant on Cicero Avenue and Pulaski Road was one of many that were chosen for that project - they made engines for the B29 bombers.

There was a shortage of workers for those plants and a campaign by the Roosevelt administration pleaded for women to apply and step up.

Single women, housewives, mothers, able bodied grandmothers - all were needed or the production of basically everything connected to the war. If we did not have the planes, tanks, guns, ammunition, and so much more, America and its Allies would lose.

Esther Stancato was one of those women who signed up at the Ford Plant. She got the job, donned on her ‘coveralls’, pinned her dark auburn hair into a scarf and and drove to her new job.

She was in her mid twenties and lived with her widower, Italian immigrant father and three unmarried sisters in Cicero, Illinois, a town that borders the city of Chicago on the west.

Chicago and its nearby suburbs were ethnically and racially segregated. These groups were very tight. Cicero was mainly Italian, Polish and Czech.

Esther’s father, Enrico Stancato (Harry) came to America around 1900. He was from Southern Italy - Calabria - boarded a ship from Naples to New York; then took a train to Chicago and joined the Italian community in ‘Little Italy’ a bustling vitality of shops, food vendors, baby strollers, kids playing in the streets and on the sidewalks, if there were any.

Enrico took any job he could; delivered coal in the winter and ice in the summer. In time he was able to save enough money to pay for his parents and siblings to join him in America. He was short - about five feet tall, very ‘stocky’ and strong with a handsome ‘handlebar’ mustache and lots of black hair. His glistening dark eyes were very seductive. He was said to have been a ‘real lady’s man’.

When he was looking for a bride he had his eyes on a beautiful Calabrese girl, Maria Cerza, who was fifteen years younger than Enrico. They spoke the same dialect which made it easier to communicate as many poor Italians from the South did not speak classical Italian.

Maria’s father Francesco Cerza had come to America in 1896 when he was 36 years old and went to Chicago to work on the railroads. Times were hard and he was unable to get full time work. It took him five years to pay his old debts and support his family that was still back in Italy. In 1901 he was laid off by the Union Pacific Railroad and returned to Italy.

He lived there until February 24,1902, then came back to America with his son Augustino who was fifteen. In 1904 father and son returned to Italy. They traveled back and forth from Italy to America from 1896 to 1910 when Francesco was able to bring his family to America. That included his wife, Serafina, his son Augustino, daughter, Maria, who was sixteen years old, and Alphonse who was five years old.

Serafina and Francesco had another child after they moved to America, Barbara; she was born on February 18, 1911. That was thirteen days after her sister Maria and Enrico Stancato got married. At first the Cerza family did not want Maria to marry Enrico because of the difference in age and his monetary situation. But somehow things went their way.

They lived with the Cerza family for a while in Little Italy around Taylor Street and Bunker Street - the heart of the Italian world in Chicago at that time. Their daughter Julia was born in November of 1911.

After that Maria had many miscarriages and some of the infants that were born did not live very long after birth. And besides that she was diagnosed with tuberculosis of the bone in one of her legs. Enrico was a proud man and took Maria to private doctors instead of the Cook County Hospital. He wanted the ‘best’ or so he thought.

The result was that Maria had surgery and after that could not walk because the affected leg was much shorter than her other leg. So, they made a special shoe with a raised heel - around four to five inches - to enable Maria to walk. But she still had to use a crutch to move.

After Enrico ran out of money to pay the private doctors, he took Maria to Cook County Hospital. They told Enrico there was nothing they could do because of the surgery that damaged her leg; they advised Enrico that if he had taken Maria to Cook County Hospital in the beginning there might have been a different outcome.

Even though Maria had a crippled leg and was in so much agony, she still got pregnant. So in June of 1918 she was nine months pregnant and admitted to Cook County Hospital. The reason she was in the hospital most likely would be because Maria was in poor health with the T.B. leg, many of her babies had died, and she was at risk for infections, another dead baby, and pain in her leg.

Per my mother’s diary she stated that her mother, Maria, was a kind and caring woman. She was in and out of hospitals and doctors also made many House Calls. Mom said that her mother spent a lot of time in bed and prayed the rosary with her daughters.

While Maria was in the hospital she befriended a Jewish woman whose name was Esther. The woman made Maria promise that if the baby was a girl, she had to name her Esther.

Maria kept her promise to the Jewish friend and named her baby daughter, Esther, who was born on June 14, 2018.

It was very unusual for an Italian baby girl to be named in that way. I went through this story with my mother many times. I always asked about the family history. She said that her first name was Eva and second name Esther; but I never saw a birth certificate and no one ever called her Eva. It was always Esther or Est. Even her father Harry Stancato called her Hesta with his strong Italian accent.

Esther was a first generation Italian girl who grew up in Little Italy on Taylor Street - in the 1920s! Prohibition started in 1920 and ended in 1932. The Italian neighborhoods had their share of private clubs - speakeasies - to get a drink and party. But there was so much more going on at that time. It was the ‘Roaring Twenties’ when everything was ‘the good life’ and women were standing up for their rights to vote, wear short dresses, do the Charleston, smoke in public, drink and live it up. The Jazz Age.

Even though Esther was told by her family to stay in the house at night she went ahead and sneaked out when she shouldn’t have.

This led to her seeing way too much for a little girl: the mafia, gangsters, and bookies ruled in those days. It would have scared any ‘normal’ little Italian girl.

While Enrico and Maria and Julia and Esther lived with the Cerza family on Taylor Street he leased several acres of land next to the Hawthorne Racetrack on Laramie Avenue in Cicero. It became a small farm; Enrico worked hard - used teams of horses to plow the ground and hired other Italian men to help him if he needed them. He took his produce to Maxwell Street - a grand, huge market in the heart of Chicago - in the beginning he traveled with horse and wagon, then with a truck.

Cicero was home to two racetracks right next to each other on Laramie Avenue: Sportsman Park and Hawthorne. At that time racing was very popular; inside the fences at Hawthorn were some nice, small, painted white houses that could be rented to owners of track horses and other people. Enrico was able to rent one of these houses for his family in the mid 1920s. Maria’s younger brother Alphonso - Al also lived with them for a time. Then came another baby for Maria and Enrico, Amelia (Millie) 1923.

While they were living in the racetrack Maria died - October 10, 1927 - leaving behind three daughters, her husband and her family.

She was thirty-three years old.

Julia was sixteen.

Esther was nine.

Amelia was four.

I don’t think Esther ever got over the death of her mother. Even in her old age she talked about Mama.

53244.jpg

Harry’s Good Fortune

Prohibition was the law of the land in 1927. No alcohol. That made it easy for the Italian mafia to make some money. Cicero was infested with the mob and Al Capone who was probably one of the most notorious gangsters. He moved into Cicero to avoid the Chicago police who were always looking for ways to get him.

At times the Italian mafia leaned on the Italian community to do ‘favors’ for them. Some of them approached Enrico to let them use his barn on the farm to make alcohol.

He could not deny them; he had no choice. But they did not hurt him; in fact, Enrico was able to buy two houses in Cicero that year - one small house on Laramie Avenue across from the Hawthorne track, not far from the farm. The Deed to the house was placed in four year old Amelia’s name, possibly to deflect any sudden questions about where the money came from or to perhaps protect the property from being taken away.

The other house was down the street a few blocks from Laramie Avenue on 54th Avenue. It had a main floor, large attic and half basement. That part of Cicero was wide open - only a few houses in one block. There was a dirt street in front and a Dead End at Harry’s house. It was surrounded by the prairie in front that went for several miles and to the left side of the house - miles and miles of prairie that extended from Harry’s house all the way to the Sanitary District of Chicago.

There was an alley behind the long back yard. A huge, two story, wooden barn and a wooden structure about forty feet wide with a high, pitched roof and large wooden doors that opened wide, facing the house sat on the edge of the alley. The house was probably built around 1900.

It was amusing that Harry bought those houses around the time the mafia was ‘using’ the barn.

One winter day when Esther was growing up she got up early and walked to the farm to feed the horses, goats and other animals because Harry was sick in bed with pneumonia. She found the Feds hiding in the barn near the Still. They told her to just do what she came to do and then leave the farm.

She went outside to care for the animals. There was a long, winding, dirt road from Laramie Avenue to the barn. Esther looked up and recognized the car that turned on to that road. It was the men from the mafia that were coming to ‘work’ that day. She tried to warn them by pushing her hands away from her body as if to say, Go! Stay away. She wanted to yell out but dared not.

It did not work; the mafia car continued down the road to the barn and were all arrested; but nothing happened to Harry because he was not there at the time and he denied knowing anything about it. Or Maybe the Feds just gave him a break and knew the Italian community was being forced to cooperate with the mob.

53244.jpg

A Home for Everyone - 54th Avenue

Harry Stancato was a loving man. He never used foul words or swore or got into useless fights with people. If things bothered him he would just say, Dio. (God) He was known to his family as Bello Papa - Beautiful Father.

After Maria died Julia became the woman of the house. She had to quit high school to assume this responsibility. (Later, she did go back to what was called ‘Night School’ and got her high school diploma.) She was sixteen and beautiful with green, ‘Italian’ eyes and a Roman lady’s chiseled face. She had two sisters who needed care, especially four year old Amelia. The cooking, canning, cleaning, washing clothes by hand, ironing, and shopping for some things they could afford kept her busy all the time. Yes, people had to can their fruits and vegetables when they were ripe or they would not be able to eat them. There was no fresh produce during the winter in Chicago.

Esther was only nine when her mother died. At times she resisted her older sister and did things her own way. Her rivalry, rebelliousness and jealousy with Julia could end up with some very sharp words in Italian between the sisters.

But Esther defied her mother and her grandmother Serafina way before Maria died. When the family lived on Taylor Street with Maria’s parents she he was told not to go to the farm and to stay and play with the kids in the neighborhood.

But she didn’t.

As she explained, They told me not to go to the farm, but I would wait for the street car and watch for some nice lady that was getting on, then I would walk close to the lady as she was boarding - it worked every time.

After Maria died and Harry and his daughters got settled into the house on 54th Avenue, there were some neighbors that soon became part of the family. Louisa Iannone was a widow who lived across the alley from Enrico and the family.

The Iannones were from Southern Italy and owned a well kept three story house which they partitioned into some rental apartments both up and downstairs from the main level. Louisa, whom the Stancato sisters called Louisella - they always joked and had names for everyone - was widowed at a young age. Her husband Raffaello had a chronic, painful disease and was given morphine which at that time was the drug of choice. Apparently, the doctors could not help him with his pain control or diagnosis. One day Raffaello fell on some train tracks and died. It must have been the morphine. Louisella had to take care of her children and also had a small farm across the street from Harry’s farm - on Laramie Avenue.

She was always bringing food to the girls and helped Julia with Amelia and Esther. She had a granddaughter, Louise, whom they called ‘Dolly’ that was two years younger than Amelia. Dolly was born with a hip dysplasia and was being treated at Cook County Hospital so she lived with her grandmother for several years to be near the doctors. Her parents, Philomena and Joe Sessa had moved to Florida because her father had respiratory issues and could not tolerate the Chicago winters. But Philomena traveled back and forth from Cicero to Dania, Florida for years because her family - her mother, Louisella, lived there and Dolly needed to stay in Cicero with her grandmother for medical care.

Louisella was strong, sturdy, hard working and generous. Her four children - Sam, Joe, Philomena and Adeline learned from their mother and opened their own businesses, three of them on Laramie Avenue.

The house on 54th Avenue became a hub for the extended Stancato family that soon moved into the neighborhood: Harry paid for his mother and other close relatives to travel to America. Harry’s sister Rafaela and her five children, close cousins, uncles and aunts all crossed the Atlantic to Ellis Island. And all settled in Drexel near Laramie Avenue and 54th Avenue.

Cicero was divided into eight neighborhoods; each district with its own names and characteristics. During the twentieth century it became the second most manufacturing town in the state of Illinois after Chicago. Western Electric was in Cicero on Cermak Road and employed thousands of people. Which meant Cicero and Berwyn the town next to Cicero flourished and expanded. What was open prairie or woods became housing developments and new business all over the place. In the 1920s alone twenty thousand new brick bungalows were built in those towns.

But there was a colorful history in Cicero with a great amount of corruption and graft that went on for decades.

Chicago and Cicero were very segregated and folks mainly stayed with their own ethnic culture and customs. The neighborhoods of that time were tightly knit into families and close friends. Most people did not have cars.

But the Iannone’s did! They had bought a new car which was the talk of 54th Avenue and 54th Court where Louisella lived.

Laramie Avenue was really popping with small mom and pop places: grocery stores, pharmacies, repair shops, hardware stores, bars, delicatessens, restaurants, a great community center where the wedding and baby shower parties happened. And the Iannone’s had their businesses stretched out down that street.

As time went by Harry bought a Ford and a truck for the farm. But for some reason Julia did not want to learn how to drive a car which was an inconvenience. Julia was a home girl for so long especially because her mother was very ill for a long time then died. I think she just enveloped her life with taking care of the house, her sisters and her father.

There was always a hot pot of percolated coffee on the kitchen stove. She made her handmade pasta in the morning. Canned vegetables and fruits from the trees. Baked Italian cookies, cakes, bread and pizza.

She loved her coffee klatches in the kitchen every afternoon with cousins or aunts or the Iannone club. As the younger sisters grew up they joined the table. There was always a radio playing in the kitchen sounding out the latest songs or popular radio shows.

Sunday was the day Harry’s Italian friends came to visit. The paisanos (countryman) and cumpare (godfather, good friend).. The Southern Italians were very close and enjoyed being together. There was compare Franco compare Pasquale, compare Luigi and the rest.

The house on 54th Avenue became a hub for the extended Stancato family that soon moved into the neighborhood: Harry paid for his mother and other close relatives to travel to America. Harry’s sister Rafaela and her five children, close cousins, uncles and aunts all crossed the Atlantic to Ellis Island. And all settled in Drexel near Laramie Avenue and 54th Avenue.

When Rafaela died from a sudden illness Harry took her children into his home: Harry, Florence, Jimmy, Margaret and Emily who was Esther’s age and best friend. They all loved Uncle Harry.

Drexel school was one block away from 54th. At that time it was a two story brick building with grades K-8. There was a club house across the street from the school where folks could have their meetings - scouts, ladies clubs mostly. It was nothing special but a small structure with an A Frame roof but it was put to good use.

Some of the Stancato cousins formed a club called the Cousinettes.

They had club meetings and get-togethers at the club house. It was young women and older teens; when they all got together they wore their special maroon cardigan sweaters with the letter ‘C’ on the front. Esther and Julia were members.

The girls and Harry had a home of their own, family close by and the Iannones. As Esther would say, We were poor but we were happy.

53244.jpg

Finding Your Way Around

As the home on 54th was at a dead end with prairie all around three sides Harry wanted to know who owned the property to the south of his lot. At that time Cicero was very corrupt and he could never get an answer from the local government - he wanted to purchase more land and could not.

But that didn’t stop Harry. Since he could not buy the land, he used it. He created a large garden in that unending yard and built fences where he wanted and had trucks and equipment all over the place.

The large barn was filled with horses and various small animals. Pigeons in the hay loft. Turkeys on the ground and chickens for the eggs and pigs to slaughter. Goats were on the farm for the milk which Julia made into cheese.

The house itself was made of wood and the main floor involved a lovely enclosed front porch that was surrounded by windows with a French door leading to the living room with an archway to the dining room - then the working kitchen Three small to medium sized bedrooms. No closets, of course, armoires. One bathroom, no hot water. The furnace burned coal.

There was a staircase to the front door from the street level. On the south side of the house was a long walkway that lead to a side door.

After opening the side door there was a stairway upstairs to the main floor and also a stairway down to the basement.

After getting to the main floor there was a porch with windows and another stairway going upstairs to another small landing which opened to the room overhanging the side entrance - they called it the little room. It was not heated but used as a summer bedroom or storage place. Go up another stairway to the large attic where I used to rummage around, going through the lovely dresses hanging in a closet from weddings that Julia and Esther attended. Julia was asked to be a bridesmaid for so many weddings. She wore the style of the day with the headbands and make-up of the flappers at that time.

then there were boxes and boxes of books, photos, keepsakes.

The basement had a huge wood burning stove and a cellar where Harry made his Dago Red wine. It was also where Julia had the canned food stored. (There were bars on the windows.)

For the first time Bello Papa and his daughters had their own home on 54th Avene and the house on Laramie Avenue was rented to Stancato cousins.

They had plenty to eat, homemade wine, a home, a farm - Harry’s Italian friends visited all the time, sitting in the kitchen telling jokes.

Some of Bello Papa’s friends asked Harry if their sons could marry Julia. He let Julia decide what she wanted to do. It was her decision. She always refused, did not want to leave her father and sisters . . . and home.

53244.jpg

Alyce

When Esther was in 7th grade at Drexel school she made friends with a girl in her classroom - Mabel Goers. Her mother was a young widow with four daughters. On some days Esther would walk with Mabel to her home after school. She saw that the family did not have enough food to eat and Mabel’s mother Alyce, was struggling to make ends meet.

Esther went to her father and asked him if she could bring some of the vegetables and produce to this poor lady.

He said, Here, Bella di papa. Take it to the lady. (Papa’s beautiful one)

This continued for several weeks then Harry said, Hesta, why don’t you bring this a nice lady here?

With his Italian accent Esther came out Hesta.

Esther was so happy to tell her friend Mabel the news. Papa wants to invite your mother to the house.

Alyce Prancel Goers was barely four feet ten inches tall - blonde with big, brown eyes, a very cute almost doll-like face, petite body and a shinning smile. Alyce and her family immigrated to America at the end of the 19th Century. They were part of the Austrian Empire - that was called Bohemia and Moravia before it was called Czechoslovakia in 1918 after World War I or the Czech Republic.

Her deceased husband Herman Goers was a German immigrant. He was tragically killed in an industrial accident in Chicago.

Harry and his daughters were excited to have Alyce and her daughters - in chronological order: Mabel, Rosemary, Loretta, and Ethel - in their home. I am sure there was a lot of spaghetti (home made by Julia), fresh meat and vegetables and of course one of Julia’s cakes. Esther always said We had the farm and enough food.

After a brief courtship Harry proposed to Alyce and they were married in the Catholic Church - Mary Queen of Heaven in Cicero.

Alyce and her daughters moved into their new home on 54th avenue. Esther said, "They were so happy