NOW YOU KNOW ME

By Teresa Dahlquist

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 26, 2024
• ISBN: 9798369416457

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Copyright © 2024 by Teresa Dahlquist A Golden Sister. 850915

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

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Xlibris

844-714-8691

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Library of Congress Control Number:             2024904198

Rev. date: 02/22/2024

CONTENTS

Introduction

My Family Background

My Early Life

My Married Life

My Single Life

My Second Marriage

Becoming A Talent Agent

My Time with Shia Labeouf

Assembling A Winning Team

The Disney Channel Beckons

Shia’s First Studio Film

Shia Turns Eighteen

CAA ICM WME UTA Agencies

Dreamworks Calls

The Beginning of the End

A New and Exciting Project

My Son the Plumber and the Golden Sisters

LMNO Disappoints

New Beginnings

Life Well Lived

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C 1965 My favorite time of year.

1968

Life’s journey is not

to arrive at the grave safely

in a well preserved body,

but rather to skid in sideways,

totally worn out, shouting

Holy shit... What a ride!

By Hunter S. Thompson

INTRODUCTION

I’m 83 years old and while reflecting on my life I came to the realization that my children and grandchildren don’t know me at all. They only know that I love them and sometimes they’re not so sure about that. So I decided to share with them my story of love, pain, epiphanies and defining moments of change.

I want them to know that there will be times of sadness and disappointments but also of ecstasy and inspiration. My most hurtful times were the betrayals by loved ones. However, I choose to focus on, with gratitude, the blessed moments of generosity bestowed upon me every day and I smile.

I want my descendants to know how I loved coming from a huge family and the advantages of being the youngest of six children. The fun it was growing up with a twin sister on the streets of New York City. How different experiences changed my life and how my twin sister and I had to beg our parents to let us go away to college.

But most of all how I loved and enjoyed raising Jeanette and John. The pure joy I felt when I first held them in my arms and again when I heard the word Mama. And how they loved me back as little children. So many cherished memories. They are, by far, my greatest loves and accomplishments.

I do have regrets. Like the hurtful words I shouted without thinking. Today I try to monitor my angry thoughts. However lies, hearsay and embellished stories told about anyone makes me crazy. It’s hard for me to stay calm among liars.

I did nothing alone. I always sought out assistance and feedback from family, friends, teachers, authors and even strangers all of whom I owe an un-payable debt of gratitude. I mention them throughout this book.

My best supporter has been my twin sister, Josie. I would pass my writings to her and she would always say, FANTASTIC. And then she would say, Take this out it’s boring. You’re using the word I too much. It’s too preachy, ETC. Love having a twin sister who doesn’t hold back with the truth.

All and all I’ve had a great life. I was lucky enough to be born in America, with a sense of humor to loving parents, I was pretty enough and had a better than average I.Q. I have developed lots of compassion for the people not as Lucky as me. Therefore I’m a democrat supporting most programs.

I loved taking risks, from opening a business without any business experience, from thinking I could get a book published, to buying a Hollywood Agency, to creating The Golden Sisters reality show, to becoming a standup comic, to booking commercials, and now my autobiography. What’s next.

Dedicated to,

My Greatest Accomplishments,

John Boger & Jeanette Huttger

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1931 My Aunt Grace, grandfather, grandmother, Uncle Joseph, Aunt Rose and uncle Jimmy. So happy to become Americans.

My

Family

Background

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1942 My Aunt Grace and Brother Angelo. I miss their loving eyes and smiles.

MY FAMILY BACKGROUND

My Father’s Heritage

In 1860, my grandfather, Angelo Conticchio, was born out of wedlock in Gravina, Italy. When unmarried girls had babies, they would often turn the baby over to a Catholic orphanage. The mission had a wheel with a tiny crib facing the outside of the wall for the mother to place the newborn.

When the young mother would ring the bell, the nuns knew there was a baby waiting to be taken into their orphanage. How painful it must have been for a mother to give up her child. My Grandfather Angelo was a product of that arrangement.

When Angelo turned eight, a farmer came to the orphanage, adopted him and put him to work on his farm. He also assumed the farmer’s name, Conticchio. That was a common practice in all of Italy. Angelo’s life was not easy, and he left the farm at the tender age of 15, around 1875, as an experienced harvester.

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Angelo married young, had five children, and as hard as he worked as a harvester on local farms, they could not prosper. My father went to bed hungry. Now that’s poor.

In Europe, the people were forced to accept the class they were born into without a chance for change. That’s true in many countries, even today.

Our grandmother, Jennie Valente, came from a poor family of harvesters as well. The family was poor. I don’t know much about her family, what I do know is that she lived until she was 96. She survived the Spanish plague of 1918, and died of natural causes. Got to love those genes.

Our father, Giuseppi, was the youngest of the five children born in Gravina in the year 1896. We didn’t find out about the wheel and the orphanage until we were adults in our 50s. It was a story my father did not want us to know.

His family struggled to make ends meet. School was not mandatory in Italy. Our father only went to the second grade. He was so bright it was enough of an education for him to learn how to read and write. When he was eight, he would sell hankies and scarves his mother made to help with the family income. At the age of 10, when harvest time came, he worked harvesting in the fields.

In the toughest of times, our father, still could make people laugh. He learned to play the harmonica and Concertina, and he would dance in the streets. He had the ability, that no matter how tough times were, he could see the humor in it. He had faith that there were better times ahead –– a quality all his children inherited.

It bothered him, as a young boy, how the Catholic Church controlled the town. He wondered, How could the priest take money from the poor who couldn’t afford to donate?

The parishioners were told that the more money they gave to the church the better chance their dead relatives could leave purgatory and go to heaven. He thought that concept was ridiculous, absurd and a big lie. He was a free thinker who asked questions. He made fun of all religions until his last dying hours. We were shocked when he asked for a priest at his deathbed. I guess he was covering all bases just in case he was wrong.

Giuseppe was drafted into the army during World War One. In his hometown, water was so scarce, people would sponge bathe with cotton swatches at the fountain in the middle of the town –– the main source of water. He never took a full bath or shower until he joined the service. Neither did anyone else in his town. So, nobody stank to anybody else because they all stank.

Before he left to serve his country, his sister and mother were planning his sister’s wedding. In small towns, all the girls had fancy weddings. That’s because it was understood that the money the guests gifted would pay for the wedding.

Because Giuseppi wanted to attend his sister’s wedding, he and his mother agreed on a plan. They decided that when the wedding day came, they would make up a story and say that his father died. That was the only excuse the soldiers could use that would give them permission for leave. So, his mother sent for him to come home to his father’s funeral.

He was so happy he was coming home to a wedding. When he reached his town, the people were acting funny. When he tried to engage them in conversation, they would look the other way. He reached his house and saw a black wreath on the door and knew it was true. His father had passed.

He cried. His mood quickly went from excitement to devastation. The wedding was postponed. When he told me the story, I could feel his sadness. He really never got to know his father as an adult. The family’s fibbing didn’t work this time.

When Giuseppe returned to his base, he was immediately shipped out to war where he witnessed the horrors of combat. When he would tell us stories about the friends he lost in combat, his eyes would fill up with tears. Most veterans don’t share stories because they don’t want people to see them cry.

Not all of the war stories he told were sad. Here’s one he told that made me cry and laugh at the same time. He said, "On July 29th, our platoon was being shot at, and my friends were falling dead right before my eyes. Bullets were flying over our heads. Then the shooting suddenly stopped, and I was still alive.

I saw my friend leaning against a tree in shock and shaking. I crawled over to him and said, Hey Guido, aren’t we lucky we’re short? All the tall guys got shot. The soldier looked at him and laughed. Laughter, often, saves you.

My father’s enormous sense of humor, allowed him to overcome any extreme effects he might have suffered from the horror he experienced. Guiseppi was close to death many times and knew that he was lucky to be alive. We, his children, were lucky he never lost his sense of humor. He was good at turning setbacks into comedy with the excitement of a new beginning.

He would talk about how the army opened the world to him. He traveled and made many new friends. He experienced opportunities not available in his small town. He was in awe of the big cities.

Rome was a completely different world compared to his small town’s narrow-minded belief system. For example, the church did not control everybody. New ideas were everywhere. Cars were replacing horses, and people had phones in their houses, etc.

My father remembered the euphoria and relief in Italy when WWI ended. He said, We celebrated not because it was the end of the war but because we were still alive. Many of the poor and uneducated men who were sent to battle didn’t return home.

Being a soldier gave my father the courage to go on a journey that brought him to this country of dreams. He had witnessed a whole new world of freedom and possibilities in the service during wartime.

When he returned home to his small town after WWI, he saw there were no jobs and no opportunities. He heard stories about the opportunities in America and decided to give it a try.

He was 23 when he left his whole family and his homeland. He told us about arriving at Ellis Island, and how excited everybody was to come to America and begin a new life in a country where the streets were made of gold. Not true. No gold in the streets, but jobs were the big opportunity, and that was enough to keep him here.

The year he arrived was 1919. 1920 was the beginning of prohibition, a law that made no sense to him, so, he made wine every year after he arrived in New York City. He would find someone who had a cellar and negotiate a deal. You were allowed to make wine, but only for your family. Of course, he bartered and sold wine to friends and took chances selling it to strangers.

Giuseppi, my father, was a small-time bootlegger who believed, If a law is stupid, break it. Don’t ask permission, ask forgiveness. He loved making wine, and selling it, and thank God, he never got in trouble or went to jail. It’s a philosophy I’ve adopted as well. Just do it anyway, especially if a law doesn’t make sense.

American was booming in the 20s, and he found construction work right away. He wrote to his parents in Italy and sent them money every month. Jobs in construction were plentiful in the 20s, and he was able to save his money and buy an Ice Route –– no refrigerators at that time.

Distributors would drop blocks of ice on a corner, and the icemen would deliver the ice to tenants. These opportunities were unheard of in his small Italian town. My own business and no boss –– WOW!!!

The abundance of food, the excitement of the big city and opportunities in this country surprised and encouraged him. So, did he love this country? You bet he did. He was thrilled to be here.

Who doesn’t like extra money in your pocket? He was able to help support his family in the old country –– much like the immigrants of today. He even got to take a bath once a week instead of never.

It was World War One that elevated my father out of poverty and showed him a different way to live. Do I believe in war? No!! However, it was my father’s way out of poverty. Wow, life is so confusing some times.

My Mother’s Heritage

Our grandfather, Michael Ferrarese, was born in Gravina in 1881. He had one older sister, Grace. His father was a builder, and he built the house they lived in. His family-owned farms and would hire people at harvest time.

Our great-grandmother owned a dress factory, and her family was well-to-do. Michael met our grandmother, Maria, an orphan, while she was harvesting his father’s grapes. He heard her singing, fell in love and proposed marriage.

My grandmother, Maria Galucci, was also born in Gravina in 1889. Her father died when she was two, and her mother died when she was 10. Her grandparents were too poor to take care of her and her sister, so they were placed in an orphanage.

It was at the orphanage, where my grandmother witnessed the priests secretly entering the nuns’ sleeping quarters at night. She then came to the conclusion that sex was okay as long as it was a secret. She became a very progressive thinker. No guilt. Just fun.

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When Maria and Michael married, his parents gifted them with two apartments, one to live in and one to rent. Her mother-in-law taught her how to sew and create patterns. They had three children born in Italy, and eventually two more were born in America. Our mother was the first child.

Most of the Conticchios and the Ferrareses also survived the Spanish flu of 1918. Our grandmother suffered the pain of losing a four-year-old child, my mother’s younger sister. I’m sure that loss was traumatic for the family. And at that time, there was no help in processing the pain of losing a loved one.

My mother said she used to pretend that her little sister was still alive, and, she would come home and surprise her family. She was eight years old when she suffered that loss.

Our mother remembers seeing coffins passing by her house every day. We were so lucky that our parents lived long enough to share with us their times of ecstasy and their times of devastation. My heart aches when I hear of people losing parents or siblings as children.

A fortune teller, in 1918, told my grandmother that she should send her husband to America. She said her family would do very well there. My grandmother thought it was a good idea. So, they sold the rental her in-laws gifted them when they married, and bought a ticket for Michael to try his luck in America.

Our great-grandmother was very upset that her son was leaving her and going to America. She died shortly after he left, leaving everything to her daughter.

Our grandfather found a job at a Tootsie Roll factory as soon as he arrived in America. He soon sent for his family. Our grandmother and their three children, one girl and two boys, arrived in New York City in the year 1919.

When they landed at Ellis Island, our mother was eleven and her brothers were nine and six. They remember the tears of joy the shipload of immigrants shed when they set eyes on the Statue of Liberty. It meant freedom from poverty to the people on the ship who were traveling 3rd class. They were mostly Italian, Irish, and Jewish.

At first, my family lived in the New York City tenements. There was one bathroom on the floor for five families. Their apartment had gaslights. The Tenements Museum in New York is really something to see. It was really hard times for the family at first, but not for long. They had a purpose and a plan.

Our grandmother was a seamstress, a trade she learned from her mother-in-law, and found work at a high-end factory three days after her arrival. Our grandparents’ plans were to make their fortune here in America and return to Italy with enough money to buy land. They missed their extended families in Italy and were looking forward to returning –– but then, of course, life happens.

They were really prospering financially in the 20s. And because they settled in an Italian neighborhood, they felt at home most of the time. Outside of Little Italy other nationalities often made fun of them and would tell them to go back to Italy. They would call them grease monkeys, dagos, guineas, wops, etc., so, they were looking forward to returning to their native land.

Our mother was eleven when she entered the first grade. They started you in the first grade when you first came to this country no matter how old you were. There were 15-year-old and six-year-old boys and girls in her first-grade class who didn’t know a word of English.

When our two uncles turned 10, they shined shoes. At 14, they loaded trucks, carried ice, worked at construction sites, etc. Jobs were plentiful and with four people working in one household, they were able to save money and were still looking forward to returning home.

My Parents Marriage

Our mother, Teresa, was 16, and my father was 28 when they met in the Little Italy neighborhood. She said she fell in love with his sense of humor. They married six months later. They were from the same hometown in Italy. Guiseppi owned his own ice route and was doing very well. He moved in with my mother’s family.

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Our grand-mother was still sending money back to Italy and hoping to return. They were very prosperous in the 20s, and the chance of them returning to Italy was becoming a real possibility. Everybody was working and contributing. They were even able to buy a house for $3,000.

And then in the 1930s, when the refrigerator was becoming popular, our father was forced out of the ice business. The other family members continued to work, but only for a short time.

The depression came, and they all lost their jobs. Our parents already had three children –– Angelo, Michael and Jenny. When our mother got pregnant with my sister Mary, my parents decided to abort her. The price was $100. They thought it was too expensive, so for $50 they bought grapes, made wine and had my sister, Mary.

A friend of theirs convinced them to buy his fish store, instead of going back to Italy. Not knowing anything about fish or how to run a business, they not only lost the fish store, they lost their house and all their savings. It was a huge setback!

I remember my mother saying they sold a lot of the clam chowder and fish cakes. I often think about how they could have been the first fast food restaurant. If they had more money behind them, they could have tried new recipes.

Our father was NOT a good husband at this time. He was really stressed out. He even slapped my mother a few times. There are no excuses for that kind of behavior. I’m sure his wartime experiences added to his rage.

It was a hard time for everyone in America during the depression. A lot of yelling and arguing went on in many families. Our Aunt Grace was eight at that time and remembers being scared and running to her room when my father came home.

My father used to hang around the docks begging for work and come home defeated when they didn’t choose him to work that day –– not a good time. Later in life, my father apologized to my mother for treating her badly during that time. In those days, most people stayed married for better or for worse.

It was 1934, when the depression was in full force, and they were forced to go on welfare. There were bread lines all over New York City –– not a pretty sight. My Aunt Grace remembers the bread line filled with defeated looking men.

Our older brothers, Angelo and Mike, built small shoeshine boxes and were able to help out by shining shoes in front of a Catholic church in a nice neighborhood on Sunday. They were only eight and nine years old. They would earn a few dollars, but that was enough to sustain the family. They could not live on welfare alone.

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My sisters wore very pretty clothes our mother and grandmother sewed for them. They used remnant pieces of fabric from local clothing factories. And with the money our brother earned shining shoes, he bought an accordion and paid for accordion lessons. He was an exceptionally talented musician. My mother never had to ask him to practice, he would practice on his own for hours.

Our mother appealed to the Catholic Church for assistance so they could get off of welfare. They refused to help, and said, You should NOT have had so many children. She was hurt and disappointed. She thought that the Catholic Church wanted her to