Gift of Failure

By Carmen J. Calvanese

So, what do you do when everything in life falls apart? What about those still, small moments when you helplessly watch your dreams shattered by an unexpected calamity? You work hard to make a living for yourself and for your loved ones and then boom! It's shattered like a bad dream. When you finally come to, you find yourself in brokenness and despair. I once read that economic hardship happens to most successful people at least once in their lives; those who dedicate their lives to a worthy pursuit can, instantly, find their hearts ripped out by adversity. Suddenly, they find themselves in an abyss of darkness and nakedness, stripped down to nothing! Perhaps, then, we realise we are not merely what we accumulate or achieve. In such moments, stripped bare, what we are is our essential consciousness, like a disembodied spirit, painfully wondering what to do to alleviate the pain. "In Him who is the source of my strength, I have strength for everything." – Philippians 4:13

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Sep 12, 2025
• ISBN: 9781647504458

Carmen J. Calvanese

Carmen J. Calvanese is an adjunct professor at Saint Joseph's University, Alvernia University, and Manor College. In addition to writing and research, teaching is his passion. Calvanese claims that his pedagogical philosophy is centered on students with deep desires to excel and achieve, for once a mind is stretched, it never returns to its original form.

Book preview

About the Author

In 1974, Carmen Calvanese launched what would grow into a multi-million-dollar real estate enterprise serving the Philadelphia area. After years of navigating economic turbulence and market volatility, he chose to return to academia, pursuing studies in Philosophy and Theology. Over the next twelve years—and after thousands of hours of dedicated study, primarily at La Salle University—Carmen earned a Doctorate in the Philosophy of Theology from the Graduate Theological Foundation. He ultimately shifted his focus from real estate development to education, scholarship, and writing.

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my wife, Ellen, who stuck by me through the storms of adversity.

Copyright Information©

Carmen J. Calvanese 2025

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

Ordering Information:

Quantity sales: special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Calvanese, Carmen J.

Gift of Failure

ISBN 9781647504441 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781647504458 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2025910910

www.austinmacauleyusa.com

First Published 2025

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 28th Floor

New York, NY 10005

USA

[e-mail]

[phone]

Acknowledgment

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the dedicated professionals at Austin Macauley Publishers, whose foresight and wisdom helped bring this book to fruition. It has been an honor to work alongside such knowledgeable and accomplished individuals.

Preamble

I could have very well-orchestrated this book to be in the realm of three to four hundred pages. But I wanted to spare you the everyday humdrum events of my life. Rather, I decided to focus on the salient points that contributed to the struggles that molded the man that I am today, whatever that’s worth. I must admit, though, it has been quite a trip. The genesis of the story unfolds in the house at 6429 Clearview Street, in the Mt Airy section of Philadelphia. The house where my grandfather passed in my very own bed. The house where my brother Charles and I solidified our relationship as brothers, learning and growing together through good times and struggle. Then came the accordion years, going to weekly music lessons with my cousin Sonny.

The big transition, though, was the move from Clearview Street to a brand new home at 7272 Large Street in the far Northeast, three doors from the corner at Cottman Avenue. My God, I thought we were moving close to New York City. I guess that’s how you think when you’re ten years old. I’ll never forget the first night in the new house. Since the furniture was not going to arrive until the following day, Mom, Dad, and I slept on a mattress lying on new hardwood-floors. I slept in the middle and the three of us just conked-out. My sister Mary and brother Charles stayed at Aunt Mary’s house on Ross Street in Old Germantown. They were due to arrive on the next day.

The following chapters encompass the years of growing up on Large Street. These were my developing years, to include: Resurrection grammar school, Father Judge High, the S.S. Kresge Co., and the F.W. Woolworth Co., both five and 10 cent stores that are now in the history books of long-forgotten retail stores. Then came marriage, the Philadelphia Policeman, the pizza-man, divorce, the real estate salesman, and the building years, followed by the maturation years, a time for tremendous success, and ultimate failure. Beyond this phase was coming together with myself. The return to college, a phase of self-abnegation, then finally, learning to let go and let God be God in my life.

Themes

Compendium

Sonny and Me

House on Large Street

Adventurist Youth

Path to Broken Dreams

The Assistant Manager

The Policeman

Pizza with Personality

Real Estate Broker

The Builder

The Mogul

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

Resurrection

Reflection

Compendium

House on Clearview Street

Whenever Grandmom and Grandpa Calvanese would come over to the house for a visit: it was a special occasion! Fondly, I recall Grandpa taking me by the hand for a stroll down to Winner’s Grocery store. At Winner’s, he would buy me a box of Good and Plenty. They were only five-cent way back then. Somehow, Grandpa intuitively knew that I liked those sugar-coated licorice candies. But the last time we took that walk, when we returned home, Grandpa wasn’t feeling so very well. Within minutes, Dad managed to get him up the steps and into my bed. A short time later, Grandpa was gone. I was only about five years old. Personally, I didn’t witness his passing. Mom insulated Charles and me from such grown-up things. But as I grew older and more mature, Dad told me how his father had departed this world.

He said, Grandpa was a man who lived life to the fullest. He loved Grandma, the family, good food, and especially homemade pasta, with a little Chianti, at dinner.

Grandpa Raffaele, was a rugged individual, with a posture as straight as an arrow. He was about six-foot-two, had powerful arms, a balding hairline, a bushy grey mustache, and a beautiful olive complexion. Most of the time, though, Grandpa looked so serious, like a man ready for a fight at the drop of a hat. By all accounts, he was certainly no one’s fool and no one to mess with. After all, he fathered 11 children with an iron hand. I imagined that you had to be tough to control five girls and six sons in the early 1900s.

Anyhow, Dad said, In the solemnity of the moment, before Grandpa had passed, he shook hands with me and said, ‘Goodbye, Pete.’ Then he said goodbye to Grandmom Josephine and my mother Angelina.

He asked my father to cross his arms on his chest. And within seconds, Grandpa was gone. Dad referred to his father, as a ‘man’s man,’ like a mighty tree that withstood the wind, rain, and storms of life. I sometimes look back on July 18, 1946, when Grandpa left this world, thinking to myself with reverence and awe, What a fearless man my grandfather must have been? Then I wondered? How would I react under similar circumstances?

As the years rolled by, my father told me many stories about Grandpa Raffaele, for example when he was a soldier in the war between Italy and Ethiopia. It was the battle of Adowa, Ethiopia, 1895-96, in which Grandpa courageously fought in the infantry against a superior enemy with insurmountable odds. The Italian forces of 14,500 fighters were grossly outnumbered by the Ethiopian regulars, a 100,000 strong who were well equipped and fought with a vengeance against a tired Italian army. I did a little checking and found that indeed, Italy and Ethiopia were at war during those years and that the Ethiopian Army had decimated the Italian legions. In one skirmish, in particular, Raffaele was badly wounded. Dad told me that an Italian general sold his troops down the river to the enemy high command for a tidy sum. And the Italian battalions were ambushed and wiped out. Inching his way back to camp, it took Raffaele 20 days on his belly crawling he way back to base. The medics were overloaded with wounded soldiers. However, Raffaele was lucky; they patched him up and sent him home on the first ship out. As for the trader general, my dad told me that the Italian high command had ordered the general be tied to the front of a canon and blown away. The Ethiopian conflict fell into the loss column for Italy.

Castel San Giorgio, Italy, was my grandfather’s home town, a beautiful, little Neapolitan providence just southwest of Naples. According to my cousin, Joe Simone, Jr. an international attorney, whose mother was a Calvanese, he researched the Calvanese family of Castel San Giorgio, and sent a letter home to his father, Joseph, Sr. dated, August 29, 1988, with his findings. His father, my cousin Joe, subsequently gave the letter to me. It is still in my possession. What I discovered from the letter was that it is quite possible that Grandpa’s father, was Giovanni Calvanese, born in 1824, and married Magadalena Selitto on, February 10, 1855. The Calvanese family of Castel San Giorgio were many, and in fact, there were strands of nobility in its blood. Soldier and architect, Carmen Calvanese, is buried in the church next to his close friend, Ferdinand II, King of Naples. Also, there was a large inscription on a plaque in Carmen’s honor, including his bust. Underfoot was another plaque of all the Calvanese graves. According to my cousin Joseph, most of the Calvanese’s apparently made it into the church depository.

After Raffaele was healed at home from the wounds he sustained in Ethiopia, he began courting a young maiden by the name of Josephine and the couple decided to marry. It appears from an old copy of my grandfather’s marriage certificate, Raffaele Calvanese married Josephine Capuano, on October 2, 1898. In no time, Josephine was pregnant. Raffaele had big concerns that the Italian government may decide to go back to Ethiopia and attempt to regain the territory they lost. If that would happen, the Italian Army, would no doubt, call him back into service. The truth of the matter is that Raffaele was never called back and Italy did not return to Ethiopia until 1936 at the beginning of World War II. It was there and then that the Italian Army crushed the Ethiopian regiments in retaliation of the 1895-96 loss.

In the immediate, though, Raffaele talked it over with his father, Giovanni, who recommended that Raffaele, go to America and make a new life for himself and his family. The only problem was that his wife Josephine and baby Catherine would not be able to join him at least for a year. It seems that it was one of the ways American authorities controlled the flow of immigrants.

After Raffaele had landed in Boston, sometime in 1899, he found it difficult to find work. According to my cousin Ralph, eldest of the male Calvanese grandchildren, Raffaele headed for New York. There, he met up with another Italian who introduced Raffaele to the local don from the mafia. Now Raffaele had a pretty good idea what the mafia was all about and had no desire to join the group. What don did for Raffaele, though, was obtain work for him in construction, with the caveat that he pay the don 10% of his weekly salary. Raffaele worked for several months, paid the don his due, then left New York and moved to South Philadelphia’s Italian District, where Mafia control was less controlling. In Philadelphia, Raffaele went to work as a scaffold builder. In fact, whenever my father and I would drive south on Broad Street, when we cross Montgomery Avenue, Dad was quick to point out that Grandpa built the scaffold for the construction crews at Tempe University’s, Conwell Hall.

For Raffaele, life in South Philly was ever so simple. Although the local Don from the Mafia wasn’t demanding, Grandpa always paid him respect. At Christmas time, he would visit the don at his home and shower him with gifts of the season: wine, Italian, sharp cheese, a Genoa salami, and usually a large bag of castagne (chestnuts). Sometime in early1900, Raffaele sent for his wife Josephine and daughter Catharine to come to America. In succeeding years, Josephine and Raffaele had a total of 11 children: five girls and six boys. The boys were named: Carmen, Peter, Vincent, Anthony, Ralph, and Louis; probably named after Raffaele’s brothers or uncles from the old country, the two youngest boys Ralph, who was three years old, and his brother Louis, ten years old, passed on as a result of the Flu epidemic of 1918 when millions of Americans died from that dreadful disease. The five girls were named: Catherine, who we call Katy, Marzia, called Mary, Giovannina, called Jenny, Lillian, and Carmella, who was called Mildred, the girls were probably named after sisters or cousins of Raffaele in Italy. Most of the men who arrived from Italy in the 20th century named their children after relatives from their native homeland. My grandfather was no exception, and as I understand it, he was an incredibly tough disciplinarian with his children, but not the grandchildren. Below is a list of Raffaele’s and Josephine’s children and the names of their spouses and their children, from the eldest men first and so on: The eldest son was Carmen who married Mary, their siblings: Josephine, Anette, and Ralph. My father Peter was next in line who married my mother, Angelina, their children: Carmen, Charles, Mary, and Angela. Next in line was Vincent, he also married a girl named Mary, and their children: Louis, Vincent, and Maria. The next in line is Anthony who married Frances, and their children: Conchita, Anthony, Peter, and Josephine who was hit by a car at the age of four and died that very night. Next in line is Ralph and Louis who died from the Flu of 1914-1918. From the eldest girls on down were Catherine, born in Italy who married Frank Franko, and their children: Frank Jr. and Lucy. Then in the line of succession: Marzia (Big Aunt Mary) and Charles Fiore; their children: Rita, Josephine, Marie, Manny, Charles, and Nancy. Then came Giovannina (Jennie) and Joseph Ciaudelli, children: Marty, Joseph, Francis, Ralph, and Louis. Louis was the only priest in the family. Next, there was Lillian and Mike Veneziale, children: Carmen and Rosemarie. Finally was Carmela (Mildred) and George Kerr, children: Rita and George Jr.

The second son that was born to Josephine and Raffaele, is my father, Peter Joseph Calvanese. My dad wasn’t a bad kid in the sense that he would hurt someone or rob another. He was just a little mischievous. Peter, just did not want to go to school. As a matter of fact, from his own lips, he told me that fourth grade was the highest grade that he attended at the Lee’s Special School, a school that helped guide young boys. Peter preferred to hang out with the guys, shoot pool, play craps, deal cards, and hit the race track when he became of age. Dad never talked to me about his old girl-friends, but his old friends had mentioned to me that most of the women that Dad went out with couldn’t keep their hands off him. Others have also told me that my father was always a gentleman, respectful when it came to the ladies. After all, he had five sisters to teach him how to treat a lady. In addition to being a gambler of sorts, Dad was a handsome guy who fashioned nice clothes, a neat-looking Stetson, and fancy duds; he was a smoker and occasionally worked as a painter for his older brother Carmen, my namesake. For a while, my father owned and operated a steak shop, somewhere along Germantown Avenue, in an old, nice town. My mother, Angelina, had told me that she first met Dad at a wedding reception in Germantown, in fact, she was in the wedding party and what a knockout she was. If I must say so, my mother was absolutely beautiful and it was easy for a guy like Dad to fall head-over-heels for Mom, even though, at the time, he was going steady with another girl. It didn’t matter to Pete Calvanese! He was single and didn’t answer to anyone. Pete actually asked Mom out on a date at the wedding reception.

Without equivocation, Angelina said to him, You have to meet my mother first! Mom’s mother, Grandma Marie Antonio Cicalello, was no one to mess with, not even for Dad. She raised two daughters, four sons, and a grandson since her husband Pasquale passed from Malaria working at the Panama Canal.

So Grandmom Cicalello was a