Birthday party in Sacramento

If I had been thinking straight, I would have taken a lot of photos… i only got two of my Aunt Rose as she opened gifts. Today in Sacramento her sons Louie and Johnny celebrated her 80th birthday and invited all her friends and their friends, as well as the Boenzi crew.

So, Dominic and Barbara, Gary and his friend, Mario and Diane, and I made it to Sacramento. The others arrived last night; I drove in this afternoon, and then drove back to Berkeley. That's not to bright. The others are all staying in a motel not far from the Mauro home, and so making a whole weekend of it, but I was just lucky to get out of the house.

Both Dom and Diane had the same idea: they put together albums of Boenzi photos and family trees, and Rose recognized the photos and began to tell her grandchildren all about the family lore.

Rosa Boenzi Mauro at age 1, in 1933,  Chicago

All the way home I kept thinking what a milestone this is. Rose is the youngest of my father's siblings, and the only one still alive. Even when I was a child I knew the stories, as my father used to talk about his favorite sister and her childhood in Chicago. Actually, she was his only sister. Rose was born when my father was 10, and he was always protective of her. Actually, all four of her brothers were protective of Rose, but to hear my father, he considered her the apple of his eye. I think she always knew it too, for "Johnny", as she calls him, was always there for her in her childhood and youth.

As the youngest, Rose was more removed from the trauma of immigration than her brothers. Whereas my father was fluent in Neapolitan and carried on all the traditions of the family as brought to America from the old country, Rose only understood the dialect. She responded to her parents in English rather than Neapolitan. Of course, Dominic and Rudy married American girls, and so they eventually had few people with whom to speak the language (only Rose and my father married Italians), but for Rose it was not a matter of losing the contact. By the time she was growing up, America was at War, and all the immigrants were staunchly proving their loyalty to the USA. She grew up more conscious of America than of her Italian roots.

Rose Boenzi and Carmen Mauro on their wedding day, 28 November 1953

Having said that, I know that Rose was my father's pride and joy. She was only 16, but she was part of the bridal party when my parents married. My father was the last of his brothers to wed, and that was in 1948. Rose married in 1953, at the age of 21. She married a baseball player, Carmen Mauro, whom she met when he was playing on the Chicago Cubs. She and Carmen would be godparents to my youngest brother Mario, and role models for him.

Rose and Carmen on their 40th Anniversary, 1993

So, even though Rose is 17 years older than I am, I recall those stories and think of her as the young one.

Funny how that works.

Have a happy 80th birthday, Aunt Rose, and a great 81st year!