A daughter never forgets her mother’s kindness

BLOOMFIELD, NJ — Last week, in anticipation of Mother’s Day, flowers were abundant in supermarkets, farmers markets and roadway garden centers. Leading up to this special day, a number of Job Haines Home residents spoke about their mothers. One was Claire Graziano, 93.
“Her name was Mary Vitelli,” Claire said. “She came from Sicily at the age of 15 and settled in Bergenfield. She had nine children; eight girls and one boy. She was a momma.”

Claire remembered that her father would sometimes give his wife a few dollars, something she could use to buy herself something.
“But she would spend it on us,” Claire said. “She loved to cook and bake and take care of her home. Not like today.”
Claire was the sixth child. She had memories of Mother’s Day from long ago.

“We’d give her a handkerchief or a little piece of jewelry,” she said. “But it was like a million dollars.”
Her mother, she said, had brown eyes and dark brown hair that turned white when she was only in her 40s. Claire saw her bake pound cakes and pies or making jams with blueberries from the backyard.

“She dressed in simple clothes,” Claire said. “A cotton house dress. But she loved to see her children dressed nicely. When we sat down for dinner, we had to pull our dresses down.”

Claire gave a tug just now to show how the girls behaved. And when one sister outgrew her clothes, another sister was waiting to grow into them. And like the homes of many immigrant families, the rooms in Claire’s home were always immaculately clean.
“She loved to dust and change curtains,” Claire said

Her mother died about 35 years ago. Claire remembered what happened. Her father was leaving the house. The weather had turned cold and as he left he told her mother to leave the garbage pail alone. He would take it out when he got home.

“But she took it out and fell on a small piece of ice and broke her hip,” Claire said. “She went to Holy Name Hospital and never came back.”
Her mother was suppose to come home on New Year’s Day. But the father asked her to stay another day, until Jan. 2, so that their children could enjoy the holiday and not be concerned with visiting their mother on the day she got home. Claire went to the hospital anyway.

“It was such a stormy day,” she said. “When I got there, there were all these nuns. They said she just expired. I didn’t know what the word meant. I did, but it didn’t register.”

She learned her mother had developed a blood clot. Claire said her mother was in her late 70s when she died.
Another Job Haines resident, Paula Sylvestro, 85, said her mother grew up in Bloomfield and her name was Pauline Petrillo. Paula acknowledges with a smile the connection between the two names.

“She had dark brown hair and dark eyes and was the oldest of 10 children,” Paula said. “Her mother had a lot of kids — one every other year.”
Her mother, as a youngster, did not have it easy.

“She had to leave school in the eighth grade,” she said. “That’s the growing up she had. She went for a seamstress job, but didn’t know how to sew. She could thread machines and she lied about her age.”

But the girl got a job in NYC. She was taught on the job and made coat sleeves.
“What was she, 12 or 13?” Paula said. “She had a lot of guts.”

She also had two children; a son and a daughter, not wanting a big family.
“She was a very loving mother,” Paula said. “She took wonderful care of my brother and me.”
Paula said her father was named Tom and a very handsome man who worked in an A&P located on Franklin Street. Her mother went shopping one day and they met. She was 20 when they married.

Paula said she and her brother, father and mother use to go to the movies in Bloomfield, at the Royal Theater. At one time, for a promotion, the movie house was giving away dishes.

“We made a whole set,” Paula said. “I can see them now. They were pink and white. She gave them to me for my shower.”
Her mother passed away at the age of 79.

“She had breast cancer and never told any of us,” she said. “She went for treatments alone because she didn’t want us to worry about her. My brother and I found out when she had to go for a test.”
Paula said her mother went for treatments and passed away about six months after stopping them.

“My husband and I, with my brother and his wife and our children, we would take her out for dinner on Mother’s Day,” she recalled. “And then to my house for dessert. She loved Italian pastry and we gave her her gift.”
Another resident, Patricia Petriella Copeck, 84, a graduate of Bloomfield High School, Class of 1952, said her mother, Edith Strazza Petriella, was born in Montclair in 1910 and had lost her mother when she was very young.

“She had black hair and brown eyes,” Patricia said. “She was one of four girls and a boy. Her father owned a big barber shop in Bloomfield Center — John Strazza Barbershop. It started on Broad Street and moved to Bloomfield Avenue and had 10 chairs and a beauty shop on the second floor.”
When she was 15, her mother’s family moved to Beach Street, Bloomfield. Patricia said they were the first Italian family on the block.
“She was the first generation of her family to be born here,” she said

Her mother stayed home to raise the children and did secretarial work for her father’s construction business, Petriella Tile and Terrazzo. When it expanded, she no longer did the secretarial work.

“She was very active in the Columbus Hospital Women’s Auxiliary,” Patricia said. “She liked to dress up. Every Saturday, she and my father went out for dinner. Usually to Mayfair Farms. She was a very social person and got along with everybody.”
Her parents liked to vacation, Patricia said, and they traveled through Europe and would vacation in Florida during the winter.
“When my father became successful, they moved to Upper Montclair,” she said. “After he died, she moved back to Bloomfield.”
Patricia’s mother died in 1981 at the age of 70.

“Of Alzheimer’s,” she said. “Before anyone knew what it was.”
Another Job Haines Home resident to be interviewed was Adele Mangano, 73. Her mother, Maria Annunziata, was born in Italy, in the province of Naples, in the municipality of Ottaviano. She had black hair, brown eyes, and was 18 when she came to this country.
“She was a furrier and worked for Bamberger’s, in Newark,” Adele said. “She did alterations on the side. She learned to sew in Italy.”
She remembered that her mother was strict regarding her and her two sister, and later, with the grandchildren.

“She was a perfectionist,” Adele said. “If she had to do something, it had to be perfect. That’s why none of us knew had to sew. She had no patience. But she made us aware of stripes and checks and if something was poorly made. But we always knew we were loved.”
On Mother’s Day when she was younger, Adele said she would serve her mother breakfast in bed. One sister was already married and the other was away to college.

“And then we’d go to a restaurant,” she said. “We went to Biazzi’s, on Bloomfield Avenue, in Newark, opposite Schools Stadium. It’s a CVS now.”
Adele said her mother told her and her sisters that while they were still single, that before they walked out the door and got married, up to a minute before they got married, they could still change their minds about it. But once they made the commitment, she did not want to hear anything about divorce from any of them.

“She made all our wedding gowns,” Adele said. “I helped her put my gown together. She was a fanatic.”
Adele said the front of her gown was made of Alencon lace, which is a type of lace with needlepoint designs. Sewn into Adele’s lace were flower designs.

“The flower was going one way on one side,” Adele said pointing at her blouse and using her hand to indicate the flower.
For the other side, her mother wanted the flower to be going in the opposite direction.
“Mom, who’s going to notice?’” Adele asked.

“I’m going to notice,” her mother answered.
Adele said her mother search for one and a half days to find a piece of Alencon lace with the same flower going the other way.
“Those old-timers, they had eyes for certain things,” she said.

Her mother died in 1979. In 1972, she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and survived. She also had a stroke and recovered.
She was cancer-free and completely recovered from the stroke. Four days before she died of a massive heart attack, she was asked how she felt and she said good. Adele said her mother never said that before. Her mother also told her and her sisters that they had to respect their husbands’ mothers.

“Because of the way she raised us, that mother raised her son,” Adele said her mother told them. “So if you love the son, you have to love the mother.”