It’s a special Saturday as we’re gathered at the bar, waiting for John Mancini to join us for a bit of bourbon, a beer and some conversation. Unfortunately, John and I wrote this post – jointly, live, SoC-style – before Linda G. Hill released the Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. So, I can either sneak the prompt in after the fact and try to camouflage my effort to escape my predicament, or I can handle it here before enjoying the alcohol and camaraderie – oh, I guess I’m done. The prompt, in case you haven’t guessed is,
“Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “cam.” Find a word that contains “cam” or use it as is. Enjoy!”
Without further delay, if we were having a beer, David would be anxiously awaiting our guest.
“Dan, what time is your friend John coming?”
“He should be here in a few minutes, David. Why, are you in a hurry to meet him?”
“Well, I’m waiting to start in on my bourbon until he gets here.”
“Go ahead and drink, David. I’ll give you a splash when John arrives.”
“Thanks Cheryl. Will that splash be on the house?”
“No, it’s all on Dan today.”
“Wait, I think I see John…yep, that’s him. He just came in.”
“John, I’d like you to meet Cheryl, and…”
“Hold that thought, Dan. Welcome to my bar, John. Did I hear that you’re drinking Woodford Reserve? “
“Yes, neat.”
“I’ll get right on that.”
“Thanks, I’m glad you’re here, Cheryl. It classes up the joint.”
“We often need to import the class to this bar, John. Hello, I’m David, the other bourbon drinker, although I prefer John Howell’s Bourbon.”
“Hi David. I’m not familiar with that brand, but any friend of Dan’s is a friend of mine.”
“Well, I’m very happy to have you join us, John. I have a keen interest in genealogy and the saga – I think that might be the right word – you shared in your book is amazing.”
“Wait, David, did you actually buy John’s book?”
“I did, Dan. That’s why I wanted to wait until he got here. I wanted to toast to his success.”
“Well, here’s his bourbon, toast away.”
“Thanks Cheryl, Cheers John.”
“That’s it? Cheers? I suppose it’s enough, but let’s get this conversation started. John, I read a number of your blog posts as you were searching for your grandparents. You managed to thread that story in pretty well with Information Management topics. At what point did you decide to focus on the story and publish the book?”
“The evolution of the book started with a focus on understanding the genealogy and who was connected to whom. Then as I realized that there were a set of people that essentially had unchronicled lives, I started to move into the realm of doing the part focused on my grandparents’ lives in a bit of a historical fiction kind of way, hopefully with an emphasis on the historical part. And then like many books, as I got into it, it dawned on me that what I was really doing was reflecting on my father’s story and the secrecy of his backstory and why he may have approached his life in that way.”
“I’m guessing that there were numerous ‘ah ha’ and ‘oh my God’ moments as you were conducting your research. Could you share a couple that really made you take notice?”
“There were two big ones, David. For those unfamiliar with the story, the net-net was that my father never talked about his childhood or his family growing up. I know that might seem weird, but in a family of six kids, I guess we just were so focused on each other that it didn’t dawn on us that we knew nothing about my father’s childhood and that there were no relatives on that side of the family. The little bit we all thought was that his parents died about ten years after coming to the United States, sometime in the nineteen thirties.
So the first big aha was when they turned up in the nineteen forty census.”
The second was that they turned up listed as inmates at the Rockland Insane Asylum.”
“That had to shake your tree a bit. No one had ever mentioned that while you were growing up?”
“No. I know that must sound like we were the most oblivious sorts of characters but with six kids in eleven years, I guess there was enough to keep us occupied. I first started getting interested in researching all of this when I started having grandchildren – a lot of people get interested in genealogy about that time – and it just snowballed from there.”
“I get that, the notion that you have someone to pass the story onto.”
“Exactly, David. That and the fact that at some point in there, I had lived longer than my father – he died at sixty-two – and that creates a certain ‘What does it all mean?’ mindset.
“And I understand that aspect, John. My father died when he was sixty. When I turned sixty-one, I felt a bit of relief and also wondered if there was more to it.”
“John, Dan tells me that you had a long and successful career in Information Management. Not that I fully understand what that means – we’re all used to that with Dan – but did it bother you that the nineteen forty census was your first indication that your grandparents had survived longer, or were you happy that you at least had that as a starting point?”
“Certainly a long career, not so sure sometimes about the successful part. But that’s a story for another day. But the career I had often involved records people, archivists, and people focused on documenting who did what to whom when in the context of a business. This whole thing made me realize two things about the people entrusted to this information stewardship task.”
“Well, I’m in the alcohol stewardship business, and I can see that Dan needs another Corona. You guys want me to top off those bourbons?”
“I think we’re good for now, Cheryl, but circle back in a while, we don’t want John to get parched.”
“Thanks David. First, some people back in the nineteen twenties, thirties and forties made some smart decisions about how to keep and preserve information, decisions that allowed the information to stay intact until later technologies could suddenly make all of this information available to people a century later. I have great respect for that and wonder sometimes whether the heaps of digital information we’re collecting now will make any sense at all a century from now.”
“When I first met you, John, you had a blog called Digital Landfill. I always thought that was an apt description.”
“I should have trademarked that, Dan.”
“Oh my goodness John, you should have. You must have seen my hard drive. Sorry, back to your second thing.”
“The second thing, David, was that ultimately people made the difference to my ability to discover this saga. Like just about any pursuit, some records managers and archive people are committed to helping others find what they need. Others are just a pain in the you know what, keeping information and records tied up and unavailable to the outside world and part of some sort of personal preserve.”
“So, John. Do you think you might be the last person to experience this? I mean any kid growing up today could have discovered this on a rainy Saturday when baseball was cancelled.”
“Not really, Dan. Because any baseball fan worth their salt in the DC area would use a rain delay to go back and view recordings of the twenty-nineteen World Series. But seriously, it took quite some time to unravel the threads. Some parts popped right up in Ancestry, but others required quite a bit of digging.”
“What parts were the hardest?”
“For people with a story like this that hinges on mental illness, health records – even for dead people and for direct descendants – are notoriously difficult to access.”
“In the book, you wrote about your grandparents’ early life in Italy and New York. I get that that was the fictionalized portion, but you did some research with that as well. Sometimes, I think people underestimate the amount of research that goes into writing fiction. Can you share some of the things you did, and maybe some of the things that impressed you?”
“You’re right, Dan. The way it worked for those sections was that I discovered over the course of the research some anchor points – their birth dates (which we never knew), World War One records, some social background on what was going on in Itri (where they were from) in the nineteen tens, ship manifests, marriage certificates, that sort of thing. And then I started to think about how these facts could be strung together, and what kinds of things these people might have thought and cared about. Essentially, I was trying to bring them to some sort of life, because they certainly had no existence in our experience.”
“Your description of their life in New York, your grandfather’s job, the apartment they lived in, it all seems like you were there. I was especially impressed by the interaction between…was it your grandmother’s brother…I forget, but it seemed like I was watching a movie.”
“Wow, I appreciate that, David. With regards to the apartment, one thing that was helpful was a visit to the Tenement Museum in lower Manhattan, which is a terrific place to visit. The tours – and one focused on an apartment in the nineteen thirties where an Italian family lived – are really terrific.”
“Did your research expose any fun facts?”
“One piece of information that I was particularly fond of was discovering, Dan, was that Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. were on the ship that brought my grandmother to America, along with a sixteen-year-old named Archie Leach, who eventually became Cary Grant. I had a bit of fun with that. Related to that was the fact that the ship they were all on – the Olympic – was the sister ship of the Titanic.”
“I loved Mary Pickford in ‘The Taming of the Shrew.’ Do you guys need another round now?
“I think we do, Cheryl, but, um….you forgot my cherries earlier.”
“I didn’t hear John ask for cherries in his bourbon, David…just sayin’. John, did you have a character in mind that you fashioned your grandmother after?”
“Not really a character per se. But growing up Catholic and thinking about what that might have been like for a kid growing up in Italy in the nineteen tens, and knowing my grandmother’s unfortunate tale and descent, I stumbled upon a local saint, Saint Rita, who is the patron saint of lost causes. And when I researched her, I discovered that Saint Rita was married to an abusive husband named Mancini, and that she had two sons. The coincidences were so interesting that I wove them into the story.”
“The patron saint of lost causes – I could have used her help when I was trying to convince my coworkers to adopt some information management techniques.”
“True that, Dan.”
“Don’t start talking shop guys. John, you mentioned that you grew up in a family of six children. Did you ruffle any feathers with this book? I don’t mean to pry, but I’m imagining my own family, and well, they’re why I come to this bar so often.”
“Surprisingly, not so much, David. My brother Joe was also very interested in this research, and a lot of the ‘I founds’ in the book really should have been ‘We found’ or ‘He found.’ But we complemented each other well – he loves the facts, and I love the story. My sister June was really interested, because she’s in child psychology. The one we were really worried about was my mom, who is ninety and what she would think – and what she knew.”
“Did she know your father’s parents were still alive?”
“After going over what we found with her, she either didn’t know any of the story, or she is an Academy Award caliber actress. Her main concern was wondering why SHE hadn’t asked more questions. She said, ‘Well, I thought his parents had died, and he was uncomfortable with the subject, and I just didn’t push it.’ She also added at one point, ‘I guess I thought I was lucky not to have a mother-in-law to worry about.’”
“Now that I understand.”
“David, stop picking on that poor woman. Do you boys want anything to eat?”
“Do you have any Italian food, Cheryl?”
“Yes, we do, John. We have awesome thin crust pizza, calzones that will make you open your belt a notch and ‘Edna’s Lasagna’ which is my personal favorite.”
“When I was doing the book, I thought about the weird fact that we never really had any of the fabulous Italian foods that I love. Except lasagna. My Dad would corral all of us periodically for a lasagna cooking festival. I have no idea where my mom was during all of this production.”
“That’s funny. I find that Dad’s often focus on one or two signature meals. My dad took over the kitchen for breakfast.”
“Mine, too, David. John, I remember reading bits of your research journey on your blog, and hearing some of the stories that you wove into presentations or shared in meetings. I’m very happy that you decided to publish this book. Were you thinking about that all along, or did you decide one day to gather everything and put it into book form?”
“You have a good memory, Dan! I started writing the blog posts mainly because I like to write and I just wanted to get some of the tale down in writing, for whatever benefit it might have for my kids and grandkids. The book part came later. My wife and I have always loved “dual-track” stories…”
“Sorry to interrupt, dual-track?”
“Stories told in parallel from different points in time, David. So that started creeping into my thinking – somewhat of an itch that wouldn’t go away. Once I started to weave the whole thing together in the book, I didn’t show anyone for a long time. You know how that goes, you always fear looking foolish – ‘What on earth made you think you could write a book that anyone would care about?’ And after a bit my wife Mary Glenn read it, and then I started asking people to read the draft – maybe about ten people I trusted in all – which changed the draft a bit with each iteration. I think it came together when I started to realize that a big part of all this was actually about my Dad and then things flowed more coherently from there.”
“Well, John, David bought a copy, so I think it’s clear that people are interested. I see our lasagna coming over, and Cheryl is topping off the bourbons and I hope she’s opening a fresh Corona.”
“I am, Dan, and I’m taking my lunch break so I’m going to join you guys for some food. John, it’s been a pleasure having you visit. Best of luck with the book.”
“Thanks a bunch for the invitation. And don’t forget – you always knew I was a marketer, Dan – ‘Immigrant Secrets’, available now on Amazon. And happy to do presentations or talk to book clubs. OK, no more commercials.”
“Thanks so much for visiting, John and for sharing one of the most interesting family stories I’ve ever heard.”
Again, that’s:“Immigrant Secrets: The Search for My Grandparents” Availale on Amazon.
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