Stories From The Heart, a Memoir

CHAPTER 1

The Beginning
Pre-school Thru High School

I was born February 14, 1939 in apartment above the garage located on Montague Street, across from Montague House, in Rockford, Illinois. My doctor’s name was Dr. Bruce Canfield who ran a Canfield clinic in Rockford, Illinois.

When I was born, I weighed less than 1.5 pounds and doctor didn’t think I would live more than 3 to 4 hours. My mother asked the doctor if he could take me to the hospital, which was not too far away. The doctor told her “If I move your son he will die”.My mother told the doctor, the hospital is only six blocks from the apartment, can’t we take my son there to save his life? The Dr. said no! If I move him, he will die. My mother begged the doctor do something to save my life, anything.

The Dr. told my mother he had heard of another doctor who used a procedure and saved a child, however, he said, if I use it on your son he may die now, if it doesn’t work. My mother told the doctor he is going to die anyway if we don’t do anything. Please try the procedure.

At this point the doctor stuck the needle in the top area of my head where there was a soft spot. The other end there was a needle, which he stuck in one of my dad’s arms. He then gave me a transfusion, which saved my life.

Because the doctor had saved my life with the transfusion my mother decided to name me after the doctor… Thank God for my mother’s persistence and because of that, she thanked the doctor. by giving his first name to be my first name. That’s why my first name (Bruce) is not an Italian name. My mother told me this information when I was 17 years old.

The following day, I told my dad what my mother told me about the day I was born. My dad said, after he gave me his blood, the next evening he had to fight in the Golden Gloves boxing tournament. The doctor told my dad because of the blood he gave me that evening he should not have boxed the following evening. However, my dad did fight. My dad told me he never was knocked out in any boxing match before the tournament the night after he gave me blood. He never lost a fight until the following night after giving me blood to save my life. In a jokingly manner I told my dad the reason he lost the fight was because a better man was born, which was ME. I will not tell you what happened after I made my comment, but my butt hurt for a few days.

When I grew up in my teens, my Uncle Frank Cacciapaglia said when he saw me after I was born, I looked like a monkey with the red meat hanging from my face & boney body. That day, he thought I would not live long enough to see the end of the day.

Since both my mother and dad had to work my Nana, (my mother’s mother Catherine Gullotta) would have to take care of me once I was released from the hospital.

Nana & Nanu

I was in the hospital approximately three months and gained another pound and a half for a total of three pounds. When I grew up my grandmother told me how she took care of me when I was a baby living at her home at 1129 Ferguson Street in Rockford, Illinois. My Nana said I was so small she had to feed me with an eye dropper, put me in a shoebox and placed me on the window-sill to keep me warm from the heat of the sun.

She also told me, her daughter (my Aunt Marie’s) girlfriend gave her a baby doll bed so that I could sleep at night because there was no bed small enough to purchase from a store to fit my very small body, which was small enough to fit in a small women’s hand.

My (Nana) grandmother also told me while she was cleaning the house, she would put me out side on the sidewalk in a buggy which was covered with a nice net to keep the flies off of me. I was placed on the sidewalk in the buggy mostly in the summertime and my grandmother would look out the window while cleaning the house to make sure I was safe. One day she noticed a young man lifting up the net in the buggy and made a big loud remark stating how ugly I was. The same man would come on a daily basis bringing different people to look at the ugly baby in the buggy. Finally, after about three months the same man and his many friends check out the buggy and found that I had filled out and was no longer an ugly baby, therefore, my Nana said she never saw anyone check the buggy again.

When I was approximately 6 months old my grandmother took a photo of me smiling in a small bed which I still have to this day.

Because I was born in the month of February 1939, I could not start kindergarten until the age of six.

St. Anthony’s Church, Rockford Il.

One of the first things I remember when I was a kid was being in second grade at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in South Rockford and my teachers name was Nun called Sister Mary Anne. I believe I was eight years old at the time and coming from a poor family life was pretty hard. I remember after making Holy Communion at age 12, we would go to Confession every Saturday and take communion every Sunday. As a teenager, all our first cousins would hear mass from the Church’s balcony.

On my mother’s side of the family there were five sisters, Aunt Anna Fiorello, Aunt Nancy Giordano, Aunt Jenny Stanfa, Aunt Marie Gagliano and my mother Lillian Cacciapaglia. Between all 5 sisters, there were 13 children. My younger sister Kathy died when she was two years old in 1943, because of spinal meningitis. My mother and father had five other children Marty the oldest born in 1938. I was second and born in 1939. My brother Patrick was 3rd and born in 1947. Then my second sister who was born in 1947 was named after my first sister Kathy, who died at age 2, four years earlier. The youngest of the family was brother John who was born in 1949. The age difference between my older brother and the baby brother was 11 years.

Nana, Mother, Aunt Jenny and relatives

(Back) Marty, Dad, Bruce (Front)
Pat, Kathy and John

In the 1940s and 50s a lot of the first cousins play together is as if they were brothers and sisters. One of the things that some of the cousins were not proud of, was the fact that in the church they had a poor box, and thinking we were poor a few of us decided to take out money from the poor box. Church parishioners would put money in the poor box and then light a candle and say a prayer. To the best of my knowledge there were five cousins involved. The little money we did take from the cashbox we spent across the street at the Italian deli, because they have the greatest Italian granita, which normally we could not afford, because we never had money to spend on ourselves.

To the best my knowledge my cousin Cyrus Stanfa was caught by the priest Father Morris and Cyrus told Father Morris all of the cousins that were involved in taking money from the poor box. I remember I was in second grade when one of the students came into the class and told Sister MaryAnne that Father Morris wanted to see me in the (wine cellar) basement of the church. I wondered why Father Morris wanted me in the wine cellar, but decided to head to the wine cellar. When I arrived on the basement of the church, I noticed my cousin sitting on a bench and Frank the oldest of the cousins was the only one missing of the group of the original five. Then all of a sudden, I heard a loud noise coming from another room where Father Morris kept the Holy barrels of Wine for church on Sundays. At this point I realize Father Morris was paddling each one of us with a paddle with holes in it. Father Morris would hit the paddle on our butts a few times as punishment for taking money from the poor box located in the church. Since I was a youngest, I was the last one of the cousins to be paddled and I began to cry before Father Morris had a chance to paddle me, as I laid over the wine barrel to be spanked. Father Morris hit me on my butt only once, because he felt I had enough punishment listening to the other cousins get spanked ahead of me. After the spanking, Father Morris told all of us cousins to go to confession on Saturday and asked forgiveness from God for taking money from the poor box, the following Saturday, we all went to confession (confessed our sins) and the following Sunday, took communion.

Photo of us kids in 1951 of me, my sister Kathy
and brothers John, Marty and Pat and Uncle Joe
Fiorello and my Dad Marty Cacciapaglia

One must remember back in the 1940s and 50s if you got spanked by a teacher in school and then my parents found out about it, one would get another spanking for the parents to make sure we didn’t do it again.

I believe I was six or seven years old when we’re playing in the playground behind the church with my cousin Cyrus. At one point, I decided to climb over the barbwire fence as a shortcut to get back home, which was across the street from barbwire fence. I just got to the top of the fence and swung one leg over the other side when suddenly I felt pain between my legs and noted my pants were ripped by the barbwire fence, at my groin area and I was bleeding. At this point, I didn’t know where the bleeding was coming from. After jumping off the fence to the other side, I pulled down my pants to find out where the blood was coming from. I then discovered I had cut my penis on one of the ends of the sharp edge of the barb wire...