My mother was not the only girl growing up in the 1930s and 1940s to keep a movie star scrapbook, and she is not the only 84 year old woman to still keep that cherished, but faded collection of glamorous images. Growing up in Coal City, a small farming, coal mining and light industrial town in Central Illinois, the world of Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr and Rita Hayworth must have seemed like another planet to Rose. Movies on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon at the Rialto Theater on Broadway Street in Coal City provided Rose with a glimpse into the glamorous world these stars inhabited. Before People Magazine, Entertainment Tonight and online fanzines, Rose had her scrapbook to inspire daydreams of the glittering and elegant lifestyle of a Hollywood movie star.
1943 – Ray, Nonna and Rose
My mother’s life was a sharp contrast to the images in her scrapbook. Rose’s mother died a couple of days after she was born. Her father could not raise Rose and her older brother, Ray, by himself so Rose and Ray lived with their grandfather and grandmother, Ricardo and Caroline DeCecco. They continued to live in Chicago for a short while after burying their daughter, Matilda, in Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois but they soon moved back to Coal City, where Ricardo and Caroline had raised their own children and where friends and family were close by. Caroline had already brought up her own children and her brother-in-law’s children and now she took Rose and Ray into her household. Ray and Rose would be the third set of children she raised.
I was lucky enough to know Caroline and I could see the close and loving relationship she had with my mother. When my sister and I were young, Caroline still called my mother “Ninna”, meaning “little one”. It seemed everyone in Coal City called Caroline ”Nonna”, including me, my sister and my mother and father. Of course, she really was Rose’s Nonna, meaning grandmother in Italian and Friulan and she was our great-grandmother. I think her neighbors called her “Nonna” out of respect and admiration for her career as a loving parent to 3 families of children.
Love was one of the few things Nonna could give to my mother and Uncle Ray during the Depression. Caroline and Ricardo did not have much, but what they had, they shared with Rose, Ray and others in need. The fence post in front of their house was marked by the traveling “hobos” to indicate that a man down on his luck could always get a meal at that house.
Farmhouse in Coal City
Ricardo DeCecco
Ricardo worked when he could in the terrazzo industry, as did many of the immigrants from Friula (in northeast Italy), so Rose and Ray did not go hungry, but luxuries were in short supply. A hot bath in the summer meant waiting for the metal bathtub full of water pumped up from the well to warm in the sun. A lazy afternoon was not spent watching TV, instead, Rose would lie on her back, look up at the clouds and try to pick out recognizable shapes from the shifting forms. An orange was often the only gift in the Christmas stocking and there is a rumor that my Uncle Ray received a lump of coal in his stocking one year. There was plenty of coal available, since it was used for heating and cooking, but I still cannot believe this story. My mother had a chalk doll, which did not talk, move or require batteries. And if her doll had any accessories, they were hand-made by Rose.
But my mother had Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons at the Rialto. Her Uncle Emil, he was one of Caroline’s second set of children, traveled a lot to do terrazzo work, but when he was at home, he would take Rose to the Rialto and pick her up on Saturday night. On Sunday, my mother would walk to the theater, maybe meeting one of her friends along the way.
Sometimes, John Roman, the owner of one of the successful terrazzo companies, would visit Ricardo and Caroline. His mother-in-law lived next door. He would reach into his pocket, pull out a handful of coins and throw them on the ground. The children would scramble for the coins, they only needed a dime to see a movie and maybe another dime for popcorn.
At the end of the day, my mother had her scrapbook. Imagine the excitement when Ricardo or Uncle Emil came home with the Sunday Chicago Sun and, for the first time, my mother saw the 11” by 15” color print of Greer Garson or Laraine Day or Captain Clark Gable. Using flour paste sparingly, so as not to warp the paper when the glue dried, she would place it in her scrapbook. Greer and Laraine and Clark are still there today, and they look as glamorous as ever.
