Growing up in a multigenerational house

I grew in in a house with my parents (Edward and Maria Kielb), grandparents (Michele and Frances Bellotti) and my aunt Irene Bellotti. Later she would marry Matthew Bratek. My mother would give birth to my brother, Mark and my aunt would give birth to my cousin Tony, who was more of a brother than a cousin. In all there were at least nine of us at the dinner table on Sunday. For as long as I lived on Lockwood with my family we had pasta (of some kind) on Sunday. My grandmother started the sauce for Sunday on Saturday night and would leave it cooking all night. It was later in life that I learned that she always started the sauce with two ham-hocks, as well as other pieces of meat or meatballs. Then she added the tomatoes. Since I had never seen nor tasted the ham-hocks I wondered what happened to them. As it turned out my Grandfather would take them from the sauce late at night, well after the kids had gone to bed and eat the meat that was still on the bones. Later in life I would learn that the meat on those bones was a special treat. Now, we will use ham-hocks when making pea soup, and sometimes when making tomato sauce and I get to take them out, eating the meat with a crusty Italian bread.

While Sunday dinner was always a wonderful occasion, especially when we had guests who might have shown up invited as spontaneously, there was always room for more. A little more pasta could be made, a little more salad, more bread and maybe another bottle of wine and there was always enough for us and friends. Even better times were when we celebrated birthdays.

Always fun was when we would celebrate my father’s birthday on 24 August. But it was also my Aunt Irene’s birthday and Great-aunt Florence’s birthday as well. My father was born in 1922, my aunt in 1935 and my great-aunt in 1925. Interestingly she was three months younger than my mother. Strange as it might seem my grandmother and great-grandmother were both pregnant at the same time in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada.

So, that day was always filled with people and celebrations. Yesterday we got to take my Aunt Irene out for lunch on her birthday as she had turned 86. It’s had to imagine that she was 15 the day that I was born.

She and I have been celebrating birthdays together for some seventy years.

One final photo before I head off. Four cousins named Irene. Yes. My grandmother and three of her sisters had daughters named Irene. This is because that they were all named after their grandmother Irene (Cordone) DiFrancesco. And I have one shot of them together.

That’s all for today. Tomorrow I will revisit SARS in 2006…