Memories and Moments by GrannyJo

I wrote this piece five years ago, on February 5, 2002 (a super bowl Sunday--when we could call it "Super Bowl Sunday". We had traveled to Mission Viejo, CA to join in the celebration of my aunt Elizabeth's (Lizzie) 90th birthday. There was a large crowd of relatives at the dinner reception and we all enjoyed the hours, even with the men folks taking turns to go out to the bar to check the game score! My cousins had asked me if I would write and read a little something about Aunt Lizzie, and I was pleased and happy to do so.

Time has flown, in the way that time has of doing, and Monday, Aunt Lizzie will be 95, may she be BLESSED! I can't make it there this year, but I will sing her Happy Birthday over the phone, and I hope her birthday card reaches her today. However, she is still fairly alert, and physically well. She knows everybody, but still forgets the little short term memory things. She is mobil without use of a cane or walker, and still likes a beer with her dinner, and a 'sweet' after it. In other words, she is still what has us all.....

Copyright
February 5, 2002
LOVING LIZZIE

Ninety Years! Some would say it is so old! Yet at 65 I know it passes as the blinking of an eye. The wonder is not to have lived to ninety; the wonder is to have reached ninety and be so beloved. That is what we are doing here today. Celebrating the ninety years of love that have enfolded our dear sister, mother, grandmother, aunt, cousin and friend, Elizabeth Falvo Argenziano, known to me affectionately as Aunt Lizzie. Today I want to share some memories that I carry, just to show you why it is so easy, Loving Lizzie.

From a family of eleven children born to Ralph and Mildred Falvo, five girls and 3 boys survived into adulthood. Lizzie’s capacity for love started very early. I have heard the story of her beloved little sister Stella many times. Aunt Liz took her on as a special little one, caring for her like a mother, even though she was a child still herself. Stella died from diphtheria and some say the bungling of a neighborhood midwife, when she was quite young. Each time the tale was told, tears welled up in Aunt Lizzie’s eyes for the loss of that child.

Uncle Mike could tell us about the special relationship he had with Aunt Lizzie. She coddled him and bought him clothes with money she earned from working in a clothing store in downtown Sharon. If he were here today, Uncle Al could repeat how many times he sat at her kitchen table on Seventh St., eating the goodies she’d make especially because she knew he liked them.

I remember when Aunt Liz lived on Milliken Avenue. I would head up Church St. after Catechism on Tuesday afternoons, and always ended up having dinner at their house and playing with Joanne until Uncle Joe drove me back down to Main St. in the evening. Everyone on Milliken knew her. She was always a better neighbor than I have ever been, much like my mother.

Aunt Lizzie was especially close to my mother, Mary. We lived from the time I was 10, right next door to each other on Seventh St. -- 334 and 328 to be exact. Those homes were built when it was so difficult to get material after World War II. I remember both families driving to Franklin to hook up with a man who sold hardwood flooring and brick. And what battles we had with Mr. Johnson to stay sober long enough to finish our stone fireplaces! We all had gardens, and passed veggies back and forth as the season went on. Anything Aunt Lizzie baked, we got some. Anything mom cooked, they got some. It was almost like having a family compound, those growing up years on Seventh St. You know of course, that the family that eats together, meets together?

I probably wouldn’t be here today, reading this tale, if it weren’t for Aunt Lizzie. I was always interested in cooking, from a very early age. The only problem was that my mom wouldn’t let me near the stove. Right after we’d all moved up on the hill, mom went to work for Ambriola’s and I was left home alone on a Saturday afternoon. Hmmmm, what better time to bake a cake? So, I went over to the gas stove, turned on the oven and put the match down into the hole to light it, and then proceeded to mix up the chocolate cake that’s on the Hershey Cocoa box (my favorite, even until today).

A few minutes into the mixing, I could see Aunt Lizzie walking down the steps from their lot to ours, proceeding to our house. All I could think of was "Uh Oh, busted!"

She came in and asked what I was doing. What else? "Baking a cake."

"Did you light the oven?" and she sniffed suspiciously.

"Surrrre I did!"

She went over to the oven, and of course, it wasn’t lit. But, the gas WAS on! She didn’t yell, though, just turned off the oven and waited a few minutes while I kept mixing the cake. Then she lit the oven and waited to get the cake out for me. I don’t know if she ever told my mother. I’d like to think not. But, when I got older and realized what could have happened, because you KNOW I would have tried to relight that oven...that’s why I’ve been partial to electric stoves ever since.

Time marched on. We had family picnics at the Buhl Park, while the first ever BBQ grill in our whole family was bought by Uncle Joe, and we barbequed at Aunt Liz’s. Will we ever forget those first chicken breasts, burned on the outside, pink on the inside? But it got better. We all learned that it was STEAK that was supposed to be charred on the outside, pink on the inside!

When they put a piano in their garage for my cousin, Joanne, Aunt Lizzie tolerated me going over and banging on it for hours as I taught myself to read and play.

She made little finger sandwiches every time ‘Little’ Joanne, Carol Pancioni and I performed our musical ‘shows’ in Pancioni’s garage. Isn’t it funny? I directed and acted and the three of us practiced our hearts out, while dressing room stars danced in our heads. Who gets on the real world stage? CARMEN, who only wanted to eat something with a fork.

We had parties for about every occasion in the cellar of her house or ours. She and my mom cooked and baked themselves sick for those occasions. Maybe that’s why we all ended up in the restaurant business…making money doing what we knew and liked to do best, feeding the multitudes. And it wasn’t just fishes and loaves! Still the amount of food that we produced was miraculous.

You had to be there to appreciate going to the drive-in movies with Aunt Lizzie and family. I did a couple of times and it was like a picnic in a car. The refreshment stand didn’t get any business from us! Various bags & boxes came along, sporting pepperoni, crusty bread, olives, cheese and plenty of drinks. Now rumor has it that she did it for movies at the Columbia and Nuluna Theaters, also, but I’ll never tell! It must have been addictive, because when Aunt Lizzie comes to visit in Vegas, our favorite breakfast is pepperoni, olives, cheese and crusty bread!

I went to high school, graduated, got married. Aunt Lizzie & Uncle Joe were the folks who picked Rich & I up at Pittsburgh airport on Christmas Eve, 1956. We were coming home from an 18 month army stint in Honolulu. I was about a month pregnant with Lori. They were godparents to Lori and also to Philip. And I believe they were godparents to half the Shenango Valley. Every time I make Bunny Scenari’s two hour nut roll, I chuckle remembering what a big family they had and how many of their kids were Aunt Lizzie’s godchildren. My memory may be a bit hazy on this, but I believe it was the Alcaro family that accounted for another bunch of godchildren.

Rich and I rented the upstairs apartment of Aunt Liz’s house for about a year. She was there for support in a very rough emotional time for me, keeping an eye on me during the day when Rich & my mom had to work. I don’t know if she remembers that, but I do when I think about Loving Lizzie.

She worked with us at Little Italy in the Plaza for a time and then worked most of the night shifts at the Middlesex Diner which they owned for a lot of years. While there, she fed many hungry stragglers and family members off the cuff. She is a firm believer in what goes around, comes around, building many friends and much love in the process.

Through the years since I moved to Las Vegas, we’ve played slots together at the Cortez, eaten prime rib in Roberta’s Café, made chamels, exchanged squid sauce recipes, put jigsaw puzzles together, played cards and just reminisced in her visits there. There isn’t a couple of weeks that go by without phone calls between Las Vegas and Mission Viejo, just to keep touch and to give Lizzie my love.

What a gift for Aunt Lizzie to have two young, bright little grandsons around her in her later years. I know she loves all of her children and grandchildren, but there is some quirk in the Falvo family that makes their eyes light up for the boys, especially so for Aunt Liz. (And she thought I didn’t notice!) I know a daughter is a daughter for all of your life, but there is something about the boys, even after they take a wife, that none of us daughters can explain. So we live with it. It is a truism, therefore, that Joey & Tony are a veritable life force for Aunt Lizzie, as has been Pete in all these years. Of course there is no question that she loves the sweetness of Lilibet and Mia. How could she not, for to be Lizzie is to love.

The years have continued moving on and by cracky, I’ve gotten older. I find myself, on occasion, standing in the middle of the kitchen and wondering why the heck I’m there! It doesn’t surprise me, therefore, that at 90 Aunt Lizzie, although feisty and loving life, has trouble remembering what she had for breakfast. I figure my day is coming also, should I make it beyond 66. That’s why I’ve written all of this down. To have as a base in the forgetful years, enabling us to remember that we were here and why we were here, Loving Lizzie today in celebration of her 90th year among us.

Love you much, Aunt Lizzie! Happy Birthday!