From Boys to Men and (Sometimes Back Again)

Between 1906 and 1923 both my paternal and maternal families took shape: three uncles on each side, six aunts, and my parents. The maternal line was rooted from the start in Chicago’s Little Italy; the paternal line began in Italy and made its way, by stages, to the same city. For the purposes of this family chronicle I will concentrate solely on the boys—my six uncles.

Top Row - The Poppas:  Fred, Lenny and Augie
Bottom Row - The DeLios:  Carl, Mike and Johnny

The years that brought them into the world were restless ones. On the paternal side the family left the hill town of Orsara in Puglia during a period of economic hardship and political uncertainty in southern Italy, joining the great wave of Italian emigration that carried so many across the Atlantic. They paused first in Connecticut, where two of the boys were born, before settling in Chicago. On the maternal side the DeLios were already rooted on the city’s Near West Side—Chicago’s Little Italy—where the streets rang with southern Italian dialects and the smell of strong coffee and tomato sauce drifted from open windows.

By the time the youngest uncles were coming of age, the country had plunged into the Great Depression and then into the Second World War. Those two events shaped the work, the marriages, the moves, and the silences of an entire generation. The postwar years brought new neighborhoods, new jobs, and a different kind of American life, but the old patterns—family loyalty, loud arguments, fierce protectiveness, and the occasional boyish relapse—traveled with them.

 The Poppas

My father’s family produced four sons in eleven years: Fred in 1911 in Italy, my father Rocco in 1916 in Connecticut, Leonard in 1918 in Connecticut, and Augie in 1922 in Chicago. The three uncles are the ones I want to talk about here.

The Poppa Family- c. 1923
Front row l-r: Augie, Beth, Ann, Grandma Poppa, Rocco & Leonard
Back row l-r: Fred, Grandpa Poppa

The Poppa Men- c. 1983

Standing: Rocco 

Sittin l-r:  Augie, Fred & Leonard

Fred (34), Jennie (33), Joey (8-9 mths
c. 1945

Freddie

Fred, the eldest, is the logical place to begin. Following Italian naming conventions, the first son is named after the paternal grandfather, so his given name at birth was Fedele. Everyone in the family called him Fred or Freddie. He was born in Orsara, in the province of Foggia, Puglia, on March 19, 1911. He married Jennie Josephine Seno on January 2, 1943, and they had three children. He died in Chicago on September 18, 1984. Those are the bare bones.

The 1940 census recorded him as a laborer who had finished the eighth grade and worked the entire year of 1939. At 29 he was still unmarried and living at 1553 S. Drake with his mother and several siblings. In a household headed by a widow, that arrangement was less about staying a boy and more about the eldest son continuing to help carry the family. He worked at the Sawyer Biscuit Company, a steady job during those hard times. When he registered for the draft that October he was listed as five-foot-five, a hundred and thirty-five pounds, brown hair, brown eyes, light complexion, glasses, and a stutter. 

Fred (37-42)
c. 1948-1953

Weekly phone calls, check-ins, and card games kept the Poppa boys in regular contact most of their lives. My own time with Uncle Freddie was limited—mostly the usual hugs kisses at the beginning and end of visits—simply because that was our normal family dynamic. The real continuity among the brothers happened in the adult male rituals: the pinochle table, the occasional lawn game (horseshoes, bocce ball) when the weather allowed. Freddie was right there in the middle of it—quieter than some of the others, but an active player, not a spectator. 

As the eldest he carried a natural, understated authority of chronology, nothing more. Even in the 1983 photograph of the four Poppa men, Freddie is still there, seated with his brothers, the same quiet continuity visible across six decades.

When it was time to eat, everyone came back to the dining-room table. The meal was always huge—some kind of pasta, meatballs, sausages, crusty Italian bread, a great bowl of salad passed from hand to hand, the children’s plates filled first. Afterward, just when you thought you couldn’t manage another bite, out came the platters of Italian pastries. I had been taught not to be rude, so of course I sampled one or two.

Lenny

Leonard—

Lenny (25-26 yrs)
c. 1944

Lenny to everyone—was born in Bridgeport on March 1, 1918. He married three times. The first, to Jeanne Ruth Ohrenstein in Clinton, Iowa, on February 15, 1941, ended only weeks later when she died on April 10 of that same year. The second, to Juanita Eileen Miller in Minneapolis on January 5, 1944, produced one  child and ended in divorce the following year. The third and lasting marriage was to Betty Lou Garris in Kansas on February 15, 1946; they had two children and stayed together until Leonard’s death on March 3, 1997.

Lenny (29-30) & Gail (3-4)
c. 1947-1948

Uncle Lenny was a character. He was the uncle who played the classic “I got your nose” game—pressing his knuckles on either side of a child’s nose, pulling his hand back with the thumb sticking out between his fingers, and delivering the line with perfect seriousness. He also kept an entire repertoire of corny jokes for every occasion. When my cousins and I were small we laughed at every one of them. In our twenties we rolled our eyes. As full-blown adults we just smiled—a lot.

He was a good-looking man; there was no denying it. More than once he told me that some people said he looked just like Gregory Peck while others insisted he looked just like Jeff Chandler. I would nod politely, though in truth he didn’t resemble either of them. When I repeated the story to my mother she laughed. “How could he look like both actors,” she said, “when they looked nothing like each other?” Good point.

Augie

Augie (20 yrs) c. 1942

Augie (born Agostino according to his birth certificate) arrived in Chicago on April 7, 1922. He was only sixteen months old when his father  died in 1923 and was raised by his widowed mother, with his older brothers showing him the ropes. He grew up a tough kid with a penchant for fighting and became a Golden Gloves bantamweight champion representing the South Side of Chicago at the age of twenty. 

On February 5, 1942, at the Coliseum, he went up against Harold Dade, a two-time previous champion. A coworker at the Maremont Automotive Company on South Ashland Avenue told the Chicago Tribune, “Nothing can scare that kid. He won’t admit that Dade might beat him and he’s offered to bet any one that he won’t be knocked out.” Augie didn’t win that bout, but he kept boxing for another year or two and carried a broken nose as a souvenir. He seemed to live by the philosophy that he might not always win, but his opponent would know he’d been in a fight.

Augie (22 yrs) c. 1944

My mother jokingly told her future brother-in-law that if he showed up to my parents’ wedding—where he was to be a groomsman—with any bruises or shiners, she would give him a second broken nose. All was well: Augie arrived bruise-free and as handsome as ever.

He married three times. The first, to Marion “Mary” Akison in January 1946 in Chicago, produced two children and ended in divorce around July 1948. The second, to Kathryn DeBartolo on April 19, 1950, also produced two children and ended in 1956. The third, to the widow Elaine Mozer Mustari between 1966 and 1968, lasted until Augie’s death in 2004.

Augie and Two of his Sons, Ricky & Gus - The Next Generation

The DeLios

The Delio Boys, et al -  c. March 1955
seated l-r: Marilyn, Grandma DeLio, Josie and Francie
standing l-r: Carl, Johnny and Mike

Carmi

Carl was born Carmine Raffaele DeLio on April 17, 1906, in Chicago—the eldest of the DeLio boys. He was named after his father’s brother, who had died at three months of age; Raffaele was his grandfather’s name. By the time Carmi arrived, Theodore Roosevelt was president and San Francisco had just suffered its devastating earthquake. The Ford Model T would appear within two years, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation was established in 1908.

Carl (38 yrs)
c. 07/02/1944

Known in the family as Carl or Carmi, he married Catherine Citro inJune 1930 (the exact date isn’t known). They had two children. After his father Angelo’s death in February 1944, Carl became the family patriarch and, five months later, walked my mother down the aisle in his place. He was the natural choice. A man of great character, empathy, and love of family, he stepped in—sometimes behind the scenes—whenever he felt someone was being taken advantage of. His advice, whether sought out or volunteered, was respected. A saint? Of course not. Maybe he was effective simply because people didn’t want to hear that booming voice raised. He had one, and it pretty much ensured he would not be ignored.

My clearest memory of Uncle Carmi is of him sitting in  the kitchen of his house on Major Avenue, catching up over coffee with his sisters—my mother (Marilyn),  Francie, and Josie. When he’d had enough of that he would move out onto the enclosed back porch to watch television or read the paper, leaving the women with his wife, Katie. That’s where he could always find me if he was looking.

We never had any deep conversations out there, but Uncle Carmi had a color TV that he let me control, and since I was the only person in the house under sixteen for an afternoon or evening, he could always retreat to his newspaper when my programming choices became too much for him. He died in Chicago at the age of 65 on June 4, 1971, surrounded by his family.

Carmi & Katie - The Great Pool Hustle
c. 04/17/1960

Mikey

Michael Joseph, named after his maternal grandfather, was born on July 3, 1909, also in Chicago. Intimate acquaintances called him Mike or Mikey. That year the Lincoln penny was introduced and has remained in circulation ever since. William Howard Taft became the twenty-seventh president, and the explorer Robert Peary reached the North Pole.

Johnny & Mikey on DeKalb Street
c. 1921

I never had the chance to know Uncle Mikey; he died in February 1956 when I was less than two years old. What I know about him comes from the first-hand recollections of others—few even then, and fewer now—and from a handful of photographs I inherited from my mother. From those pictures he looks a perfect blend of Uncle Carmi and Uncle Johnny, and I don’t think I’m going  out on a limb when I say the same was probably true of temperament. 

He was a cute little boy based on some photos I have seen, and, clearly a loving older brother to Johnny, as evidenced in the 1921 picture taken on DeKalb Street of the two of them.  

His draft registration card lists him as five-foot-seven, a hundred and thirty pounds, brown hair and brown eyes. At the time of his death he was a maintenance worker for the telephone company—a steady, unspectacular job that fit the middle-brother profile between the more forceful Carmi and the gruff Johnny.

Mike married Irene Urbaniak on November 18, 1939. Together they raised three children. It’s probably not the best-kept secret that my grandmother would have preferred her middle son marry a “nice Italian girl.” The DeLios lived in the heart of Chicago’s Little Italy, and to my knowledge there wasn’t a single non-Italian surname in the immediate family between 1906 and 1940. When Mikey brought Irene home I suspect it was a hard pill for Grandma to swallow at first.  

Mike & Irene's Wedding Day
c. 11/20/1939

That doesn’t mean she didn’t like Irene—she did. Irene made Mikey happy and gave him three beautiful children. Grandma eventually came to terms with the non-Italian parts of the relationship, and as long as they were both happy, that was what really mattered. If only she could have gotten them to move closer to DeKalb Street.

Mike & Family - Grandma's Birthday Party - March 1955

Johnny- abt 1943

Johnny

John Angelo DeLio, the youngest of the brothers, was born on September 10, 1920, in Chicago. He married twice; both marriages ended in divorce. With his second wife, Olga Mitrofaniak, he had one child who died at three months of age. Although married (and divorced) twice, Johnny was my bachelor uncle. He worked for the Department of Streets and Sanitation—street cleaning, snow plowing, and the rest. Because of the hours he kept, he was usually home in the afternoons. 

He had a gruff voice and, unless you got to know him well, a slightly gruff demeanor. He loved his nieces and nephews; you just wouldn’t always know it, and he could put the fear of God into us with just a look.

Johnny (47-48 yrs)
  c. 1967

One of my cousins called him The Enforcer. The reason was simple: whenever any of us got into trouble and our fathers were at work—or when Johnny happened to be visiting one of his sisters—he was called into action. Take the time my brother Patrick was playing ball in the schoolyard. Not looking to see if any cars were coming, he ran out into the middle of the street to catch a fly ball and missed being run over by inches. The driver was so upset he had to pull over, get out of the car, and sit on the curb to calm himself down. 

The school principal called the house and asked my mother to come pick Patrick up. Mom brought Uncle Johnny with her as backup. She was relieved to see that Patrick wasn’t hurt, though his clothes were filthy from falling in front of the car. She was also fit to be tied. Once they left the principal’s office, my brother was not allowed to sit down on Johnny’s clean upholstery all the way home. From the look on Uncle Johnny’s face, it was wise of Pat not to even try.

Birthday cake. Who doesn’t like a beautifully decorated birthday cake, all lit up with candles, everyone standing around singing “Happy Birthday,” the birthday boy or girl blowing out the candles, and slices passed around? Uncle Johnny would cut or scrape the frosting off his piece—not for any dietary reason, but because whoever blew out the candles had almost certainly spit all over the top of the cake. Persnickety? Maybe. Probably true.

Every summer I spent two weeks at Grandma’s house for vacation. During my sixth summer I was losing baby teeth the way most children that age do. It seemed like every day for the first three days of the visit I lost another one. I was a little intimidated by my uncle for no other reason than the timbre of his voice, so when I started to fall asleep on the daybed that had been set up for me and Johnny came into the room, I was a little apprehensive. He said, “I heard you lost a tooth today.” I nodded ever so slightly. “You know, if you put your tooth under your pillow, the tooth fairy will leave you money.” With nothing to lose, I did. The next morning there was a nickel in its place. By the afternoon I lost another tooth, and once again Uncle Johnny told me to put it under my pillow. Sure enough, the next morning there was money—only this time it was a dime. Later that day a third tooth fell out. If this kept up I’d be rich. I couldn’t wait for Johnny to come home so I could show him. He looked at the tooth, then at me, and said, “How many more teeth have you got?” Then he laughed and hugged me. After that I don’t think I was ever nervous or afraid of him again.

Uncle Johnny died on November 20, 1967. He had been living at Uncle Carmi’s house at the time. When the funeral parlor asked Carmi to bring in an outfit for the interment, Carmi went through Johnny’s closet and found a Brooks Brothers garment bag with a brand-new suit still inside, tags attached. It was a beautiful suit, so Carmi brought it. Johnny looked very dapper in it—he always was well dressed, and the end of his life was no exception. About a week after the funeral Carmi received a call from the Brooks Brothers shop. It seemed Uncle Johnny had not yet paid for the three-hundred-dollar suit in which he had been laid to rest. I guess it’s true that he who laughs last, laughs best.

They grew up, took on the weight of adult lives, and still kept pieces of the boys they had been—sometimes in the way they laughed, sometimes in the way they protected, sometimes in a brand-new suit that somehow never got paid for. From boys to men, and every so often, back again. I’m glad they did.