East Side Girl
By Stephanie Passeri-Densmore
My first memory of life is of my two year old self sitting in a wicker basket attached to the handlebars of my grandfather Nick D’Adamio’s bicycle. We were on the middle of the sub-floor of the early construction site of the brick version of St. Anthony of Padua Church at 50 Pomeroy Street. I am sure of the year because the cornerstone of the church says “1950.” The ever-increasing Italian community of Cortland had outgrown the wooden frame church that had previously been the first Pomeroy School and then a macaroni factory. From my cozy perch, I could see the large timbers that formed the skeleton of what is still one of my most cherished places in the world. Pointing first toward the back of the site and then toward the front, my grandfather said, “That is where the altar will be, and that is where the choir will be.” I had been brought to the church from infancy, so I already understood my grandfather’s words, which are etched in my memory.
It is very fitting that this is my very first memory because St. Anthony’s has been the beating heart of the East Side since the parish’s founding in 1917. Cortland’s East Side is the area that my childhood neighbor and later teaching colleague Ralph Passalugo called “Our Universe.” When we were growing up in the 1950’s and ‘60’s, it was a warm, nurturing, fun universe that provided everything needed for the daily lives of the original Italian immigrants, their children, and grandchildren. Within easy access of every family, there were multiple Italian grocery stores, barber shops, and restaurants, including Comando’s, the Lido, and the still incomparable Green Arch. In those places, we could hear Italian spoken and keep connected each day. Our religious and social lives centered around St. Anthony’s and the nearby San Rocco Lodge, Order of Sons of Italy in America.
We loved living near the people who came from the same villages in Italy. Besides, we youngsters mingled with the children of the “medigahn” (a rendering of the Southern Italian dialect word for americani) families at Pomeroy School and Dexter Park. Italian family names on my block of Elm Street and nearby Crandall Street included D’Adamio, Passeri, Natale, Nitti, Passalugo, Fabrizio, Gabriel(e), Paganelli, Giammichele (a.k.a. Giamicheal), Sardo, Camilli, Corsi, DiSanto, Canale, Padovana, Cerio,and Capaldo. A block away on Hubbard Street, there were the DiPietro’s, the Rosato’s, and the Partigianoni’s, to name just a few. These families mainly came from Dogliola (Abruzzo region), Ferazzano (Molise), Quattropani (Lipari Islands off Sicily), and Sgurgola or Ceccano (both southeast of Rome).
My first two years were spent in my maternal grandparents’ house on the corner of Elm and Crandall Streets, where my young parents lived while they remodeled the house they had purchased next door on Elm Street. My parents had met when my father came from Italy in 1937 and got a job cutting hair for my grandfather Nick. My grandparents’ building was a hub of Italian and Italian American activity. On the left side of the building facing Elm Street was my grandfather Nick D’Adamio’s barbershop, and on the right side was Passalugo’s grocery store. For me, it was a treat to be in either place. In fact, sometimes I dream that by some miracle, my grandfather is still cutting hair, and John and Ralph Passalugo Sr. are busy selling their groceries to the neighbors.
The barber shop was connected to my grandparents’ two story living quarters. On the ground floor, a day kitchen was connected to the barber shop. As a child, we spent a lot of time with my grandparents even after we moved into our own house next door. I would often meander through my grandmother Concetta’s downstairs kitchen and just plop myself onto one of the old fashioned carved wooden chairs in the barber shop, especially on Saturday afternoons. My father, also a barber, helped my grandfather out on weekends, in addition to his weekday barber shop at Cornell University. I watched my father, grandfather, and sometimes my uncle Matt D’Adamio, who worked weekdays at Smith Corona, cut the hair of the men and boys of whole families, who were all regular customers. I watched the toddlers squirm and cry during their first haircuts and be rewarded with lollypops at the end. I heard men talk about politics and sports. I was fascinated.
I was even more fascinated by my grandmother Concetta’s many Saturday night gatherings and holiday celebrations in the lovely upstairs main living quarters. I am fortunate to have her mohair sofa, tapestry wing chair, and two occasional chairs. Her Regency style dining room suite inspired my love for all things Georgian to this day. On many Saturday evenings and holidays, my grandmother’s living and dining rooms would be full of relatives and friends from Dogliola, my maternal grandparents’ hometown in the Abruzzo region of Italy. These were multi-generational events with grandparents born in Italy, parents born in Cortland, and Italian American grandchildren who knew no bedtimes on those occasions.
The gatherings always started out with delicious Italian food. If it was a holiday like Christmas Eve, celebrated even more than Christmas Day, there would be numerous courses centered on all kinds of fish and other seafood. People often talk about the Italian dinner of the “seven fishes.” Instead, my grandmother always had eleven kinds of fish. These included fried fish filets, octopus, eel, fried calamari, smelt, shrimp, scallops, and pasta dishes, one with calamari sauce and one alla boscaiolo with tuna and mushrooms. After dessert, there were always bowls brimming with fruit, dried figs, and nuts to crack. Then my sisters and I would pass trays with little glasses of anisette to the ladies while the men would have beer, wine, or other kinds of liquor. No one ever over-indulged. They didn’t need alcohol for entertainment. We had our own musical entertainment when my grandfather got out his accordion, my father grabbed his mandolin, and my uncle took out his clarinet. People would sing along to the music in Italian. Sometimes the ladies would dance “la spallata,” an Abruzzese circle dance where the dancers would bump shoulders at certain times.
The best event of all was a series of three days of parties that took place in the mid-1950’s when my great-great aunt and great-great uncle D’Adamio decided to move back to Italy from Elmira. The bulk of Italian immigrants from Dogliola lived in Cortland, so my very elderly relatives decided to depart for New York and their ocean liner from Cortland. Every evening for three days, my grandparents’ house was full of food, singing, and dancing. But that is not all! When the time came for the couple to leave, we all followed them to the train station on Central Avenue with all of the musical instruments in tow. We had to make a happy event out of what would have been a sad one. My father, grandfather, and uncle all played in the train station, and we all danced. The other travelers watched us with enjoyment. But wait! That was not all either! When the train pulled into the station, we all piled onto the train with our two departing relatives. The men played their instruments, and we danced on the train, too! It was amazing. The passengers could not believe their eyes. At seven years old, I was so proud to belong to such joyful people. I was convinced that being Italian was the most fun thing in the world.
Once my mother’s parents bought a cottage on DeRuyter Lake, summer gatherings always took place on Sunday afternoons at the cottage. Often three or four extended families from the East Side would fill our picnic tables that held huge bowls of pasta, which we just called macaroni, and other Italian foods. Later, the grandmothers would crochet on the lawn and sing Italian folk songs. The rest of us would swim or take rides in the beautiful wooden boats custom made by my paternal grandfather Giovannbattista “John” Passeri, who worked at the Thompson Boat Company on Elm Street. He and his wife Francesca, who spoke very little English, lived on Excelsior Street, and we had Sunday dinners with them. My grandmother Francesca was a consummate cook, whose home-made Roman style fettuccine, hearty tomato sauce, and home-baked bread were beyond compare.
The ultimate kind of party for us on the East Side was a neighborhood wedding. Ones my family attended were remarkably similar in the 1950’s and early ’60’s, and no one seemed to want to veer from the norm, unlike today. Like our family gatherings, all weddings were multi-generational. I never heard of a no-children-invited wedding or reception. Weddings of parishioners of St. Anthony’s took place at 10 or 11 AM at the church. After the ceremony, the wedding party usually went to Dwyer’s photographic studio right afterward for photos. Then the wedding party and immediate families only went to a multi-course wedding luncheon at restaurants such as The Italian Kitchen.
At about 4 PM, the real party began with the whole neighborhood and other guests invited to a reception at the San Rocco Lodge. Couples could afford to invite large numbers of guests, including children, because the food was limited to sandwiches in little white paper bags, trays of Italian cookies passed by the bride and groom, and the wedding cake. Locally made Kist orange soda, beer, and wine were the main beverages. There was always a live band, like those led by Phil Natoli, John McNeil, or the Cosimo Brothers, that played dance music for couples’ dancing, not the fast, loud music of today’s wedding DJ’s. There were the usual wedding couple’s first dance, bride/father, mother/son, and dollar dances, but the highlight was always the Grand March, often led by either John Tucci or Hank Fabrizio. All ages joyously followed their lead in march tempo.
On the same block as the lodge (now a medical center) stands the centerpiece of the East Side, St. Anthony of Padua Church. Almost all of the Italian families of Cortland belonged to this parish whether they lived on the East Side or South End. Our religious lives and a good deal of our social lives revolved around the church and its men’s and women’s organizations, which were the Holy Name Society for men and the Sodality of Our Lady of the Rosary and the Altar Society for women. Most of the festivities we had during my childhood are still being carried on now, such as the Election Day Spaghetti Supper and the St. Anthony’s festival and parade, now called a procession. For some years, we had Carnevale, the Italian word for the celebration just before Lent, akin to Mardi Gras. This happened in the basement of the church and was kind of a mini, indoors St. Anthony’s festival complete with food, booths, raffles, games, music, and teenage girls dancing the tarantella. Most of these girls are now in their late seventies and still attend our parish.
St. Anthony’s still has a May Crowning of the Blessed Mother, but it is quite different from the May Procession and Living Rosary of my childhood, which began with a procession down Pomeroy Street from the San Rocco Lodge. This was quite a lavish event that required practice sessions led by Bella Fabrizio, Yolanda “Weazer” Fabrizio, and Josephine Fabrizio, and mothers sewing gowns for their participating daughters. This was the hierarchy of participation. Little girls from four to five years old were angels with wings and halos. Next came flower basket bearing girls from about six to ten years old in long blue organdy dresses with puffed sleeves, which mothers sewed from patterns. From fifth grade through high school came the “Hail Mary’s.” These were girls who, in my time, wore floor length white gowns and individually recited their prayer during the Living Rosary in the church. The gown my mother painstakingly made me was an exquisite combination of satin and tulle. The “Our Fathers” were older teenagers who belonged to the Sodality. The pièce de résistance was the May queen and her court, comprised of girls chosen from the ranks of the Sodality. The girls often dressed in gowns they had worn to formal dances for the high school, meaning they often had to wear shawls or tulle coverings around their shoulders to be church-appropriate.
Once in the church, we all stood in the aisles in the shape of a huge Rosary, with adult women of the Sodality forming a cross in the middle aisle. One lone little boy in a white suit held a pillow with a miniature crown. After the queen had climbed the stairs to crown a statue of the Virgin Mary, surrounded by a satin-clad shrine made by Rosemary Nitti, we sang Marian hymns in English, Italian, and Latin and said the Rosary, each girl saying her own prayer. It was spectacular!
The main event of the St. Anthony’s year has always been the St. Anthony’s Day festival and procession, which started with a simple march by Italian men down Main Street, accompanied by a hired band in 1905. By the time St. Anthony’s parish was founded in 1917, the festival was a major event of Cortland County. In my childhood, the festival consisted of a novena dedicated to St. Anthony as the lead up to the weekend closest to June 13th, the saint’s feast day. This version of the festival ran from Saturday to Sunday night on the Pomeroy School playground with closing fireworks by Patsy Buttino. The special Mass on Sunday morning had a touching Italian hymn to our patron saint sung by thirteen boys dressed as monks. After lunch, we returned to the church for the big parade that lasted at least two hours and ran from Elm Street and Clinton Ave. through Main Street, around Pine and Scammell Street, and back via Port Watson Street, the Comando Ave. “horseshoe,” and back to the church for benediction.
St. Anthony’s parade was always the most important to me, which is why I have been the chair of that event since 2006! My participation in the parade, now called a procession, started when, dressed as an angel, I sat on a pillow on the Sodality float. The parade’s floats were beautiful creations made by parishioners over Brockway trucks, our main East Side factory. Without complaint, my fellow angels and I sat on those pillows with our arms crossed for the duration of the parade, except for when we were lifted down to have Italian cookies and soft drink at the multiple stops near the lawns of parishioners along the way. Even though we were little, we had a sense that what we were doing was important. Once I had made my First Holy Communion, I “graduated” to marching with the First Communion class, led by my godmother Josephine Fabrizio and Mary DeGrace, followed by other parish children. Wearing our First Communion dresses, my sister Deborah and I led the two parallel lines of the children’s group for several years. My most vivid memory was the surge of pride I felt in being an Italian American of St. Anthony’s when we turned from Clinton Avenue onto Main Street, and we filed past throngs of people who clapped as we passed.
In the 1960’s, the parades went through transformations, first adding more high school bands and drum and bugle corps to the floats and religious societies and Civic and VFW band of the 1950’s. Then in the later 1970s and 1980s, the focus became more ethnic. Along with smaller religious floats after Brockway’s closed, parishioners started wearing Italian fold costumes, and Italian flags and tri-colors abounded. That is more or less what we have today but with a shorter route around the East Side.
I graduated from Cortland High School in 1966 and Cornell University in 1970, followed by graduate studies in Italian literature and twelve years living in Rome and Bologna in northern Italy. My childhood family, church, and neighborhood experiences of Italian heritage on Cortland’s East Side had made me hungry for “the real thing.” I loved my time of living as a “real” Italian, meeting my many relatives and learning about the many regions of Italy with their unique histories, dialects, customs, and food. However, on every St. Anthony’s Day, I cried because I was not at St. Anthony’s in Cortland even though Padova, Italy, is the place where St. Anthony lived the later part of his life. During my years in Italy, my youngest sister Adrienne also moved there.
Eventually, I returned to Cortland, but my connection to Italy and the East Side has continued. I own our family home on Elm Street, and I am a very active parishioner at St. Anthony’s, where I am co-director of religious education with my husband Bob Densmore and my son Noel teaches the Confirmation class. In addition to being chair of the St. Anthony’s procession, I am on St. Anthony’s Parish Council, head the greeters’ ministry, and serve as a lector. I taught free Italian courses for the community at St. Anthony’s from 2008 until COVID and would like to resume them in the future. I was even an adjunct professor of Italian at SUNY Cortland, in addition to teaching at Cortland Jr. Sr. High School for the past thirty-three years. I am also a past president of Stella D’Oro Lodge, Cortland’s women’s lodge affiliated with Sons and Daughters of Italy in America. Five generations of my family have been members of that lodge, starting with my grandmother Concetta and continuing to one of my granddaughters! On the home front, I make Italian family dinners on Sundays and holidays and make sure my grandchildren get presents from the Befana on January 6th, as I started doing with my son when he was little. Following my parents’ example with my sisters and me, I have always tried to put my child’s and now my grandchildren’s welfare first.
Along the way, I have also learned about other ethnicities, especially the Ukrainian community of Cortland, which reminds me so much of Cortland’s Italian community decades ago and for whom I have great respect. There is even a connection with Italy because we are proud to have a Ukrainian refugee family in our parish. St. Anthony’s now has people of many backgrounds who also enjoy the Italian-inspired activities at our church. Ultimate proof of St. Anthony’s being a welcoming parish is that one of the members of the Ukrainian family is now married to one of our parishioners of Italian ancestry.
Nobel Prize winning author Saul Bellow once wrote that we all have a “core person,” the embodiment of our true essence. I still teach, have a wide variety of friends, and enjoy traveling with my husband. However, in my heart of hearts, I am still, and will always be, an East Side girl!
