Strega Rosa Chapter 2, Father Tomas Saint Francis De Sales, Detroit, MI, (1955)
by Antonia Teresa Amore-Broccoli
I'm the fifth child of six biological children, a “baby” baby boomer, born in 1959. My parents are both first generation Italian Americans. I was born in a winter storm in Detroit, Michigan, in Providence Hospital, on a frigid night in February. I love to say ‘Baby Baby’ boomer because my mother started having babies in 1946, one year after my father returned from the war as a sergeant in the Marines. They married on September 9, 1945 as soon as the WWII war ended and my father returned home. My mother has worked as Rosie the Riveter working in a local Detroit industrial factory but was forced to quit when the men needed the jobs, marry and begin a family. Before I was born, my mother honestly did not want any more children. After her fourth child was born in 1955, she announced to my Papa that she was going to start using birth control pills. My Papa told my mother that first they better speak to the Catholic priest at their local catholic parish where my older sister had been baptized in Detroit.
The actual story has been repeated many times by my mother. This is how I recall it: I imagine my parents walking through a hallway, my mother dressed elegantly in a slim, fashionable 1950’s dress with high heels. My Papa is wearing gray pleated trousers and a polo shirt underneath an open sport jacket. My Papa is walking ahead of my mother across a stone floor. Their shoes create a clicking noise as they hit the cold white and black tile. Above the floor are large stained glass windows and beneath the windows, the space is filled with statues of different Catholic deities, including Saint Teresa, Saint Francis, Saint Jude, Mother Mary, the Madonna, and of course a statue of Jesus all of which lead right up to the priest's office.
I imagine my mother and my Papa sitting across from the priest, seated at his desk. My mother initiates the conversation and my Papa goes on to explain that they already have two boys and two girls and don’t want to have any more children. The priest responds, saying that using birth control is against church values and children are a gift from God. The priest Father Tomas explains that my parents may continue to use the natural rhythm method, but using birth control is strictly forbidden.
After that discussion, incredibly, my mother manages to go three years without becoming pregnant using the rhythm method alone. That was until the late spring of 1958 when she became pregnant with me. Once Ma discovered her pregnancy, she told my Papa the news and my Papa proclaimed his paternal right: “It’s my turn to name the child.” Believing that history would repeat itself because they already had two boys and two girls, my Papa naturally thought that this time they would have another son. My Ma sarcastically remarked “You can name this baby after the goddamn priest for all I care.” Obviously she wasn't very happy about her fifth pregnancy. So when I was born, I was supposed to be named after the priest: Father Tomas.
I was actually named Teresa Antoinette; my middle name was selected after my father’s cousin, Antoinette, who lived in the Detroit suburbs in a really large, beautiful home in a nice neighborhood. She had several children and a dark, handsome husband. Later I learned that Teresa is also the name of my great paternal Aunt Teresa. In Italian Antonietta's name is little Antonia or little Antoinette. Similar to Loretta, who is little Laura.
My Papa deliberately gave us Italian names that were also Anglo sounding and he made sure that they were spelled in proper English to disguise our Italian identity. Papa proudly proclaimed our names and their spelling could be either Italian or French. Somehow for him, being French was more acceptable and elegant than being Italian. Certainly it was more Anglo, which he liked. This was his way to make sure our names would assimilate us into mainstream America and we would not stand out as Italian. My father was a child of immigrant parents and as a result he was ridiculed and teased, not only by his classmates and neighbors, but also by the school staff for his Italian language, his name changed from Gueseppe to Joseph and his dark skin, his obvious Italian but strange last name which was a vegetable , and his parents’ immigrant status. They themselves barely spoke or wrote much English.
The suffocating, soul crushing oppression of women, specifically our mothers, grandmothers, and aunts, was certainly alive and well the night I was born in 1959, thanks to the longstanding patriarchal beliefs and practices of Italian Catholics, those in Italy and those in America. Nevertheless, on that frigid winter night when I was born, my mother was celebrating her parents’ wedding anniversary. There was a terrible blizzard, and in the midst of that intense winter storm, Ma went into labor with me. That stormy night was perhaps indicative of what was to come later for me, in my young life.
Years later, when I was an undergraduate student at UCSC in Literature, my Ma walked with me from Family student housing to Kresge college and she told me that she was so proud of me and that she knew I was special. I liked hearing this but I really didn't know what she meant by it. Later on when she passed away in 1998; I was in shock when I found paperwork from the Social security administration with a MD verification of my diagnosis of cerebral palsy. My mother had collected disabled children’s social security for my disability. She applied for social security as extra income after my father abandoned her with four daughters in 1966 with no financial support. My mother was forced to work fulltime and take night classes in bookkeeping after volunteering as a bookkeeper at our local Catholic school in exchange for our tuition. At the age of 40 I began to piece together the fragmented story of my childhood.
