In response to a number of letters from readers, here is another chapter from the life of Carla Capobianco. Carla was the first woman I interviewed in connection with this project, and it was she who awakened in me the realization of the power hidden beneath the veneer of so-called “ordinary” lives.
     How many options did a girl have if she was born in the first decade of the 20th century in a small town in Sicily? Carla, as a girl, dreamed of becoming a dancer, and at the very least, wanted to go to college and become a teacher. When her parents refused, she could imagine only two possibilities: remain single and care for her aging parents and be a maid in the family hotel, or marriage. In a desperate attempt to seize control of her destiny, she rebelled against her family and, at sixteen, proposed to a man she barely knew because, in her words, “he liked to sing and dance and I wanted to sing and dance. And we did enjoy ourselves for few years, until the children came.”
     She followed her husband to New York City, an act of remarkable courage when you understand that she was only seventeen and had never been further than a few miles from her birthplace. And since the age of nine, she had been cloistered inside her home and not allowed contact with anyone without a chaperone present.
     Like most women I have interviewed, Carla did not want her life to be like her mother’s, but in many ways she repeated the pattern. Like her mother, she became both a mother and a full-time businesswoman.
     In the narrative that follows, Carla talks about an ordinary day and the responsibilities she shouldered and carried. Could Hercules have done it? I doubt it. Yet the tales of his labors have been sung for centuries and he is considered superhuman.

CARLA CAPOBIANCO
I Did Almost Everything

Every morning I got up at seven o’clock. The kitchen was on the first floor, behind the store. We had nothing to eat upstairs, so I had to go downstairs to make breakfast for the kids before they went to school. Many days when I went down in the morning, customers were already waiting outside the gate. They needed socks, they needed something to wear to school, to work. I had to take care of them before I made the breakfast. When I had the food ready, I’d knock on the steam pipe to tell the kids to get up, to come down. We ate a lot of cake, toasted bread, and if it was cold in the morning, I cooked oatmeal or farina. Then everybody ran to school. I was lucky because the school was right around the corner and they didn’t have to cross any streets. Later on they had to go to a school that was farther away, but by then they were old enough to cross streets by themselves. So I never had to walk my children to school.
     After they left, I started to do the housework or, if there were customers, I’d take care of them.
     Marco got up about nine o’clock. In the night he stayed up late, until two o’clock in the morning. He used to watch the store because he was afraid people would break in and rob him. After he dressed himself, he came downstairs, and I made his breakfast. While he ate, I went back upstairs and straightened the rooms and made the beds. On the second floor we had five rooms and a bathroom. When I came back downstairs, it would be about ten o’clock. I took over in the store, and Marco went out with the pushcart or the truck. After he stopped peddling, he still went to New York every day to buy or exchange goods. If a holiday was coming up, Marco and I both went to New York to go to the wholesale stores. We went together on Sundays because the wholesale stores were closed on Saturdays. We did that even when the children were young. There was so much to shop for, and he wanted to show me the new merchandise, and a lot of the time we both came back carrying bundles. I would carry two small bundles, he had two big bundles. Even on a Sunday.
     I washed clothes once a week, and on that day I had five, six lines of clothes to dry. The machine and the washtub were in the back of the store. I had to pull the machine over and hook it up to the washtub. I’m not strong, and for me it was hard work. I used to wash in a way that would save the soap and the bleach. First I did the sheets, then the underwear, and after that the clothes that didn’t need strong bleach. I put the soap in the wash tub, soaked the clothes, took them out, and almost all the dirt stayed in the tub. That way the water in my machine stayed almost clean, and I could save water. Then I took out that dirty water in the tub, I put in clean water and soap and soaked the next batch of clothes, and while the machine was working, I pushed the clothes with my hands into the wringer. Washing took me sometimes a day to finish, going back and forth from the store to the machine. Socks and things like that I washed by hand, and that could take me another day.
     If I was very sick, Marco would send our clothes to the laundry. That cost a dollar for a big bundle of clothes. Of course, a dollar was a lot of money then.
     Sometimes, when I was busy in the store, I had a little girl who would come in after she came home from school and take care of the kids. With Gerry, I got some help from the lady next door. She had a grocery. Her husband was an old man, and he used to get up at four o’clock in the morning, and then, around eleven o’clock, he used to go back to bed and sleep for a couple hours. Every time her husband was sleeping, that lady sat in front by the door. I used to put the baby carriage outside so the baby could sleep in the sun, and she would watch her for me. Sometimes the baby would wake up and she’d play with her. That was a big help to me, almost every day. Sometimes customers didn’t come into the store and I had a chance to do a little housework.
     That lady’s son was married and lived across the street, but he didn’t provide for his family. My friend didn’t want to tell her husband to give her son money, so I let her daughter-in-law buy on credit at the store. She didn’t tell her husband about the credit, and I didn’t tell Marco.

     Most of the customers were good, but every once in a while I got somebody who was a pain in the neck. One woman, she was even a friend of ours, she would take a dress, or a shirt, she’d turn it this way, she’d turn it that way. She always found something wrong, and she’d take another one to examine. One time I asked her if she behaved that way in other stores, and she said she did the same thing. She used to clean her house and cook in the morning, and then she had the rest of the day just to look. I’d see her come in, and I’d say, “Oh, now I’m going to be busy with her for a couple hours.” If Marco was home and I was busy, he’d take care of her. But she did the same thing, Marco or me, it didn’t matter. Marco used to sit on top of the counter and smoke cigarettes while she took her time and looked through all our goods. I never understood how she had so much time, because I never had so much time.
     Women came in and they didn’t even know what size they wanted. Their own babies, their own husbands, and they wouldn’t know the size. I had to ask, “Chubby, not chubby?” They came to buy underwear for their husbands and they didn’t know what size. They all did laundry and had to hang it up, so I’d hold up a piece of underwear and say, “Does it look this big on the line, or like this?” They took whatever looked right. If they guessed right, they expected me to remember the size.
     There were men who came to the store but not to buy anything. I knew what they wanted. One day I was alone and a neighbor came in, a friend. He talked and talked and finally he touched me on my arm. I backed away. He followed. He followed me clear to the back of the store and into the kitchen. Still he followed me, until I was behind the door to the backyard. Then I said, “What do we do now? Do you want me to open the door and we can go out into the yard?” Then, do you know what he did? He saluted me. Saluted me as if he was a soldier and I was the general. He never said another word to me. He respected me because I refused and I didn’t make a big thing of it.

     When anything went wrong, Marco blamed me. And he didn’t accept excuses. So all the time while I worked, I worried. I worried all the time about the kids when they were going to school. I was afraid because if anything had happened to the children, or if they did anything wrong, Marco blamed me.

     None of the children had a key of their own. I was home all the time. I never went out. What did they need a key for?
     The house had two doors, one on each side of the vestibule. The outside door was open; we never locked it. The inside door was kept locked. Marco kept a key, but nobody was allowed to touch his key. If we needed his key, we had to ask him for it. If the children lost a key, he would yell at me.
     We had trouble all the time over those damn keys. We had three or four keys, but we could never find a key. Everybody took a key, and everybody forgot and left the key upstairs. And all my children, they still have trouble with keys. I never lose keys anymore. But my children, that’s all they look for, the key, the key, the key to the car, the key to the house.

     The children were supposed to come right home after school. They all had to be home by a certain time. If they weren’t home, I had to go look for them, even if I had to close the store.
     I didn’t have time to cook fancy meals. Only people who can spend most of their time in the kitchen can do that. Marco liked macaroni every night. Macaroni with butter because he didn’t like too much sauce. He liked macaroni prepared with a vegetable, with peas, with broccoli. That broccoli smelled so terrible. Every time I cooked broccoli, everybody said, “Owww, what a stink!” But when I cooked squash, everybody said, “Owww, what a good smell!” That’s because I used to add tomatoes when I cooked squash, and I used to add onions.
     Marco liked pork, but after he got ulcers he didn’t want pork anymore, and he didn’t want anybody else to eat pork either. Once or twice a year we had sausage. Gerry cooks a lot of pork now. When she serves pork, Gerry always says, “This is sweet meat that Papa never let us have.”
     I used to make dried tomatoes. I used to make pickled eggplant. I bought olives when they came once a year into the stores. I’d chop and soak them in brine. I was still making a few bottles of olives even after I retired, just to have that taste once in a while. But my children didn’t care too much for this.

     Marco always seem to know exactly when I was going to serve the meal. I’d put food on the table and he’d walk in the door. He did that almost all the time. He didn’t always tell me if he wasn’t coming home. When he didn’t come, I just left food on top of stove for him. I didn’t say anything to him. I figured he could do what he wanted.
     He could be a pain in the neck at the table. He sat down, and if something was missing that he wanted, he didn’t eat. He didn’t speak. He just sat with his hands folded in his lap. I went crazy. Is it the salt? The cheese? The bread? He sat and waited until I figured out what it was he wanted and brought it to him.
     At six-thirty we ate supper, and if any of the children came late, he sent them upstairs. Big or small, everybody was supposed to be home for supper. That was the rule. Peter was almost sure to be sent upstairs because he was always late.
     Peter got hit a lot at the table because he was like he is now. He liked to break all the rules, he was always teasing. A lot of times he didn’t like the food, and he sat on my right hand, so every time he got fresh, I hit him with the back of my hand. And still he’s like that, always joking.
     My children were jealous of each other. They fought. They couldn’t say anything nice to each other. Peter was always teasing. Gerry was always fighting. Gerry got mad, she cried. She had to answer back. She always had to say the last word. And Danny didn’t want to eat.
     Sometimes we bought half a lamb’s head. Peter and Teresa liked that so much, especially the meat on the face. Gerry, she wouldn’t eat those things. She would only eat the brains. So I had to take a little bit of the brain from my plate and Marco’s plate for her.
     Both of them, Gerry and Danny, they started to like food only when they really understood what food was. Then, after they started to like food, they ate and ate, and from thin they went to fat. Gerry, at ten years, we couldn’t even find a dress to fit her. Now Gerry says, “It’s your fault I’m fat because you were always feeding me.”
     The girls fought over the dishes. Teresa was supposed to wash and Gerry was supposed to dry. But Gerry would go to the bathroom and not come out until Teresa finished everything. Teresa did the work because she wasn’t allowed to go out with her friends until all her work was done. They fought over the housework. We had six rooms upstairs, and the two girls were supposed to clean them. Gerry would start washing a window in the living room. She’d sit in the window and sing. Teresa would clean all the other rooms while Gerry was at that one window. And because Gerry sang while she washed the window, people noticed her. Then the people came in the store, and if they saw Teresa and I said, “This is my daughter” they’d smile and say “Gerry?” And Teresa would grind her teeth and say, “No! Teresa. NOT Gerry!”
     Gerry used to take Teresa’s clothes to wear. Teresa was working then for a dress designer in New York and she had to look good. Every night she chose her clothes for the next day and she laid them out. Gerry took what she wanted and wore it, and in the morning Teresa had to iron something else for herself.
     One time Teresa saw Gerry in the street and Gerry was wearing a new blouse Teresa just bought. Teresa said to her, “How dare you take off the tags and wear my blouse without even asking me?” Gerry ran home and complained that Teresa embarrassed her in the street in front of people she knew. That’s the way she was. I had to try to make the peace always, and if I didn’t, Marco yelled at me.
     Danny suffered when he was very young. The store was very busy when he was a baby. So many times I started to feed him, and the spoon was no sooner in his mouth than a customer came in. I took care of the customer and came back, but the baby food would be cold. I’d warm it up again, but the baby didn’t want to eat. He was sickly and I couldn’t take care of him right. Rosie, my neighbor, took care of him for one month, and he gained weight. I still feel so bad that I didn’t have enough time for him.

     The store stayed open until ten o’clock at night, sometimes ten-thirty on weekends, eleven o’clock at Christmas and Easter.
     I tried to go to bed at twelve o’clock, when the hands of the dock were together like in prayer. Sometimes midnight came and I still had to wash the floors. If I had no time during the day, I had to stay up and wash the floors at midnight. The floor had to be cleaned.
     Sometime after I went to bed a customer would ring the bell. Could be twelve, one o’clock in the morning. They’d bang on the door, they’d holler, “Carla, I have to go to work in the morning and I don’t have any stockings.” I’d get up, dress myself, and go down and take care of them.

     Sometimes during the day, when I was in the store alone, without a customer, if I sat down in a chair I’d fall fast asleep.

     Two times Marco left me alone, and then I had to do everything myself. In 1939, he went to Chicago to the World’s Fair. It was summer and I was scared and I kept all the windows closed because I was afraid somebody might break in during the night. I was living on Rockaway Avenue on the first floor. If a man had wanted to break in, he didn’t even need a stepladder, he could just climb through the window. There were no bars on the windows.
     Marco stayed in Chicago for three weeks. He was having a good time with the girls. I had three small children, Teresa, Gerry and Peter, and I had the store and the house and everything, and I managed.
     After my father died, Marco went back to Italy for three months to straighten out my inheritance. He left on the Fourth of July and he came back in the middle of October. Imagine! Marco went away for three months, and I took care of the kids, I took care of the store, I took care of the house, everything. I even went to New York to buy goods, because it was fall, the weather started to turn cold, and I had to get winter goods because people were asking for winter clothes, flannel nightgowns, flannel pajamas, sweaters. Every Sunday I went to New York and bought goods for the store. And I never got mad. I just closed the store and went myself. The kids were old enough to stay by themselves. I could have taken Peter with me, I could have said to Teresa, “Come help me.” But it was easier to go by myself, because when my children go any place, they always fight. One will want to go to the restaurant, another will want to do something else, they never can agree.
     Marco wasn’t too good with the children. He didn’t have patience. In 1950, after the war, I went to Italy with Peter for two weeks. By this time the children were grown. Gerry was thirteen, Teresa was twenty, Peter was twenty-three. Marco had the store, but even with the kids to help him, he thought it was too much for him. He said for two weeks he was going crazy. Imagine! He went to Italy for three months and I took care of the kids, I took care of the store, I took care of everything by myself.
     Thank God, really, my children didn’t have any really bad sicknesses. They had the mumps, three of them at once. It was near Easter. Those sicknesses usually come in the spring. In those days, the priest used to visit and bless the house every year. When the priest came to bless our house, he saw all the kids sick in bed and he didn’t want to take a donation. They had the measles, they had everything. When one got something, they all caught it.
     If the children got sick, I had nobody to figure for me, to tell me what I should do, what I shouldn’t do. I did what I could, that’s all. If I had been in Italy, my sister would have come, my mother would have come. But here I had nobody. I had to learn myself how to take care of the children, the house, the business, everything in life. I managed. I don’t know how, but I did it.

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