My mother was born to Amalia
(Emma) Vassalotti and Ansalmo Rondinelli in Philadelphia on the twenty-first of
December 1915. For my entire life,
we celebrated her birthdays on Christmas Eve, only to learn after her death in
1991 that she was actually born on December 21. That discrepancy has never been explained. Another surprise was learning her name
was Mary Josephine, and not Josephine Mary. She was the youngest of five
children – 3 boys and 2 girls, and her father, of who very little is known,
died shortly after her birth.
Her mother re-married to Gaetano Madorna, a widower with 6 children. (They
had two more, Tommy and Eleanor.) Their small row home in south
Philadelphia had only 3 bedrooms, and at age 11 my mother and her 3 older
brothers, Carmen, Alfred, and Sammy, moved into a nearby apartment; she left school
after the 6th grade to run their small household. Her older sister, Grace, had married
and was starting her own family.
For the remainder of her life, Grace was the real mother figure for my
mom.
Jo Rondinelli - living with 3 older brothers and being an 11 year old adult. Fortunately she was with 3 brothers who adored her and cared for her. But still.......
I love this photo. It shows determination and a will, far beyond her 11 years, completely in keeping with the amazing person she was to become.
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