Dad...age 14
My father was born to
Angelina and Salvatore Renzulli on October 27, 1913, in Landisville NJ. His birth certificate lists his name as
Spartaco Diagora Renzulli, and not Spartico as it was commonly spelled, even on
his passport. fortunately for him and everyone else, he was known as Duke. He was 8 years old
when his mother died, a loss that I now believe he felt his entire life. While all of his older siblings
completed high school and went on to college or business school, he chose to
leave school after the 8th grade to work the farm with his
father. He never spoke about it,
but I suspect there were times he regretted leaving school when he did. Like his father, he loved to read; his
favorite subject was political history, American and European.
My father’s name
reflects the passionate social and political beliefs of my grandfather. Spartaco was to pay homage to
Spartacus, who led a failed slave revolt against the Romans. Diagaro is Italian for Diagoras, the 5th
century Greek atheist, philosopher, and poet.
The names selected by my grandfather for all of his children is worthy of a post of its own.
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