Trupo Family
Return to New Jersey
Uncle Nick Loprete, Michael and Stella Trupo
circa late 1940s
Mary came back to New Jersey for about three months in 1950. I called her and told her I had taken my father to the doctor – he had been ill. The doctor told me that the x-rays showed that he had cancer. In those days very few people were cured of cancer. He had contracted it when he worked in the shipyards during the war. They had worked with asbestos.
The doctor said there was nothing they could do – he had six months or a year at most to live. I told Mary that the doctor advised me not to tell Mom or Pat – or him – that he had cancer, as they would not be able to handle it. So I said I would tell her and Tony, but no one else. I said, "It would be great if you could come out to see him before he goes." "But if I come home, he'll guess." she said. I said, "No, tell him you're coming as you want him to see his grandson. He'll love to see Alan, because he's thrilled with Marie." Which she did.
He was happy that he saw his two grandchildren. Mary stayed for about three months. It was great having her home for that time. We told Pop that the doctor said he had trouble with his gall bladder, and would have to take medicine for a while to help him. But there was no medicine that could cure him, and he died in July of 1951.
When Pop was alive he used to write and send clothes to our cousins in Italy. They used to send us fennel seeds that Mom used when she made sausage. And, some seeds were used when she made some Albanian bread for the holidays.
After Pop died, Mom used to dictate and I wrote a few letters in Italian. I had taken French an Italian in my college prep courses. You needed three years of French or Italian to enter college in those days. They used to write back in Italian, and I would read the letters to Mom. But after she died, that was it.
You know Pop used to make his own wine every year, and during the wine-making season we all got together and helped. Your father always wanted to make his own wine the way our father did, but none of us knew how after Pop died. We had a general idea, but Mom and Pop always went together to select the grapes. We had a wine cellar, barrels for the wine, and a wine press which Pop borrowed and passed along to others making wine.