POSTERITY from my Grandfather: THE LIFE STORY OF JOSEPH M. VINCITORE : AS TOLD TO HIS DAUGHTER MARY JO VINCITORE DEANS
THE LIFE STORY OF JOSEPH M. VINCITORE
AS TOLD TO HIS DAUGHTER MARY JO VINCITORE DEANS
January 2003
THE EARLY YEARS
I was born in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. at the stroke of midnight, between July 18th or 19th, 1918. I was the third child and only son of Michele and Marta (Roglieri) Vincitore who had emigrated from Gio del Colle near Bari, Italy.
My mother’s brothers, Guissepe, Vito and Donato, were very protective, and had discouraged any romance between her and Michele in the “old country“. It was only coincidence that brought them together again in Rochester, New York. New immigrants to America, each was visiting relatives there. Once they met again, they were determined to marry. Afraid her brothers would make a scene, they had a quiet wedding Their only extravagance was a white horse-drawn carriage in which they rode from the church.
The young couple rented an apartment in Rochester, and Celestina (Jessie) was born the next spring. It was difficult for Italian immigrants to find work and my father would try almost anything. My mother’s brother relented after the marriage, and encouraged Pop to come to Kingston New York to work with him on the new high school. Caterina (Kay) was born here. When that job ended, my father went to work for Moline Plow Company in Poughkeepsie, making products for sale to Russia. He rented an apartment on Bridge Street where I was born. They next moved to Gifford Street, where Giovanna (Jane) was born.
In the early 1920’s, Pop bought his first house at
View Larger Map“”>38 South Clover Street in Poughkeepsie, and it is here where most of my boyhood memories are. Yet another child – my youngest sister Adelena (Lee) – came along, completing their family: My mother had five babies in ten years, all born at home.
Our three story house at 38 South Clover Street was brick, with an Italianate roof. Until I was about seven, the house was lit with gaslight which was functional but cast only a dim glow. I can still remember how I was dazzled by the bright light from an electric bulb when the electricity was first hooked up. One electric bulb could light up a whole room! We didn’t have central heating until I was about fifteen. A large cooking stove, fueled with either coal or wood, heated the downstairs, but the bedrooms upstairs stayed cool. Most of the time, we washed in front of the stove. A hot water tank was attached to the stove, but the tin tub and one toilet were in the cellar. Jessie remembers that I was the only one who slept in the heated downstairs. Everyone else carefully wrapped a brick they had heated on the stove and carried it upstairs to warm their bed. I had pneumonia twice, and my mother worried about my health. When my room was turned into a bathroom, she fixed up a smaller room downstairs in which I could sleep.
My older sisters Jessie and Kay complained that I was spoiled because I was never asked to get a jug of wine from the barrels in the cellar. My father made five barrels of wine a year and we always had wine with dinner. Our meals were modest, but are now considered healthful eating: lots of beans, lentils, fresh greens, soup, fish, pasta and tomato sauce. Meat was for special occasions, and we never had enough milk to drink any time we wanted.
We had very few toys. Jessie says she never had a store-bought doll although her mother fashioned some small dolls from fabric. Someone gave me a scooter when I was about 11 which was great fun, but grieved my mother when I wore out just one shoe!
My father had many jobs but his last and longest was in a coat factory where he inspected and touched up every coat that left the factory. Mom worked at home finishing the coats. The factory would drop them off and she and Jessie would sew on them in the evenings. Jessie can remember getting up at 4AM to finish and bundle the coats for the morning pickup.
As was the custom in Italian families, I had to learn a trade. When I was 10 years of age, my mother arranged for me to learn the barber trade. My job was to sweep the floor after the men got haircuts, and then clean the spittoons. I had to take the spitoons into the back room and wash them, but every time I tried, I would get sick and throw up. When my mother learned of this, she immediately took me out of there and asked a second cousin, Pat DeBellis, if he had room for me to work in his music store. Pat sold records, sheet music, player pianos, piano rolls, and victrolas. My job would be to clean and run errands. My salary was a saxophone lesson a week. Pat was a good teacher and I was a good student, so much so, that by age eleven, I was playing difficult solos and entered every amateur show in town. I remember always getting first prize and this helped him increase the number of his students.
Pat put together a kid orchestra and paid us $2 per person for each dance job. Because we had a piano, we practiced in our living room. My lifelong friends Paul Such and Johnnie Paroli were members . Since we were all too young to drive, Pat would drive us to our jobs. Jessie remembers that our kid orchestra played for her wedding to Pat Calio.
By the time I graduated from high school, I knew what I wanted to do for a living and that was – music. I must give credit to Pat’s wife Ethel, who worked endless hours with me as my piano accompanist. She was a fantastic musician and had a huge effect on my musical career. Ethel De Bellis once confided that when her large family had first immigrated to America, they were detained on Ellis Island. They had been there for a long time, and were becoming anxious. Day after day, families were called to begin the processing, but their name was never called. One day, the Ellis Island attendant called for the “Rosen family”. When no Rosen answered the call, Ethel’s father stepped forward, claimed the name, and began life in America. We never knew what her real name was.
My high school music teacher recommended that I apply to the Julliard School of Music in New York City, so, with my mother’s permission, I took the train into the city. I spoke to the lady in charge and asked if I could be admitted. When I told her I played saxophone she laughed, and said we only teach musical instruments, not “inventions“. I went back home disheartened but my mother said “Why don’t you go back and tell them you want to play clarinet?” I went back and I remember the lady saying to me, “You again?!” I explained I wanted to study clarinet.
She asked me if I played clarinet. I said “no“. “My dear boy” she answered “Don’t you know you have to be proficient in order to be admitted?” I told her, “I am a good reader and, if given a chance, I will work hard and learn quickly.” At this point she said, “I will take you up to the clarinet teacher and PERHAPS he will make an exception.” Mr. Jan Williams, the instructor, was the brother of Earnest Williams who ran the famous summer camp for musicians in Woodstock, NY. Jan Williams’ background was impressive. He had worked twelve years at the Metropolitan Opera House, and thirteen years at Radio Music Hall. He had also done work for Toscanini with major symphonies.
He must have recognized my enthusiasm because he agreed to give me three months to “shape up or ship out”. I wanted to prove myself and practiced 8 hrs a day for the next six months, at which time he said that I had done more work and made more progress than any other student he had taught in two years. I was very proud of that and we became good friends. He would invite me to study with him in the summer at his home in Woodstock. I often stayed two or three days a week and remember practicing duets and exercises with him there, under the pine trees.
I spent three and a half years at Julliard and then was offered a job with the Dallas Symphony orchestra and another with a traveling dance band. Both paid $125 a week, but I refused them both because I had fallen in love with red-headed Mary Alice King from Monticello, a young registered nursing student at Vassar Brothers Hospital School of Nursing.
Mary was of Irish extraction, the second oldest of seven children: Helen, Mary, James, Eleanor, Richard, Joseph and Thomas. Her father Joseph David King and mother Alice Murran King lived in a white wood framed house, surrounded by bungalows rented by NYC Jewish vacationers each summer, on the Forestburg road in Monticello. Joe King worked as a custodian and as a car mechanic. Alice kept her brother Tom’s account books, and he, in turn, helped with the groceries from his dairy farm and grocery store.
I first met Mary when I was playing a dance at the Normandy Night Club. Although she arrived with a date, we couldn’t stop looking at each other. I finally pulled her aside and asked her out. She told me later that she confided to a friend that night that she had just met the man she would marry.
After Julliard, I went to work for Pat DeBellis servicing 55 juke boxes throughout Dutchess county for $15.00 per week. I developed a fine rapport with my customers who kept urging me to install pin ball machines on their premises. I asked Pat if he was interested in doing that and he said “Absolutely not!” He thought it would involve the rackets, but I told him it was perfectly legitimate and that I wanted to take a crack at it. At this time I was playing six nights a week which brought me another $18.00. My piano player, George Sillis, knew electronics fairly well and I suggested to him we try just one pin ball machine. We went to New York City on 10th Ave where they sold used machines and bought one for $8.00. I placed it in a saloon in Amenia. Five days later, I received a call from my irate customer that the pinball machine had broken down. I called George and we went to service the machine. The only thing that was wrong with it was that it was stuffed with $84.00 in nickels!
We took our share of the profits – $42.00 – and everyone was happy. Needless to say, it opened up our eyes to the potential, and the next day we went back to 10th Avenue and bought two more machines. Our business grew until soon we had 15 machines. Then Uncle Sam called me to serve for what they said would be one year. George said he would hold the business together until I got back, but the checks got smaller and smaller. I told George to take half of the machines and put half in my father’s cellar. He was a good repair man, but not a good business person. In early 1941, Mary and I became engaged, and decided to marry after I was discharged from the army – supposedly in one year.
THE WAR YEARS
On December 7, 1941, I was twenty three years old and driving my father’s ‘38 Pontiac back to Fort Bragg NC. I was planning to pack up a year’s worth of belongings to bring back to Poughkeepsie as soon as the Army discharged me after the required year of service. Somewhere in Maryland, I heard President Roosevelt’s grim announcement that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. I knew all discharge and marriage plans would be put on hold, but had no choice other than to continue to Bragg. Once there, sure enough, I found I was in the Army for the duration, and spent a bleak Christmas with fellow soldiers in North Carolina. Soon after Christmas, I was granted a two week leave, and I headed home, intent on marrying the girl of my dreams. Mary had since graduated from the Vassar Brothers School of Nursing in Poughkeepsie, and had taken a job as a night supervisor in Middletown’s hospital.
With only two weeks to plan a wedding, there were many shortcuts. The blood tests were waived, surely there was no pastoral counseling. Her sister Helen worried that the marriage was hastily conceived, but agreed to serve as maid of honor. Instead of bridal gowns and bridesmaid ensembles, the bride and her maid wore suits. Mary’s was a Copen or powder blue, with a straight short skirt with a single row of buttons closing the jacket. Helen chose beige. I called on my boyhood friend Paul Such to be my best man. My brother in law, Larry Chiriatti, Kay’s husband, was a tailor and had recently made me a suit perfect for a groom to be. Mary remembers that it was a handsome black suit with a fine purple, gray and white stripe that was beautifully tailored to my slim 120 pound frame. After the brief ceremony, there was a small reception at the Park Hotel on Main Street in Monticello which we paid for ourselves. The weather was cold, but sunny and clear. Ice encrusted the trees and the snow crunched under our feet as we made our way to a second reception in Poughkeepsie.
We took off on an impromptu honeymoon in Washington DC, but, like another Joseph and Mary, we found no room in the inn! The capitol city was in turmoil with the impending war, and all hotel rooms were full. The streets were clogged with snow. South of DC, in Alexandria, we found a sorry little room above a bar, but the noise and flimsy locks made for a restless night. Undaunted, we returned to New York City and found a room in the Prince Edward Hotel for a proper honeymoon, since I had to return to Bragg by the weekend.
Mary stayed at the Middletown hospital until March, when she asked for a 30 day leave to visit her new husband. We found a two room apartment above a grocery store and coffee shop at 2261/2 Person Street, Fayetteville NC. When thirty days were up, Mary knew she wasn’t going to return and she resigned. She took a job at the Fayetteville hospital, but found conditions so abominable, and the pay so wretched that she left after a week, telling them to keep the meager wages. “They needed it more than me”, she says. We lived on $60 a month, more than half of which went for rent. But we were young and in love, and in a time of war and much uncertainty, we were at least together.
The Ninth Division at Bragg under George Patton left for Africa without me. I was first assigned to be a medical technician, until a sergeant in basic training heard me playing my clarinet outside on the steps. He saw to it that I was assigned to the Army Band in Fort Bragg, playing lead clarinet with my buddy Jeep. The Army band was scheduled to leave for the Africa Invasion in October 1942, but three days before they were to be deployed, a telegram came instructing: “Delay Vincitore. Send to Army School for Band Leaders in Fort Meyer Virginia.” I had taken the grueling entrance exams a few months before and was one of only 80 out of 400 applicants who was chosen for the prestigious school. Mary was left to pack up and return north on the train. The bridge was out over the Potomac and she sat on “that dirty old train” for two days while a pontoon bridge was constructed. Two young army wives, Eleanor Puso and Ethel Tarkoz, whose husbands had been sent overseas, were also on the train. Mary lived with her in-laws for a few days until she contacted her Aunt May in Washington and received an invitation to live there – close again to Joe!
While I was at school, Mary would go into Georgetown, shopping, wandering around the Smithsonian museums, often meeting Aunt May for lunch at the Watergate. May had worked at the Veteran’s administration across from the White House since the First World War.
Aunt May was Mary’s mother’s sister. Red haired and pretty, she was one of five children (Helen, Ethel, May, Alice and Tom) born to Emma Jane MacNealy and Cornelius Murran of Monticello, New York. At 14, she was apprenticed to a family in New Jersey as a servant girl, much against her will. After she had fulfilled her obligation, she attended night school to learn secretarial skills which were soon much in demand as WWI broke out. She quickly secured a position with the Veterans Administration in Washington DC. Still angry with her family over the forced apprenticeship, she nevertheless wrote to her sister Ethel, telling her of the many job opportunities.
Ethel came to Washington and also secured a position with the VA. When the war ended, the sisters began dating several returning soldiers. May warned Ethel about Fred Ryan, and the sisters had a huge falling out over Ethel’s choice. Despite her sister’s pleas, Ethel married Fred who was soon discovered to have a common-law wife. Mortified, yet unapologetic to May, Ethel returned to Monticello. May cut off communication with her NY family, except for gentle Alice, Mary’s mother. So years later, in the midst of another World War, she welcomed Alice’s Mary into her home.
May, who was childless, had once begged Alice to give her Mary to raise. She promised to educate and provide well for her red haired niece, but Alice wouldn’t hear of it. May had married a hard hearted man named Arthur Loveless. He ate scrapple for breakfast every morning, and May was not welcomed in his parent’s house, forced to sit in the car whenever he paid them a call. The marriage was indeed “loveless”.
Mary and I returned May’s kindness years later when she was ill and destitute, a widow without means still living in DC. We drove her to Poughkeepsie where she died, reunited with Alice, within a few months.
The days at the Fort Meyer Bandleader’s school were busy. Captain Darcy, the conductor of the US Army Band, coached this elite class in the proper tilt of the head and reach of the arms that translates mere notes into great music. He taught them the subtle gestures of the hands and fingers that distinguish expert band leaders from the unschooled conductor. I joined the 100 voice Army Glee Club and had the honor of performing for President Roosevelt on the lawn of the White House and serenading General Marshall at Christmastime. For years afterward, until it became too scratchy to hear, I treasured a 78 recording of Bach’s Mass in B minor which the Glee Club had performed at the Was… .
After graduating from Band Leaders School, I was assigned first to the Troop Carrier’s Command in Indianapolis, Indiana, and then to Alliance, Nebraska‘s Army Air Force Base. As the band leader warrant officer, I conducted a 42 member Army Air Force band whose duties included performances at parades, concerts and dances both on the base and in the community. A seventeen member dance band and three other smaller groups handled the dances and other small affairs; the full band was reserved for formal events.
One day, the band was put on four hour notice: We were to perform a nationwide broadcast on the Mutual Broadcasting Network, but had to get to Fort Robinson, South Dakota, nearly 150 miles away. How was this possible? These soldiers weren’t troop carrier specialists for nothing! The Colonel advised me that gliders carrying bulldozers had landed the day before, and the forest had been cleared for a landing strip. Two C47‘s were reserved for the band, ready for take off. The band assembled quickly as I mentally rehearsed my arsenal of military music.
The radio broadcast described how army dogs were being trained to attack on command . The band’s task was to perform martial music at interludes throughout the program. It was a grand performance. Later that evening, still basking in the glow of performance, I was invited to hear a German Army band that had been captured intact, instruments and all. The security around the Germans was elaborate. There were 15 foot fences and layers of guards. What I heard overwhelmed me. Here were over 100 expertly trained professionals performing German marches, Strauss waltzes and classical pieces with perfectly blended tones. I was so enthusiastic in my praise that the Colonel’s wife looked at me with utter dismay. Was it unpatriotic to so appreciate this performance by the “enemy”? Would the Colonel call me down in the morning? No such call came, and another Mutual Broadcast Network performance in Denver Colorado followed. The Colonel was so pleased with us that he arranged an extended pass for all the band members upon our return.
In contrast to the precautions taken to secure the Germans, a prisoner of war camp holding Italians was kept in loosely guarded quarters, without fences. My band, which happened to be made up of 75% Italian-Americans, was invited to play for a group of Italian prisoners . They requested Italian tunes, which the band knew well. A camaraderie was quickly established, as they asked for information about relatives they had in the United States.
Many renowned musicians rotated through the band. Among them were Marty Marsala, an exceptional trumpet player whose specialty was improvisation in the Chicago jazz style. His brother was the famous clarinetist Joe Marsala of 52nd street. Years later, the brothers would come to Poughkeepsie for a performance at the Normandy night club and visited my house. We reminisced over a pool game in the basement until six in the morning. Another outstanding musician was the bass player. Before he was drafted, he was sousaphone player in the Cleveland City orchestra.
One time, the base needed a grand piano for a Big Band concert. The Colonel arranged that I would fly to Denver in a C47 to buy one. With a purchase order in hand, I presented myself at the Knights and Campbell Department store. I told them I would buy a piano on the condition that it could be delivered within the hour to the airfield. Sure enough, a fine Hardman and Peck was trucked to the airfield and flown to Alliance, Nebraska. The flight was designated a training flight, and the pilot, a young major, was something of a daredevil. He “hedge-hopped” for the 250 mile trip, raising the nose of the plane to avoid power lines, then descended again. I never saw the ground go by so fast!
After two years of service in the sand hills of Nebraska, my men became
restless and felt they could be of more use to the war effort if they were
overseas. They signed a petition requesting oversea duties and asked me to take it to the commanding officer. My wife had just told me that she was pregnant but she said, as band leader, it was my duty to follow their wishes. Colonel Hill was very impressed and asked to talk to the band. He convinced them that they were doing a very important job keeping up the morale of the
paratroopers.
The day we dropped the atomic bomb in Japan, I was officer of the day.
My job was to stay awake all night at Base Headquarters to handle
emergencies. About three-thirty am, TWX came through advising us that the
bomb had been dropped with thousands of causalities. Since it was near revile
time I decided not to call the commanding officer. He later told me it was
the right decision. I spent the remaining night thinking of the future
consequences for the next generation.
After the surrender of Japan and Germany, the army started discharging men according to the number of accumulated points. The band got smaller and smaller, until it was deactivated. I was then sent to take charge of a band whose bandleader had been discharged at Fairmont Air Base in Fairmont, Nebraska. It was here that our first daughter, Mary Jo, was born on Feb 26th 1945. My sister Jessie traveled by train to Nebraska to be godmother. She remembers being very nervous, traveling alone in wartime and having to change trains in Chicago. There were soldiers milling everywhere. After the baptism, Jessie, Mary and the baby traveled back to Poughkeepsie, and I joined them for a brief furlough in a few weeks.
In October, I was transferred to Davis Monthan Field in Tucson, Arizona. Finally, in early December, I was sent to Randolph field in San Antonio for discharge. We arrived and registered in a hotel and notified my sister who was living there. When I came home one evening from the base, I opened the door and saw my wife in the arms of a six foot tall Texan. It turned out to be a joke – he was my new brother-in-law whom I had never met. My sister Lee was behind the door having a good laugh. Lee had met John while studying nursing at Bellevue in New York City. He was a sailor, on leave in New York, and they had a wonderful adventurous marriage, settling in San Antonio. She was the only one of my siblings to leave Poughkeepsie, but my parents and sisters made several trips to see her.
We left San Antonio hoping that we could arrive in Monticello by
Christmas Eve. We decided to detour to Pensacola, Florida just in case we
would not have another opportunity to visit Florida again {laugh here}
Outside of Montgomery, Alabama, we heard a knocking and
discovered that we had thrown a rod in the motor. We could go no faster than 30 miles per hour on the straight-away. However, because our car had “free wheeling”, we could go down hill at up to 60 miles an hour!
We had to stop in Montgomery, Alabama to buy warm baby clothes. We traveled with faith and prayers and we sang over and over “ We’ll be Home for Christmas“. Believe it or not, as we pulled in Mary’s parents’ driveway in
Monticello, NY, the car stalled and quit running. It sure was wonderful to
be home for Christmas! Right after Christmas, I called my best friend Paul Such who had just been discharged from the Navy and told him of our difficulties. He
quickly volunteered to come over and tow me home to Poughkeepsie, N.Y. We made better time being towed than we expected. On Rt 9, just north of Wappingers Falls, we got a ticket for going 50 miles an hour in a 45 mile zone!
We moved in with my family who just loved our baby Mary Jo. After a few weeks, I asked my father if I could rent the third floor attic on Clover Street. Pop said he never charged rent before, so why should he now? My sister Kay lived on the first floor with her husband and since we had no bathroom on the third floor, we had permission to share Kay’s bathroom. We painted and furnished those three rooms and turned it into a nice little apartment where we lived for about a year. Mary recalls that we painted Mary Jo’s room pink and hung a white organdy curtain gathered with a pink bow over the single small window. My mother was sad to see us leave, but after a year, I borrowed $500 from my sister Jessie, which we used to buy (on a five year plan) our first house at 66 Talmadge Street. We rented the upstairs apartment on Tallmadge street to folks who became lifelong friends, first Don and Jeannette Bartles, and then Dick and Maureen Stapleton.
POUGHKEEPSIE BUSINESSMAN
I did have some other plans in mind. About six months before I was discharged, Pat DeBellis had offered to sell me his business since he wanted to move to California. I told him I would be interested and he agreed to wait till I got out of the service. He wanted $8000 for the business. I had saved $1000 and knew I could get a $4000 GI Loan, but I still needed $3000. When I discussed this problem with my friend Paul, he said he would loan it to me. After spending four years in the Navy with no chance to spend, he had the capital. I hesitated for a moment and said, “Paul, I am not going to borrow it, but I will make you a partner“. I agreed not to take a salary for a year to make up the difference. I could do this since I had started to play six nights a week for $18.00, and I also did a little teaching which earned additional money. Paul continued to work as a pattern maker and came in evenings to help me. Since neither of us took a salary, our sales and inventory increased substantially. Soon, Paul quit his job and we both began working full time. The first salary we took was $25.00 a week for each of us. We continued with these low salaries which enabled our inventory to increase substantially. We each had orchestras which helped financially. Paul took advantage of a GI Loan and went to the Conn Instrument Repair School in Elkhart Indiana for 8 months. Mary helped me in the store whenever I needed her. He became an excellent repair man and was a real asset to the business. We operated our business at 222 Main St. for five years and enjoyed this busy life. Suddenly Paul was called back into service for the Korean war. He was stationed in San Diego, California as a pattern maker instructor. I agreed to keep the business going for the two years that he was gone.
Meanwhile, I helped him build the house he had started, while I also continued to build my own house. After five years, we had sold our house on Talmadge Street for $10,000 making a $2000 profit. I purchased three lots on Wing Road, and so did Paul; we built our houses in the same neighborhood. Mary and I, our two daughters Mary Jo and Susan, and baby son Michael moved in without real doors or finished floors in the spring of 1952. I’d work on these “details” at night. The house had three large bedrooms, a huge attic and a basement which I used as a rehearsal hall for my concert band.
When I was discharged from the service, I had been advised to take along my large inventory of concert music, which had become part of me. As a
result, I had the music enabling me to conduct community concerts in the park and lead marching bands for the next twenty years. I used to have as many
as forty musicians rehearsing in my basement every Tuesday night.
When Paul returned, we added some pianos and organs to our inventory and our sales continued to grow. As televisions became affordable, Paul and I responded to the demand for TV antenna installation. We were young and strong, but this was dangerous work. I had a healthy fear of heights, but worked to overcome it so I could climb up on roofs to install the antennas. One day, I was attempting to attach an antenna to a chimney at Jimmie Deferia’s house. The slate roof was slippery and it was all I could do to straddle the peak and loop supports around the chimney. All of sudden, the chimney disintegrated and tumbled down the side, almost crashing into our truck. I grabbed for the peak and held on until Paul could help me down with ropes. It was a close call, but I would try anything to support my family.
About that time we expanded and moved uptown to Academy St. across from Luckey Platt Department store. We did well there for about ten years. An opportunity arose when a 8100 square foot building was up for sale at 751 Main Street, a busy corner where 20,000 cars passed every day. By now, I realized I needed more income to educate my growing family and convinced my partner I wanted to speculate in the big money sales of pianos and organs. It was an immediate success after we remodeled.
Unfortunately Paul’s only child, Steve, became ill with leukemia and died within
two months. It was a terrible blow to him and told me he wanted to retire to
Florida. After a fifteen minute inventory check, I bought him out. and ran
the business as a family enterprise. Mary came in every day and I utilized my
two older sons, Mike and Jon, who were first in high school and then at Marist College. They were especially useful on deliveries and, if we needed extra help, their high school and college buddies were always available. Andrew was much younger but helped his Mother many times demonstrating pianos. He too got the sales bug.
In spite of our busy schedule, we made time for having vacations and having babies. Allison, Paula, Paige, Andrew and Marta came along to make nine children. I think we did more traveling despite our large family than most families. I went through three trailers and two motor homes. We traveled through 48 states and crossed the Canadian Transcontinental highway to the West coast.
One trip took us to Lake Louise and the Colombia Ice Fields. My mother in law, Alice King, traveled with us, and I remember her marveling that she was standing on ice thousands of years old. Pop retired at 65 and never worked again. His second home at 19 Peckham Road was paid for and an apartment upstairs brought in extra income. His needs were simple and he and Mom enjoyed working in their garden until he had a stroke. He was 87 and Mom was 85 when they both moved to a nursing home. They lived together in a lovely room for five years until their demise, first Pop, and then Mama, a year later.
RETIREMENT
When Jon graduated from Marist College and married Kathy Miller, he
joined the firm full time. Within a year he was doing most of buying and
decision making . By now, I wanted to retire to Florida, so I sold him the business and the building with no money down and a twenty year mortgage. I am happy to report he never missed a payment which enabled us to retire in comfort.
We moved to Vero Beach Florida, where my lifelong friend and partner Paul Such had retired after his son died. We continue our friendship to this day and often reminisce about days gone by. Paul always said I “had Jesus Christ in my back pocket”, a reference to all the chances I took, and how I always landed on my feet.
Our saddest moments were when our daughter Susan, who moved next door
to us to take care of us in our old age, died from cancer. Her husband Jeff
still lives next door and keeps an eye on us. Our daughter Paige, who has
three children, also lives nearby and looks after us every day.
At this writing, I am 84 years old, and Mary, my wife, is 82 . We have been married for 61 years, and are retired 24 years, but I still drive north to Poughkeepsie once or twice a year to see my sisters, my children and of course, the music store. All our children find time to visit us along with our 22 grandchildren and 6 great grandchildren.
Mary has heart problems but, after two years, is more than holding
her own. Outside of tired knees, I feel generally good and look forward to
many more good years. These are only rambling thoughts, the story of a life well lived, a gift to you children and to – my favorite word – POSTERITY.
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amendment: added Dec7th 2008 by Mary-Margaret Conley ,Grand daughter
VERO BEACH, FL
Joe and Mary Vincitore
Mary Alice Vincitore, 87, of Vero Beach, FL, passed away peacefully at home surrounded by her family on Friday, June 20, 2008.
