Oh, Beautiful: An American Family in the 20th Century by John Paul Godges Read Free Book Online

unaware if her battle with the Spanish flu had harmed the baby within her womb. As usual, Serafino would be the only other person in the room in case of complications.
    “ Dio mio!” Serafino cried even louder than Maria did. “It’s a boy! He’s strong as an ox!”
    It was the most triumphant day of all for the Di Gregorio family on Lehigh Row. It was the birthday of a son, Raffaello, on November 11, 1918. It was the day that World War I ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. And here was the first Di Gregorio son, born on the first day of peace following “the war to end all wars.” On the day in which America had given birth to a new world, the Di Gregorios had given birth to a healthy new American boy, the grandson of Nicola. All earth, heaven, and history seemed to usher in a beautiful new age with this beautiful new son.
    Serafino shared his vigorous yet smooth wine with the neighbors to toast the victory in Europe, to toast their new life in America, and to toast the destiny of the American-born son. For Serafino and Maria, all of their agonizing choices in the past, all of their enervating efforts in the present, and all of their ardent hopes for the future seemed to be validated on that glorious day.
    “ A-me-ri-ca!” Serafino strode from house to house, pouring his wine into the cups of his mutually adopted fellow countrymen. “A-me-ri-ca!” he cheered them on. “She is a BYOO-tiful country! Made more BYOO-tiful by my brand new American baby boy!”
    The neighbors spilled out of their homes, assembled on one another’s front porches, and congregated in the gravel lanes between the rows of homes.
    “ A-me-ri-ca! She is the most BYOO-tiful country in the world!” Serafino crowed repeatedly.
    The neighbors nodded and drank his wine repeatedly.
     
    Within a few days, Maria regained enough of her stamina to resume nursing, an activity that had become almost routine for her over the previous four years. Her afternoon interlude with Raffaello was interrupted, however, by a soft, barely audible knock on the door. When Maria opened the door, she beheld a wisp of a woman: an enfeebled young mother hardly capable of holding the hungry, crying infant in her arms.
    “ Spanish flu?” Maria inquired, eliciting a somber nod from the neighbor. The two women couldn’t speak the same language much beyond those universally dreaded words. So Maria pointed to the babe in the woman’s arms and then pointed to her own breast, looking the other mother in the eyes, nodding and smiling.
    No spoken words could have expressed the gratitude of this ailing mother any better than her faint cry of surprise and her widened, enthusiastic eyes. She handed her child over to Maria, wiped away a tear, and tottered home.
    A nationwide terror of the Spanish flu had scared some people from caring for others. But once Maria recovered from her own bout with the illness, she nursed the babes of other stricken moms in the neighborhood for the remainder of the epidemic. “There’s no use letting my milk go to waste,” she told those who could understand her. For Maria, nursing someone else’s child was a privilege, not a sacrifice.
    By February 1919, the Spanish flu had run its course through the states of the upper Midwest. Lehigh Row could resume its customary pattern of population growth.
    Maria delivered two more girls into the hands of Serafino. Bice arrived in 1920. She was named for her Aunt Bice Baccanale, who had died earlier that year in Farindola as a young girl. Algisa arrived in 1923. From 1914 to 1923, Lehigh Row had given birth to six Di Gregorios: Ida, Mafalda, Leonata, Raffaello, Bice, and Algisa.
     
    At the quarry during those years, Serafino was in his prime. He had steady work every day. Even during winter. His was a predictable yet thrilling routine. Operating a tractor, he dug away nine to ten feet of black dirt before hitting solid rock. He and the other men then poured water into the excavated