Who we are: Sadie (Serafina) Cozzoli DiLiddo

 

Sadie DiLiddo, 97th birthday

Who I am

I was the fourth child of Frank and Mary Lucchesi Cozzoli.  My paternal grandparents were Joseph and Rocca Baccellieri Cozzoli (the Baccellieris included Ralph, Pete and Irene); my maternal grandparents were Carl and Victoria Lucchesi (whose children were, young to old…Marietta, Louis, Clementina, Rosa…)

Rocca and Joseph Cozzoli with children:
Rachele, Serafina, Joseph, Ernestina, Erminia and Michael (youngest)

We lived first at 328 E. Second Street in Plainfield, NJ, but during the Depression, we had to move from that house, and later we moved to 404 E. Second Street.  My father bought the property eventually.  He put his shop, the Cozzoli Machine Company, behind it where the old Italian Presbyterian Church used to be.  The Middaughs rented the second floor of the house, and Mrs. Middaugh stayed there until after my mother died.

Sadie, aged 3

How I grew up

We girls always had to do the dishes…one washed, one dried, one cleared…one time, Gilda was doing the dishes and Vi was drying. All of a sudden I saw a mouse.  “Look,” I said, “look at the little mouse.”  Vi screamed….”I don’t think it’s funny!” she said.  Gilda didn’t scream, but she didn’t like it, either.  They were the ones who were always... [skittish]. 

That reminds me that once, helping with the laundry in the basement, I got my hand stuck in the wringer of the copper tub washing machine.  I had been putting clothes through the wringer, as you did then, and Grandmom had to pound the top to loosen it. 

We had a garden and kept chickens…three hens and a rooster, which we named for ourselves:  the rooster, Joe, the three hens Gilda, Vi, and Sadie!  When it came time to eat one for dinner, I was the one who had to go down the cellar and hold the chicken while my mother cut its throat, and stand there with the blood dripping down. Nobody else would.

Around the corner were the drugstore, where our mother sent us for castor oil (ugh!) and Morris’ meat market, for soup meat…10 cents worth, and we had to be sure to ask for the bones “for the dog”, though really it was for us…the marrow made such good soup.

Did you ever hear the story of one Thanksgiving at 348 E. Second St?  The doorbell rang and some people from the City came with a basket of food for us.  My father, upset, though, didn't take it.  The Depression was a hard time for all, but we made it through.

In school

We walked to school, went back home for lunch, then back to school again.  In sixth grade, I played soccer, and in high school I began to take archery, but for some reason didn’t finish it.

I sang in the chorus of a comic play, too, and went to the prom, in a white chiffon dress of my sister Gilda’s…she had worn it as a bridesmaid in a wedding.

As children do, we got into all sorts of things.  The tires made ruts in the driveway and when it froze, we put on skates and skated up and down!

Once Frank Lucchesi drove his sister Vi, Gilda and me to a pond in Linden to skate.  We left our shoes in the car and changed into our skates.  Frank went on to my grandmother’s.  Meanwhile we played crack the whip, and I was at the end.  I let loose and fell into the ice and cut my lip, bleeding all over my new snow jacket.  What could we do?  There were some police nearby, but they said, “oh, you will be all right,” and didn’t help.  Can you believe that?  So we walked on our skates all the way to our grandmother’s.  When we got to the house, Aunt Minnie, who lived upstairs, opened the door and grabbed me before my mother could see me, took me upstairs and cleaned me up.  The next day, my father took me to the doctor’s, but it was okay.

Rachele, Annie LaCosta, Clementina, Marietta, Erminia

We always did a lot of things with family…the ones who lived nearby us in Plainfield, and the ones in Camden and Linden.

Zia Ernesta and Uncle Louie lived a few houses away on Second Street, on the top floor, and Zia Clementina underneath.  Annie and Vi LaCosta (that was Vi DiLayo, later), their father and mother Aunt Rose LaCosta had the farm in South Plainfield…we’d drive out there and pick the rhubarb and blueberries for him to take to market…we tied the bundles of rhubarb and helped load it on the truck.

We would get milk from the cow from Aunt Rose’s…the milk, of course, came out of the cow warm.  My sister Vi didn’t like that…she said, “I want the milk from the milk man.”

On Sunday and always on Thanksgiving we went to Linden to my Cozzoli grandparents, where other family gathered, too, so we always saw our cousins.

Victoria, Joseph, Rocca, Sadie, Frank and Gilda Cozzoli

When I was very young, once on our way to Long Island near Newark airport, it was raining so hard…my father had to get out in all that and change the tire.  We would travel to Long Island to visit the Ferraninnis and other family, and they in turn would come to our house to play…Clelia, Grace and Mary.  Our grandmothers from back in Italy and our mothers had been friends, as we were, so they were like sisters to us.

In the summers we went to Long Branch, the Ferraninnis, too.  Grace would get on the table to sing!  Other family were there, too, and the women all took turns in the kitchen cooking for their families.

During the war, the Ferraninni girls and I would dress up in our gowns and take the bus to Fort Dix to dance with the soldiers.  It was such fun.  On the way home, we would sing together.  One night, Clelia and I were sitting behind the driver and harmonizing to the song, "Dream a while..."  All of a sudden the bus stopped.  What happened, we wondered?  "Nothing," the bus driver said.  "I was enjoying your singing so much I had to stop and listen."  Clelia and I were amazed!

After school, I worked for a while in Macy’s slipper department; then they decided I should work at Cozzoli Machine Co.  I did some clerical work and helped Mr. Scribner to write for patents on my father's machines.  At the machine exhibitions, I demonstrated the filling machines, dressed in a white coat, like a nurse.

Married life

In ‘51 I married Joseph DiLiddo.  I met him at Lavallette.  His sister had a house on Brown Ave. one block over from ours, and one day he came to get a chicken for his sister.  There was a man who would deliver them...for some reason theirs was delivered to our house along with ours.  So we met, and then met up again on the beach, and it went on from there.  We were married for 62 years; he died just two days before his 101st birthday.

In the meantime, we had our daughters Nancy and Barbara. Nancy, my eldest, is no longer with us; she passed away December 25, 2015...she is our Christmas angel now.

While we were married, we first lived (as all my father's children did at first) in the apartment on Watchung Ave, which he owned in Plainfield.  Then we bought a new house on Woodlawn Avenue across from the school, and finally we moved to Martinsville. We often had their cousins over to play in the back yard, which went downhill into a little brook and was fun in all seasons.

One day as we were doing yard work, the weedwacker caught my foot and cut it. Joe took me in and cleaned it up, bandaging it.  The next day, worried that the metal might contaminate the cut, he took me to Dr Hoffman, who looked at it and asked who had bandaged it so professionally..  Where did you learn that, Hoffman asked?   Joe told him about his medic training in the Army during the war.  “We learned to bandage a lot of wounds then.”

My best friends were my sister Vi, close all our lives; we talked every day at least by phone.  And Mary Primiano…we met when Mary came to the door to help with a school for Nancy.  Mary and I loved going to yard sales and garage sales, and would come home with all sorts of good things, including furniture for Uncle Joe to restore…and I would change seat covers and paint it, like the little white chair at the shore.

I enjoyed ceramics, too...I have always enjoyed crafts. My neighbor Jeannette and I made a Pilgrim lady for Thanksgiving and a Santa later…Barbara has that now.

After Martinsville Joe and I moved to Branchburg, where we found new neighbors and walked the trails each day.  A few years ago, Country Meadows, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, became my home.  It is only four minutes from Barbara's.  I like the company, the good friends I have made there, and the crafts and events...I'm on the planning committee...and I still walk outside when I can.

Now I have my grandchildren, Kelly, Robert and his wife Laura, and Brian, and Robert and Laura's little one, my great-grandson Nickolas, who is 3 this year.

On my 98th birthday this year, lots of family sang to me on Zoom at happy hour!  It. has been so good keeping up with family