Mary Cannova shared her experience growing up as an Italian-American

00:00 Alrighty. My name is Ashley Currington. I'm here with my Mimi and we are in her kitchen in her house in Birmingham. And it is November 25th, so the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Alrighty. So where did you grow up?

00:22 I grew up in Inslee. I went to bush School for four years and then the last four years I went to St. Joseph's it was a new school and that was the church we went to and they built the school. So I went there the last four years and my high school was at Inslee High School.

00:43 Okay. Was it fun?

00:46 Yeah, it was. I enjoyed it. We walked. Rain, sleet or snow, we walked to school. To school.

00:55 Oh, my gosh.

00:56 It was a crowd of us and we just all walked.

00:58 How far was it?

01:00 It was not that far. I don't really remember. But as far as, like. Was it a mile? It could have been a mile. We could have walked 10 good blocks.

01:13 Oh, gosh. Well, yeah, it would be like a three hour walk for me to walk to school.

01:21 We enjoyed it. We just chit chatted and kept on moving.

01:27 What was your childhood like?

01:30 Childhood was fun because there wasn't a house there which they called Little Italy. There wasn't a house that didn't have children in it. And all of us played together. We played and we played. We enjoyed. I enjoyed my childhood with all those kids. You couldn't beat that.

01:54 Yeah. So you came from Italy, right?

01:58 I didn't come from Italy. My mother was born in Sicily. I was born here. Everybody else was born here. My dad was born here. His parents were born in Sicily, so. But my mother and my aunt were both born in Sicily.

02:16 That's cool.

02:17 Yeah.

02:17 So didn't they all live in Inslee and all.

02:20 All of us lived in Inslee. We were right there. The Italians, it was just. Every house was an Italian. We lived across the street from Graphio grocery store.

02:32 Oh, yeah.

02:33 So that was really, really cool. We were probably three, four blocks from the church, so we walked to church every Sunday. So it was a lot of. We did walking. We could walk to downtown Inslee where it had Woolworth Cresses. We had all the old oldies.

02:55 Yeah. Wow, that sounds fun. Who were your favorite relatives?

03:03 Relatives. Okay. My aunt was because she was like a second mother because she lived with us all my life. So she was like a second mother. And if I was gonna run away, which, you know, all children want to run away at least one time in their lives, and I would call her at work and say, I'm getting ready to run away. And she Would immediately talk me out of running away. She would say, wait till I get off of work and we'll talk about it. So that kind of stuff was fun. And, like, I had cousins that lived across the street from me. And like I said, we just all played together. I mean, to say, there's just one favorite, you know? I said, you know, that's sort of your immediate family. Your sister, your mom, your aunt. Like, that are your. Are the people that are your favorite favorite, because that's your immediate family. But I had family all around me. I loved it.

04:08 Yeah, that sounds fun. And what were your parents like?

04:15 My parents? Well, my dad passed away when I was 14 years old. But the best memory I have is that if I wanted something, a coat, and mama would say, no, you can wear last year's. I could go sit on my dad's lap and say, I really want this coat. It's got a raccoon fur collar. That was a big thing back then.

04:42 Really?

04:43 Yeah. And he would say, well, how much is it? And I'd say, well, probably around $50. And he would throw $50 on the kitchen table and say, go buy her the coat she wants.

04:55 That's sweet of him.

04:57 So I thought so, too. And mom. I mean, what can you say? A mom, she. She made all our clothes. She was a seamstress. She cooked. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. And she was a seamstress, and she made all our clothes. She cooked all our meals. I mean, how much? She baked wonderfully. The best cakes, homemade breads. I mean, it was good. I can smell that bread.

05:29 Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Well, if she came from Italy, she probably learned.

05:34 Well, she did. Her mother did all that stuff, too. And I'm sure she learned from her mama.

05:40 Yeah, that is true. All right. This might be a little hard. Do you remember any stories your parents or grandparents used to tell you? More like your parents.

05:51 Yeah. Yeah. It would be more like my parents. No, I'm. I'm thinking if she ever. She would tell me about all my cousins that came from Sicily and that she was born in Sicily because they had to get their. Her and her sister, my aunt, had to get their birth certificates to become American citizens, so. And. And I remember them getting their birth certificates from Italy. And they were beautiful and colorful.

06:28 The birth certificates.

06:29 The birth certificates. They were beautiful.

06:32 Really?

06:33 Yeah.

06:34 And it's not like a white sheet of paper.

06:36 Not a white sheet of paper. They were. They had ribbons hanging off of them of the Sicily colors, you know, Italy's colors and the red the white, the green, and if they were gorgeous, not like ours. And. And I remember her talking, you know, she really didn't talk too much about living in Sicily because her mother only went there on. On a visa for two years, and she had my mama and her sister, and then she came right back because they. She was living here. She went there to go on a visa, to go have them with her mama. So she. They had them and came right back. But Mama would tell me these kind of stories that they came on the boat, but Mama was two years old.

07:35 Yeah.

07:36 When they were coming back, and my aunt was, you know, baby in the lap. Just months old.

07:42 Yeah.

07:43 So they didn't really ever know all about Sicily. They never. They never went back.

07:52 Oh, really?

07:53 Never.

07:53 That's really sad.

07:54 I went back. I went to go see Cicely. You did?

07:58 Yeah.

07:59 So.

08:00 And that is really sad.

08:02 It is. To not go back to your birthplace.

08:05 Yeah.

08:06 But they never. They didn't like traveling.

08:09 Oh, yeah. I remember mom saying something, you know.

08:12 They didn't like traveling. But as far as mom telling us a good story, it would be about the older people.

08:22 Right, Right. What was my mother, Rosemary, like growing up?

08:31 Your mother? Okay, I had Rosemary and I had Michael, and Rosemary was the older of the two. And she was your perfect child.

08:42 Right.

08:43 I mean, she's the child everybody wants.

08:46 Right.

08:47 She was sweet, she was loving, smart.

08:51 Yeah.

08:52 So. Yeah. She was what you would want any child to be.

09:00 Yeah.

09:02 What else you want to know about your mother?

09:09 Well, were you a well behaved kid?

09:11 No, I was the heathen, the wild person. At 15, I stole my mother's car and went driving on Bush Boulevard, and she didn't have a horn. And my sister wanted to ride with me, who is six years younger, so that means she was nine years old, and she would stick her head out the window and go, beep, beep if we needed a horn.

09:40 That's so funny. I'm weak. Deep beep. Didn't you put a cat. Who put the cat in the toilet or something or. No, in the water.

09:57 Oh, I had a little swimming pool that me and my cousins and friends would get in to play in to go off in the summer. And my sister thought, well, it would be really cute if I pick up the cat and throw it in the pool with them. That cat scattered and splattered and all the kids in the pool jumped out of the. Yes. My sister would do mean things.

10:26 Oh, poor girl. That's funny. All right. How did you. How did you and G. Paul meet?

10:36 How did G. Okay. Actually, we would meet at Serio family reunions.

10:48 Okay.

10:49 My daddy's side would have family reunions every year, and his mama and my uncle was married. Who he married? They were sisters, so they came. So I met him pretty much like that.

11:10 I like the family reunions.

11:11 Yeah. At family reunions. He wasn't my cousin, but my daddy's brother was married to his mama's sister.

11:22 Yeah. So not exactly blood, right?

11:26 No, we were not blood cousins at all. No.

11:32 Okay. So when you were younger, what did you want to be when you grew up.

11:38 In referring to how much younger? I know when I got to high school, I did, like. I took a bookkeeping course, so I liked accounting, and I knew that's where I was going.

11:50 Yeah.

11:50 I liked figures all my life. I was good.

11:53 So, like math?

11:54 Yeah, I was good with that.

11:57 That's good. And you went to Bama, right?

11:59 I went to Alabama, graduated Alabama.

12:01 How was it like over there?

12:03 How was it like at Alabama? Yeah, like it is for any college person. It was an experience. I was used to always being in one school, one this. Not. Not too much movement. It was a. Other than high school. But moving buildings was a different thing. Yeah, it was just different for me.

12:26 What do you remember what dorm you stayed in?

12:29 I stayed in several, but I ended up in Tutwiler.

12:32 Nice.

12:33 I was in Mary Burke at one point. I was in Martha Parham at one time, but ended up. My last two years was at Tutwile.

12:44 Did you, Paul, go to. Did you, Paul, go to Bama?

12:48 He went to St. Bernard's Academy. He went there.

12:52 So y'all do long distance or.

12:54 Oh, Carl. Carl was at Alabama. I thought you said my daddy.

12:59 No, I said you, Paul.

13:00 Oh, sorry. He was at Alabama. He was at Alabama with you? Mm. Mm. He. In fact, he was on a disc jockey on a radio station, and he would call me all the time when a record was playing that they couldn't hear and ask me to call in and request a song.

13:26 That's cute. Did you enjoy school? Like, did you enjoy going to school? Did you enjoy the people?

13:38 Yeah, I enjoyed school. Yeah. Yeah. St. Joseph's High School. That was elementary. Those last four years, we had nuns. Oh, And Catholic, right? Yeah. And those nuns came from Ireland, so they. They didn't like us, and we weren't exactly crazy about them.

14:01 Right.

14:02 But Inslee, I enjoyed. I enjoyed my high school years and my college years.

14:08 Yeah. So, like, would you, like, in Inslee, did it have, like, one school?

14:14 It was one school, different rooms the classes, right? Yeah, it was three floors.

14:20 Oh, wow.

14:21 Yeah.

14:23 So, like, you would go. Where'd you go to elementary school? Do you remember?

14:27 Yeah, I said Bush.

14:29 Okay, Bush. And then you went to St. Joseph's.

14:31 It was Bush 1 to 4, and then 5 to 8 was St. Joseph's.

14:37 And then High school was Inslee.

14:38 Inslee.

14:40 Gotcha.

14:41 In college? Alabama.

14:43 Nice. Which one was your favorite? College.

14:48 College.

14:48 Yeah. Did you have, like, more freedom?

14:52 Yeah, you get more freedom and, well, you learn to be independent of anybody and. Yeah, I would. College would be where I would go.

15:06 Good. So after college, you, of course, got a job. What'd you do?

15:12 I did. I worked. Well, first I just worked for a company called Tyco, and I did bookkeeping for them. But I took the civil service test, and I went to divorce court. Was my first in civil service. Was divorce court. That was a real experience.

15:35 So what is. What do you do? What'd you do?

15:38 You're out. I kept their books, the accounting books for them.

15:42 For divorce court?

15:43 For divorce court. And I also did auctions on any estates that. When people died.

15:51 Yeah.

15:53 And that's about all I did in. You know, there it was divorces. And I dealt with a lot of lawyers. All the lawyers that did divorce. Nobody wants to work for lawyers.

16:09 No. So how'd you feel about retiring?

16:16 I retired from civil service at the city because I had worked at divorce court. Then I went to the health department. Worked there again. I'm. I'm doing books, you know, I'm doing the accounting part. And I enjoyed working at the health department. Lots of great people there. And then I went to the comptroller's office in the county.

16:47 Right.

16:48 And then I went to the city and became an auditor, and then I became a principal accountant. And how would. How did I like it? I was thrilled to retire. Oh, yes. I was ready to go after 30 years.

17:07 So what age do you retire at?

17:09 54.

17:10 That's pretty young.

17:11 It was. I had my 30 years in at 54.

17:15 So you started at 24?

17:17 Mm, I sure did.

17:19 Did you get a master's degree or. No?

17:21 No, I didn't. I just have a bachelor's, but I made it to a principal accountant.

17:27 That's good.

17:28 I was over 16 people.

17:30 Oh, nice.

17:32 We had revenue examiners and clerks as the ones that were under me, and then the auditors were under somebody else, so I had 16 under me.

17:46 It's a lot of people. All righty, last question. How would you like to be remembered.

17:58 As a.

17:59 As a person? Yes, As a Grandmother as a.

18:03 As a loving grandma and hopefully. Hopefully a terrific mother.

18:12 Hopefully. One can dream true. Maybe a good cook.

18:22 I guess I was a pretty good cook.

18:25 Yeah.

18:25 I think I was a good cook when I was. When I was raised, had a family. I think I had. I was a good cook. I'm a good cook now. I don't really cook every once a blue moon, though, for, you know, a crowd, people.

18:39 Well, you cook on what? Christmas?

18:43 I'm. I'm Christmas. Yes, your mom is Thanksgiving and then any other.

18:49 I, you know, you cook on, like, Sundays.

18:51 Yeah, I have. Yeah.

18:54 Your pasta is better than my mom's.

18:57 Well, everybody has their own feel or take on, you know, how they cook some. Everybody has a different touch as to how they do it.

19:07 Yeah. Have you ever cooked bread?

19:10 No. Homemade.

19:12 Yeah.

19:13 I made homemade biscuits when I was first married. And if you threw them up against the wall, the wall would fall.

19:24 Wasn't good.

19:25 No. And I tried a couple of times, but I gave up.

19:32 Well, there you go.

19:35 But that's the life. And the. For me, it was.

19:40 Seemed fun.

19:42 It was okay. It was a good life. I had a good life.

19:45 I mean, you didn't, like, grow up with, like, surrounded by phones and stuff?

19:49 No, I did not. I don't know how we existed today. Kids cannot exist without them, and we never had them and we did just fine.

19:58 I know. I kind of wish it was that way sometimes. Well, thank you. You're so welcome for letting me interview you.

20:08 I appreciate always for my grandbaby.

20:12 Oh, you're sweet.