Exchanging Portraits (Part 37)

Atlantic Ocean, Summer 1955. My Best Friend's Mother, Louise, poses with her oldest daughter during their ocean crossing aboard the Andrea Doria.

Thanks to my Best Friend for making this photo available to us.

Moving Fast

Suburban Chicago, September 1959. I understand why my Parents installed a backyard fence.

We're all together again.

Chicago, Illinois, Summer 1952. My Best Friend's Parents, Louise and Dolfo, join Dolfo's family.

Thanks to my Best Friend for making this photo available to us.

The newlyweds will reside in Chicago.

Chicago, Illinois, Summer 1952. My Best Friend's Parents, Louis and Dolfo, move to the States.

Thanks to my Best Friend for making this photo available to us.

Setting Sail

Atlantic Ocean, Summer 1955. Here's another image of my Best Friend's Dad, Dolfo, and her sister as they prepare to sail from Genoa to the United States aboard the Andrea Doria.

Thanks to my Best Friend for making this photo available to us.

On the Deck

Atlantic Ocean, Summer 1955. My Best Friend's Parents, Dolfo and Louise, are ready to sail back to the States.

Thanks to my Best Friend for making this photo available to us.

Happy Travels

Atlantic Ocean, Summer 1955. My Best Friend's sister sets sail aboard the Andrea Doria.

Thanks to my Best Friend for making this photo available to us.

Cruise Memento

I wrote earlier how my Best Friend's Parents sailed across the Atlantic Ocean aboard the Andrea Doria. Earlier, I had thought they made the trip during their honeymoon. I was wrong; they sailed aboard the liner in 1955, one year before the Andrea Doria sank.

Their voyage aboard the Andrea Doria stuck with me because the historical figure, Andrea Doria, was someone I later studied when I did research about Mediterranean piracy. Although my work focused on Venice, I also learned about how other maritime cities—namely Genoa and Pisa—took measures to protect their interests from naval pillage.

 
Atlantic Ocean, Summer 1955. Here's a postcard my Best Friend's Mom, Louise, saved from the trip.

Thanks to my Best Friend for making this photo available to us.

Yes, he's very nice.

Genoa, Italy, October 1951. My Best Friend's Parents marry.

Thanks to my Best Friend for making this photo available to us.

"Isn't he nice?"

My Best Friend's maternal Aunt, Mame, met her husband Gino while she traveled in Genoa, Italy. Mame thought Gino's brother, Dolfo, would be a match for one of her sisters, Louise. Mame sent this 1950 photo of herself and Dolfo to Louise. The two stand in front of the Piazza della Vittoria.
 

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Louise later married Dolfo. The couple sailed to the United States on the Andrea Doria. Louise and Dolfo settled in a home situated about three blocks from the house Mame and Gino bought.

Thanks to Louise and Dolfo's daughter—my Best Friend—for making this photo available to us.

Ciao, Sailors!

Genoa, Italy, 1930. The fellow on the left is Dolfo, my Best Friend's father.

Thanks to my Best Friend for making this photo available to us.

Saturday on Michigan Avenue

Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, Summer 1943. The woman in the center is Louise, my Best Friend's mother. Two of her sisters, Annie (left) and Rose (right), walk alongside Louise. Louise's third sister, Mame, must have taken the photo.

Thanks to my Best Friend for making this photo available to us.

Pecky

When I saw this photo, I remembered the Easter when my Best Friend's parents gave her and her sister chicks as a gift. The girls received the chicks at a time when live Easter gifts were not yet verboten, and well before Bobos started erecting chicken coops in their suburban backyards.

I sent the image to my Best Friend, and here is what she wrote:

Yes, we got three chicks for Easter that year: Becky (who liked to hop up on the Rec Room toilet seat to lean in for a drink of water), Specky (who had speckles), and of course, Pecky. They didn't last long though. Specky ended up getting sick and dying first. (Were those speckles really a sickness?) then Becky—on one of her toilet adventures—slipped in and drowned. That left Pecky, who was a rambunctious little guy. He pecked everyone. He'd hop onto my cousins dog's nose and peck him on it (do you remember Laddie?) Then he'd wait for the kids to come home from school to peck their ankles as they ran by, and finally the last straw was when he pecked my sister on her face. That combined with his morning "cock-a-doodle-doos" caused my parents to give him away to a farm (or so they said ... ?)

 
Suburban Chicago, 1968. Pecky stands in my Best Friend's backyard.

Determination

Melrose Park, Illinois, May 1965. I ride the track at Kiddieland. Locals will recognize Gottlieb Hospital behind me. Next to it stood Shoppers World.

The Funny Face Controversy

In 1967, the Chicago Sun-Times included a Funny Face Drink circular in a Sunday edition of its Comics Section. The circular promoted new flavors of the drink mix. It also included a contest entry. The contest directed children to color a Funny-Face character.

My Parents subscribed to the Chicago Tribune, so we did not get a Funny-Face Drink circular in our edition that Sunday. My Best Friend's family, however, got the Sun-Times. When her Parents saw the art contest circular, they picked up a couple of extra copies of the paper so that my Best Friend, her sister, and I all could submit our entries.

We all sat at my Best Friend's kitchen table, and we completed our entries. My Best Friend's Parents mailed the entries. Then we forgot about the contest for a few months.

I don't know whether Funny Face executives judged the entries. Perhaps the contest was only a drawing for which the company randomly selected winners from the submitted entries. I couldn't tell you if artistic talent was a factor in the contest or not.

My Best Friend was—and is—a talented artist. We believed the contest was based on artistic ability, and we were sure my Best Friend would be declared a winner.

One Tuesday afternoon, after school, a delivery man brought a big box to our house. The box was addressed to me. I was a winner of the Funny Face Drink sweepstakes. I received a wonderful prize: a modern Barbie and a Barbie Dream House.

I felt badly for my Best Friend because she was both the artist and the person who made it possible for me to submit an entry. We thought the contest had tested young talent. I was less artistic and, therefore, I did not merit the prize.

But I was very happy with my new toys. It's the only thing I've ever "won."

Suburban Chicago, 1967. Here's the Barbie (the kind with the twist waist) that caused the heartache.

UPDATE: Ah! Here's the entry form.

Related by Marriage: Riverview

Riverview Park was an historic, seventy-four acre, amusement park that operated in Chicago from 1904 to 1967. Most Chicagoans viewed Riverview as a "Nort' Side" park. People who lived on the South Side, like Mr. Irene's Mom, rarely visited that foreign part of town. By contrast, my Best Friend's Mom, the big-hearted Louise, grew up on the North Side, and she often talked about visiting Riverview in her youth.

Suburban kids like Mr. Irene and me did not get out to Riverview very often. My Dad usually took the kids to Kiddieland. If we were celebrating a special occasion, then we sometimes went to Adventureland in Addison, Illinois.

(I liked to ride Adventureland's floating crocodiles.)

Chicago, Illinois, August 29, 1963. Mr. Irene's Mom wrote the exact date on the photo and added, "Riverview Amusment Park at Western and Belmont." Could this have been a last hurrah before the school year started?

Kitten Four

This is "Bootsie," the cat that belonged to my childhood Best Friend. Here, Bootsie plays in Best Friend's pink, modern kitchen.

My Best Friend's house was kitty korner to our home, and the two properties had adjacent yards.

I spent years in this kitchen, enjoying northern Italian food—including tasting pesto in the 1960s—eating the best fried chicken, appreciating the pleasures of warm, peach nut bread, and relishing a sandwich made of white bread, mayonnaise, tuna packed in olive oil, and pickelilly.

If the words "Sunday Gravy" come to mind, then you are speaking my language.



Suburban Chicago, about 1972. Bootsie always wore a collar outfitted with bells.

Fence me in.

My Parents installed a chain-link fence in the backyard when I was a toddler. I had a tendency to wander, and they decided it would be safest to keep me confined.

Here is a view of the back of the our home before the installation of the fence.

Dad took this photo from the adjacent property, which belonged to my Best Friend's family. My Best Friend's mother grew gorgeous Zinnias in large flowerbeds throughout the family's yard. She also was a wonderful cook who made the best fried chicken I ever ate.

The fence came in handy about eight years later, when we got a dog.

Suburban Chicago, August 1959. This is how the house looked, from the back, not long after my Parents bought it. The stairs lead to the kitchen. My Grandmother, Tatjana, used to bake pies and put them on the stair railing to chill.