Autobiography
In his own words, Elmo wrote his life story in the 1980s:
“I was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on July 19, 1919, at 140 Nicholson Street in Blackman’s Patch. This was just four houses up from my cousin, Tony Marconi’s home. His house is the old homestead of my mother’s sister, Grace Marsiglia, and her husband, Nazzareth Marconi.
I was the sixth child of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Maiolatesi. My parents moved first to Taylor and Then to Jessup, Pennsylvania before settling in West Scranton. Our home at 327 North Deckers Court is where I can remember the most about my childhood days.
The house where I was born has since been destroyed by fire. It is now an empty parking lot for the American Legion Hall which was once our little Italian Methodist Mission for Italian immigrants.
We were very poor, as most people were because of the depression. Our home was a dilapidated duplex house. We occupied both units. There was no electricity and gas was used for lighting. There were two coal and wood burning stoves: one in the kitchen for cooking and heat, and the other in the living room for heat. The house never had a coat of paint on the outside. In later years, I remember electrical service was installed with the exposed wires in only a few rooms. Our toilet was in the basement at the bottom of the stairs. It was no more than 5” x 5” closet space with one small bulb. Since the toilet always leaked, boards were put on the floor so you would not step in the water which had to be bailed out from time to time. The rest of the cellar was a dirt floor. This is where I played as a child, cutting up and nailing wood pieces together to make toys. I got the wood at the Woodlawn dairy which was just a few buildings down the court. The new quart glass bottles were shipped to the dairy in wooden crates, and I collected the discarded crates when they were thrown out to make my toys, etc.
Many of the house windows were either cracked or sections of windowpanes were missing. I remember snowy winter nights when we slept with throw-type carpets that were on the floor by day and were used at night to keep us warn like blankets. When I wake up in the morning, snow would be lying on the inside windowsill and on the floors. Rags were used to stuff the windows to keep out the
snow. We sometimes had 18”-30” of snow. Coal was used for cooking and heating since anthracite hard coal was mined in Scranton. My dad was a coal miner in Scranton. There were many times when he was out of work, and we got welfare to feed the family. The boys in the family would go with Dad to the strip mines to mine coal. We then had to pay a trucker to haul coal home for us. Each of the children helped my parents break up the coal with a hammer into pieces about the size of a walnut. It was called “walnut” for burning in tour stoves. There were only two rooms upstairs. Mother and Dad slept in the front first floor. The girls slept in one of the two rooms upstairs and the boys in the other room.
Our meals were very simple. I remember drinking a lot of coffee and canned evaporated milk with either Italian bread that was bought or home-made by Mother. We received Oleo from welfare which looked just like lard, and we had to break a little capsule of orange dye to mix into the oleo to make it look like butter. I do not remember having either whole milk or very many eggs to eat. We ate a lot of pasta and pasta fagioli which I did not like then because fat back was used for the seasoning and left in the cooking. I grew up disliking most foods. The only food I really liked was beef steak and natural juice on my bread, but this was not often available. I recall at many of the meals, one of the older children would make faces at chicken or fish, and I would react the same way. They grew out of this habit, but I never learned to like these foods. Many times, I was sent to bed by my father for not eating chicken or fish. Later, while my father was outside working in the garden or playing his guitar and singing, (which he did a lot and enjoyed so much) my mother would give me something that I liked to eat.
I thought of myself as a great sportsman. Since my brothers liked sports, so did I. Fil especially liked swimming. I was allowed to train with both brothers in sports. Dag liked boxing. I began playing sports at an early age. I played until the time I became sick at age 13. I have always felt that my loss of interest in sports had something to do with the injury to my hip. (Note: In 1932, Elmo was working at a tire company when a runaway tire struck him in the right hip that required surgery and a full body cast. In later years he had hip replacement surgeries and during one received some tainted blood. He contracted Hepatitis, then Cirrhosis of the liver that ultimately took his life.) One must be in perfect physical health to participate in sports. So, when I learned I would never be able to play sports, I began to lose interest, hating sports at times.
My Father was the sexton of the little Italian Methodist Mission which was in the front of our house on the corner of Main Avenue and Lackawanna Avenue in West Scranton. Both my parents were Catholic by birth. As adults, they became Methodist. We received free rent in our dilapidated house for tending the church or mission duties such as tending to furnace in the winter. Every week, summer, or winter, we had to clean the floors, windows, and sweep the dirt. The whole family had duties to attend. We had to attend Sunday school and church every Sunday. The preachers usually spoke in Italian, so we did not know what he was saying. The hymns were in Italian and English so we could sing some. For Christmas, we had pageants. I hated them because I had to memorize a few lines. There must have been 15 to 20 Italian families that were members. Most of these families were from Sicily.
Uncle Billy’s father, Reverend Zaffiro, ministered at our church the last 22 years before it was closed. The church was later sold to the American Legion. It was then made into a bar.
As kids, we enjoyed the use of the church for many reasons. Mary had her parties, and I ran all over the building playing on all three floors. I boxed with my brothers and their buddies. I learned to punch the fast bag. I roller skated there. I never had much interest in baseball. I never liked it even as a young boy. However, I sold cold drinks at the local ballpark.
I earned money picking strawberries and blackberries at a farm outside of the city limits. I paid my way to a boy’s summer camp at Lake Dunn where I camped when I was ten years old. I had a “big brother” from the Kiwanis Club of Scranton who sponsored poor boys; his name was Miller. He was a district manager of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company on Wyoming Avenue in downtown Scranton. It was a local distribution center and tire store. I was paid $1.00 for my Saturday’s eight-hour work. I remember coming home with my dollar’s pay, and mother would have a letter already written to send the dollar and letter to my sister Sylvia at Wyoming seminary in Wilkes-Barre, PA. I was thrilled when Mr. Miller paid for a pair of Official Boy Scout’s Shoes for me at Samter Brothers store, which was considered Scranton’s finest clothing store.
I was the happiest when I was 13 years old. I swept floors at the Firestone store. Later, I worked in the office sealing letters and putting on stamps for mailing.
I spent time there with a guy named “Joe”. He was very good to me. We unloaded freight cars of tires. I learned to stock them quite high by using my knee for leverage and throwing the tires high on the rack about 10 feet high. My last working days were spent in the area of fixing flat tires and mounting new tires. This is where I think I might have injured my hip. I was repairing a large truck tire that was flat and I thought I had the tire rim on good. When I turned my back, it slipped out and the tire struck me in the hip and knocked me down. A few years later, my father went to see a lawyer. He told him because of my age at that time and the accident, we should have sued Firestone Tire for many thousands of dollars for my injury.
I finished elementary school and transferred to a new school, West Scranton Junior High School. I was one of the first students in this school. There were a lot of “red necks” to meet in junior high school.”
– Elmo Maiolatesi