Alfeo Bari

Growing Up in Italy: "There was always wine"

Alfeo Luigi Giovanni Battista Barigazzi was born on September 16th, 1920 to Luigi and Pasquina (Logli) Barigazzi. His four older siblings were born at home in Casoni Italy but due to the Garfagnana earthquake with the epicenter in the Northern Apennines, Pasquina gave birth to Alfeo in a hospital in Modena.

As a boy Dad loved reading, mathematics, and science. He remembers taking his Dad’s watch apart and never getting it back together. Dad says he “went as far in school as he could for free” then at 11-years old he worked for the forest service (forestale) mostly planting trees. He also had a job tending the grazing cows in the pastures higher than Casoni. Dad played soccer with a rolled up rag in the streets wherever it was flat. Friends asked American relatives to send a calcio (name for soccer ball which translates to “kick”) and they received an American football, so they played with that too.

Dad served mass in Casoni and would ring the bells at the Church. He said, “Once on Ascension Thursday, I rang the bells but not with a cord, but with my hands and feet. There were four bells so it was two with the hands and two with the feet.” During Lent, he would carry the pancheta (little stool) for the lady leading the prayers during Stations of the Cross. Dad was also a Balilla, a member of Mussolini’s fascist youth organization. Dad remembers that for Christmas children memorized a poem but on Little Christmas, January 6th, an older woman, Befana, came with gifts. He got a little snow shovel one year and also remembers trying to convince his mother he still believed in La Befana.

Dad remembers a chestnut tree grove in the Casoni area and also picking wild strawberries (fragole) in the hills and selling them to vacationers that came up. He remembers hanging up a pig on some kind of structure and draining it to make blood sausage. They’d also fry up chunks of pancetta because sliced bacon strips had not existed. The only cookie he remembers from the old country is biscotti. They had panettone too, and “there was always wine.”

Coming to America

Uncle Joe Logli and his wife Irene (Cucchi) Logli, and their sons John and Albert came to Italy for a visit in 1935. Joe had gone to America to work in the mines but got in to the grocery business. He had sold off his share in the business before this visit back to Italy. It turned out the Italian Army might have drafted John and Albert, so those two went over to France and left quickly on an earlier boat back to America.

Dad remembers his uncle drove a car up to see them in the hills. It was the first car Dad had ever seen. It was a Fiat, of course. The model was a Balilla. (Fiat and the fascists both used the name balilla in reference to a little boy from Genoa who was a hero in Italian history.) Dad was 15 years old at the time and both his parents had died. He was living in San Andrea with his paternal grandmother Katerina and his sister Fortunata, who was disabled from having polio, and he was cooking and helping with everything. Uncle Joe offered to take Dad to America and he agreed to go. He was not able to say goodbye to his brother Lino in Sardinia and his sister Maria in Florence. He did go to see his sister Gina who was working in Lucca. Dad has talked of a fair in Lucca at the time and a song he remembered. He picked ripe figs off the trees, and maybe took some on the ship to America with him along with a fifth grade grammar book.

“It took the Blue Ribbon for the fastest crossing”, Dad says of the REX, the ship he took over to America. It took 4 or 5 days for the crossing and Dad shared a bed with another guy on the ship. Dad told this memory from the voyage: “I went to see the movie and I fell asleep and then heard people giggling as they saw me when they walked by after the movie was over. I was half awake.”

Upon arriving at Ellis Island October 17, 1935, Dad’s name was shortened to Alfeo Bari. He says “I remember being separated from my uncle and aunt & I think I spent one night on Ellis Island.” The sliced white bread they served tasted like cake to him and he asked for more. He says he was wearing short pants like kids his age in Italy but they weren't wearing them in America. “First thing I remember about arriving in Rockford is Butch [cousin Angelo Logli] picked us up at the train station. I tried to open the car window but opened the door and the wind caught it.” (Dad was in the rear seat in a car with the old “suicide door” hinge in the back design.)

An Immigrant's Journey in America plus a Purple Heart

When he got to Rockford IL where his Uncle Joe’s family lived, Dad had a private English tutor and worked at the School Street grocery store, which was owned by cousin Nellie and her husband Gene Wilson. Dad was a clerk and also gathered the groceries for people. This was before self-service shopping. Dad started school in 6th or 7th grade. They had put him in lower grades initially but he was “way too advanced.” He went to 9th grade at Roosevelt Junior High and to Central High School until it closed. Then he went to East High School “with the Swedes.” Dad remembers these words above the door at the west entrance to East High: “In the realm of the spirit, there are endless fields to be conquered.” A poem that Dad recites at 99 years old, memorized in his high school days, is Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant (“…approach thy grave like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams” is the final phrase). Dad walked to school with Adolph Groncki and they became lifelong friends. During high school, Dad worked part-time at his cousin John’s grocery store on Broadway and earned 50 cents/hour. Dad says, “I grew up like an animal running free. I had to go. I felt cooped up in the grocery store and remember going out and walking along the railroad tracks [which were by the Broadway store]. It was nice to get to the Army where we were outside walking.”

Dad graduated from high school in June 1942 at the age of 22 and became a U.S citizen later that year. The only memory he has of that day is that there was a judge there and Dad was worried about the name change—he wanted to keep the name Bari. The December 7th, 1942 Rockford Register-Republic Newspaper reported: “Alfeo Bari, 21, will be the first subject of a nation with which this country is at war to be admitted to United States citizenship in Circuit Court here since Pearl Harbor.”

Dad enlisted in the army in December 1942 and joined the Army College Training Program thinking he would stay out of the war. He started out in mechanical engineering at Rockford College, which was being used for the Illinois Institute of Technology Enlisted Reserve Corps. He was one of only 7 guys in the all girls’ college “but they had their own building so did not mingle.” In May 1943 he was called to active duty and was sent to Texas for basic training. He then signed up for ASTP (Army Specialized Training Program) and went to New Mexico A&M University but the program was shut down after D-day on June 6th 1944. He was then sent to Camp Barkeley in Abilene Texas where he joined the12th Armored Division and eventually went over to Europe. Dad was wounded on May 3rd 1945 taking mortar shrapnel in the left arm. He received a Purple Heart for his service and has shared many war memories with his family.

A Loaf of Bread and Thou

Dad moved in with his cousin John when he came back from the war and was planning on going to college on the GI Bill. Dad went to the downtown Rockford Stuckey’s with cousin John and they bought Dad new clothes including a borsolino hat. Dad says, “Really don’t know why I bought that hat.” John asked him to stay at Logli’s because he had lost a manager so Dad never ended up leaving to go to college. A grocery business colleague, Pete Zammuto and his wife Rose set him up on a blind date with Rose’s sister, Angelina Gaziano. Dad says, “I don’t know why it clicked. It was real love, not infatuation. When I think about her, a picture of my Mom came up.”

Their courtship lasted 6 months and Dad says they liked to go to the park. Dad recites a line from The Rubaiyat by Omar Khayan: “A book of verses underneath the bough, a jug of wine, a loaf of bread and thou.” He also bought a book for Angelina called Wisdom of the Sands and underlined passages that he liked. Angelina’s parents were happy. “Grandpa Gaziano wanted to know who I had to back me.” Dad said himself.

They were married at Saint Anthony Catholic Church in Rockford in 1954. They had breakfast for immediate family afterwards and then went to Chula Vista in the Wisconsin Dells for a 3-day honeymoon during Dad’s few days off work. Then the kids came along!

memorial service

Funeral service

April 18, 2022

St Bridget Catholic Church 600 Clifford Ave, Loves Park, IL 61111, USA

Visitation at the church 9:00AM until time of service

Funeral/Cremation Provider: Delehanty Funeral Home Ltd