By MARSHA MERCER
In his memorable short story “The Things They
Carried,” author Tim O’Brien tells about the things foot soldiers carried in
Vietnam.
I want to tell you about a trunk that carried the
things an immigrant family brought to the United States almost one hundred
years ago. As improbable as it sounds in our age of disposables, the trunk has
a future.
For 15 days in August 1923, Raffaele and Maddalena
DeGennaro and their four children under the age of 10 made a voyage of faith aboard
the SS Dante Alighieri from Italy to Ellis Island.
In a somber
immigration photo, Maddalena holds in her arms a baby who was not yet 2 years
old. That’s
my father.
The DeGennaros also brought a domed wooden trunk painted
green with metal straps. It was 40 inches long, 26 ½ inches high and 22 ½
inches wide and weighed about 47 pounds, empty.
It contained their hopes, dreams and what they needed to
start their lives anew.
The family settled in Connecticut and the trunk went
to their attic, where the boys slept. The family grew to eight children, and the
trunk became a plaything for generations.
The family assimilated. My dad and a couple of his
brothers Americanized their names. They served in the military, traveled, pursued
educations and careers -- but never lost their sentimental attachment to the
old trunk.
In the mid-1980s, my dad, Guy DeGenaro, living in
Richmond, worried what would happen to the trunk with the older generation gone.
He wanted to keep it safe.
My dad’s older brother, Augie DeGenaro, shipped it by
Greyhound bus from New Haven to Richmond. My mother was not as fond of the old trunk
as my dad, and it went to their attic for about 35 years.
My dad died in February at 99, and I began going through
his and my late mother’s houseful of belongings. When I opened the Italian
trunk, I was astonished to find it full of newspaper clippings.
Unbeknown to me, my parents had saved almost every
story and column I wrote for Richmond newspapers for decades. My dad stored the
pages in clear plastic bags by year.
The trunk’s interior had been restored at some point
and covered in patterned paper. Someone – my grandma? – had written in Italian inside
a list of the things the family had carried in the trunk. A translator deciphered
some of the words:
Shirts or blouses, a knit or jersey suit for Augie, a tablecloth
and napkins with bobbin lace, an embroidered sheet, a red skirt with bobbin
lace, a bodice, cotton towels, a cover-all and diapers.
My grandma made lace, a lost art, and my guess is lace
was the nicest thing they had.
I struggled with what to do with the trunk. My dad had
desperately wanted it to stay with the family; so did I. But I live in a small
townhouse in Alexandria and don’t have room for it.
Nor does my Uncle Richard DeGennaro, my dad’s last
surviving sibling, who is in his 90s and lives in Florida. I asked his son, Rafael,
to email the family to see if there was any interest.
Instantly, Abby DeGenaro Davi in Branford,
Connecticut, the daughter of my first cousin Gregg, Augie’s son, spoke up. She
didn’t even wait to read the entire email. She knew.
“I’m a total traditionalist,” she said. “I want it to
stay in the family.”
Abby and her husband Brian Davi and their children
Violet, 11, and Colton, 6, live near her dad, who played in the trunk as a
child.
She decided to ship the trunk back to New Haven by
Greyhound. Christian and Grant Smith, sons of a friend, double-bubble wrapped
the trunk, hoisted it into their SUV, and drove us to the Richmond Greyhound
station.
Several days later, the trunk arrived safe and sound. It
now has a place in the Davi family room next to a highchair Gregg made for his
grandchildren.
Violet and Colton play in the trunk, though they say “it
smells like old people.”
No, their mother replied, “It smells like 1923.”
They call it a “treasure chest” – and, for my family,
it is. A treasure chest that’s ready for its next hundred years.
©2021 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
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