Penny from Heaven

by Jennifer L. Holm

  My grandmother looks at her for a long minute and then nods in approval.

  We go into the parlor, and Me-me gets everyone a drink.

  Baby Enrico waves his hands when he sees me. “Carry you! Carry you!” he squeals.

  I can’t pick him up, so I kneel down next to him, and he gives me a sloppy kiss on the ear. Or maybe a bite. I’m not exactly sure, but he’s still a doll.

  “I like the black,” Aunt Gina says, looking around.

  “It’s Mother’s idea. Don’t touch that side table—I think it’s still wet,” my mother says, rolling her eyes, and Aunt Gina laughs.

  I go and stand by Pat.

  “This is Pat,” I announce to everyone.

  Uncle Nunzio’s the first one up, and he’s shaking Pat’s hand and hugging him and saying congratulations. Next comes Aunt Rosa, and then Uncle Ralphie and Aunt Fulvia. By the time Pat meets the whole family, he looks like he’s been hugged to death.

  The doorbell rings, and my mother gets up and opens it. Uncle Dominic is standing there, holding a box with a pretty red bow. He’s wearing a new suit with a tie and shiny black shoes, not slippers.

  He tips his hat. “Ellie,” he says, “you look swell.”

  “Thank you,” she says. “Won’t you come in?”

  I can tell how nervous he is, how nervous everyone is. It’s like an air-raid drill: Everyone’s waiting for the bomb to fall.

  “Hi, Uncle Dominic,” I say.

  “Hi, Princess,” he says.

  “What’s in the box?” I ask.

  As if remembering, he looks down. “This is for your mother,” he says, and hands it to her.

  My mother undoes the ribbon and opens it, staring in silence.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  She displays the box. Two glistening lamb’s eyes in tissue paper stare back.

  For a moment everyone holds their breath.

  Then my mother gives a wry smile and says, “Maybe you should hold on to them for a while. Help me keep an eye on Penny here.”

  Uncle Dominic grins at me, and everyone laughs.

  I’ll never know if it’s because of the lucky bean in my pocket, but it’s a night I’ll always remember for what doesn’t happen. Me-me doesn’t ruin the chicken and Pop-pop doesn’t tell bad jokes. Mother doesn’t get mad and Uncle Dominic doesn’t hide in his car and Nonny doesn’t cry. For one night everyone acts normal and talks and eats and drinks and laughs. It’s just plain old roast chicken with mashed potatoes and overcooked peas and onions, but it’s the best meal I’ve ever had in my whole life.

  Everyone’s got something to say. Me-me and Uncle Dominic talk about how they both love Florida, and Uncle Nunzio and Pat talk about business, and Aunt Gina and Mother talk about the best places to go dancing. Even Pop-pop manages to behave. He and Uncle Ralphie talk up a storm, and Uncle Ralphie promises to send him over a couple of good steaks.

  After dinner, Uncle Nunzio pulls out a bottle of Italian spumante.

  “For the happy couple,” he says to my mother and Pat. “May you have many years together.”

  My mother looks into Pat’s eyes and leans in and kisses him.

  Everyone claps, and Aunt Gina says, “You caught yourself a good one, Ellie.”

  Then Uncle Dominic stands up, and he looks tall and handsome, like the man I always knew he was.

  “A toast,” he says. “To our Princess.”

  “An angel if there ever was one,” Uncle Ralphie adds.

  “Heaven-sent,” Pop-pop says.

  “We don’t care how many arms you got!” Frankie declares with a grin.

  “To our beautiful Penny,” my mother says, smiling at me.

  Then my whole family stands up and shouts, “To Penny!” and clinks glasses. They sound like music, better than any song by Bing Crosby.

  And me?

  I just sit there and smile, my heart so full I think I’ll burst, knowing what a lucky girl I am.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  A Regular Norman Rockwell Family

  I still think of Heaven sometimes. These days my idea of Heaven is different, although it still involves butter pecan ice cream.

  I want to say that my father’s family came over all the time after that night, that we ate dinner and celebrated holidays together and everything. I want to say that we were like a picture postcard, a regular Norman Rockwell family, but that’s not what happened. We just continued on as we always had, but it was all right somehow.

  And Uncle Dominic? In my Heaven, Uncle Dominic’s pulled himself together and is playing ball again. In my Heaven, he lives in a house and has a wife and a baby. In my Heaven, he’s always smiling.

  But real life isn’t like my Heaven, so none of that happened. He did move out of the car, though, and into Nonny’s basement, which was kind of an improvement depending on how you look at it, although the car stayed in the yard.

  Every once in a while I’ll find him there, listening to the radio, watching the world pass by. And I always ask him the same thing.

  “Remember that time we saw Dem Bums play at Ebbets Field?” I’ll say.

  “Sure,” he’ll say.

  “Those were some good seats, right?”

  He’ll grin and say, “Best seats in the house.”

  And they were.

  Author’s Note

  Although this book is a work of fiction, it was inspired by many stories from my Italian American family.

  I was named after my great-grandmother Genevieve (Rosati) Scaccia. My great-grandfather Rafael Scaccia emigrated from Italy and entered the United States through Ellis Island. My uncles owned butcher shops and clothing factories and played bocce ball and their instruments after dinner. My great-grandmother had a “downstairs kitchen” in the basement of the house and sprayed Tabu perfume on the dogs and wore black. I had an eccentric cousin who lived in a car in the yard and carried “lucky beans.” I remember many meals that took all afternoon to eat. Ricotta-ball soup and a dish we called pastiera, which was probably a variation of pastiera rustica, were family favorites.

  The Penny naming story is a family legend. My maternal grandfather, Alfred Scaccia, tragically died when my grandmother was pregnant with my mother. Although my mother was named Beverly Ann, she was called Penny by her family. She was always told as a child that this was because her late father loved Bing Crosby and “Pennies from Heaven” was his favorite song. However, we learned the truth a few years ago. Apparently my grandfather knew he was dying and was heartbroken that he would never know his child. In his final days, he told everyone “That baby is just like a lost penny I’ll never hold. A lost penny.” But as in this book, my mother’s story had a happy ending. My grandmother Mildred eventually got remarried to a wonderful man. Our very own Irish American grandfather, Mike Hearn is known for his sense of humor and love of ice cream.

  The story of Penny’s father is a hidden piece of American history. During World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Proclamation 2527, which designated six hundred thousand non-naturalized Italians “enemy aliens.” All “enemy aliens” of Italian descent were obliged to carry pink “enemy identification” booklets and turn in “contraband,” including weapons, shortwave radios, cameras, and flashlights. In addition, they were warned against speaking Italian, “the enemy’s language.”

  Poster issued by the U.S. government.

  Although many of these Italian immigrants, like those of German and Japanese descent, were longtime residents and respected members of their communities and had American spouses and children, they were still under suspicion that they might conspire with the enemy. Many had their homes searched, over three thousand were arrested, and hundreds were sent to internment camps.

  Records such as this one were kept on those in internment camps.

  On the West Coast, all 52,000 Italian “enemy aliens” were put under a dusk-to-dawn curfew, and thousands were forced to move out of mainly coastal “prohibited zones.” Famed baseball player Joe DiMagg
io’s father was not permitted to fish off the coast of California and was even forbidden to go to his own son’s restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.

  Historian Lawrence DiStasi’s book Una Storia Segreta: The Secret History of the Italian American Evacuation and Internment During World War II gives personal accounts of these painful experiences. It was not until 2000, after an exhibit called Una Storia Segreta, created by the Western Chapter of the American Italian Historical Association, drew national attention to this “secret story” and sparked intense lobbying by the Italian American community, that the U.S. government formally acknowledged these events when President Clinton signed Public Law 106-451, the Wartime Violation of Italian American Civil Liberties Act.

  The story of the translator was inspired by a tale I heard years ago from a gentleman who claimed to have been Admiral Byrd’s translator at the signing of the Japanese surrender at Tokyo Bay. He said he had interrogated Japanese POWs during World War II, and the information he learned had helped in choosing Nagasaki as a city on which to drop the atomic bomb. My uncle James Hearn was stationed in Burma, now known as Myanmar, during World War II, and his experiences form the basis for Mr. Mulligan’s story. Likewise, my great-grandfather Ernest Peck was a block captain during World War II, and my mother recalls having to put yellow-orange coloring in margarine during the war.

  “Wringer arm” was an injury I first heard about from my father, a pediatrician. He said it was “the curse” of the pediatrician because it could be such a debilitating injury. Children could lose their arms as well as suffer extreme skin abrasions. I knew a woman who had lost her entire arm, up to the shoulder, when she was a child due to just such an injury.

  Penny’s mother’s fears about polio mirrored the fears of many in the early 1950s, when the horror of polio was a reality. My mother was forbidden to go swimming in public pools for this very reason. Also, my mother had a terrible burn on her back from the tub, like Penny, and was treated with Scarlet Red.

  Tales Calculated to Drive You MAD eventually became the infamous MAD magazine.

  After their devastating loss in 1953, Dem Bums from Brooklyn went on to win the World Series in 1955. My grandfather saw several games at Ebbets Field as a young man and remarked that it was one of the “smaller ballparks.” In 1957, the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, and soon after, Ebbets Field was torn down. But it still lives on in the hearts and memories of Bums fans everywhere.

  A Family Album

  My Italian great-grandmother Genevieve Scaccia (Grandma Jenny), in her signature black.

  Penny’s parents: my grandmother Mildred Hearn (Grandma) and grandfather Dr. Alfred Scaccia. This photo was taken on their honeymoon in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1938.

  The postcard Grandma sent her parents from her honeymoon.

  Grandma posing in her nursing uniform.

  My mother, Beverly Ann Scaccia Holm (Penny), with her mother (far right) and her maternal grandparents—my great-grandmother Jennie Peck (Nana) and my great-grandfather Ernest Peck (Poppy).

  Penny and her mother, my grandma.

  Penny in one of the famous coats that her uncle Al DeGennaro had made for her at his factory.

  Grandma with her second husband, Mike Hearn (Grampa), and my mother all dressed up for Easter.

  Grampa Mike (at left) and his brother Jack playing college ball.

  Penny with Poppy and Nana. This photo was taken on a vacation to Key West, Florida, where Nana was from.

  Penny’s cousin and best friend growing up, Henry Scaccia, Jr. (as an adult). He was an accomplished practical joker and once sent her a pair of lamb’s eyes!

  My mother, Penny, at about eleven.

  RESOURCES

  DiStasi, Lawrence, ed. Una Storia Segreta: The Secret History of Italian American Evacuation and Internment During World War II. Berkeley, Calif.: Heyday Books, 2001.

  WEB SITES

  The National Italian American Foundation: www.niaf.org.

  World War II Internment: www.segreta.org.

  Acknowledgments

  The support I received from my family and the Italian American community in telling this story fills my heart so full that I think it’ll burst. Trust me, I know what a lucky girl I am. Mille grazie!

  First and foremost, I want to thank historian Lawrence DiStasi. His encouragement helped me give a small voice to the story of Italian Americans during World War II. Thanks to him and countless others, this part of American history is no longer a “secret story.” Many thanks to Gina Miele at the Coccia Institute at Montclair State University; Fred Gardaphe at the State University of New York at Stony Brook; Julianna Barbato, Michael Marcinelli, Samuela Matani at the National Italian American Foundation; and the wonderful American Italian Historical Association.

  A Brooklyn shout-out to everyone who helped me remember Ebbets and the Boys of Summer, including Claudette Burke at the Baseball Hall of Fame, Rick Whitney, John Lord, and Dem Bums fans at the Baseball Fever Web site.

  My family has been enormously indulgent of my writing. Thanks to you all (especially for feeding me!): Frank and Mary DeGennaro, Dr. Ralph Scaccia, Donald and Rosalie Scaccia, and especially my cousin Sister Laura Longo. And a special thanks to my grampa Michael Hearn, who has put up with my endless phone calls.

  I have been fortunate to have enthusiastic editorial support. My heartfelt thanks to Penny’s godmother, the incredible Shana Corey, and Penny’s other “aunts”: Cathy Goldsmith and Kate Klimo and Mallory Loehr and Jill Grinberg.

  Finally, I cannot begin to thank enough the one person who encouraged me to give this story life from its earliest days—my wonderful mother, Penny Scaccia Holm. As long as there are readers, your story will live on. The lucky bean is safe in my hands.

  About the Author

  JENNIFER L. HOLM won a Newbery Honor for her first novel, Our Only May Amelia, which was also named an ALA Notable Book and a Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book of 1999. Jennifer is the author of several other highly praised books, including the Boston Jane trilogy, The Creek, and the Babymouse series, which she collaborates on with her brother Matthew Holm. Jennifer lives in Maryland with her husband, their son, and a rather large cat. You can visit her Web site at www.jenniferholm.com.

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  Published by Yearling, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books a division of Random House, Inc., New York

  “Pennies from Heaven” by Johnny Burke and Arthur Johnston © 1936 (renewed) CHAPPELL & CO., INC. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

  Warner Bros. Publications U.S., Inc., Miami, Florida 33014.

  Photos courtesy of: National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland. Ely Greenfield, used by permission of Una Storia Segreta, a project of the American Italian Historical Association, Western Regional Chapter. Lake County Museum/CORBIS. All other photos from the personal collection of Beverly Ann Scaccia Holm, used by permi
ssion.

  Copyright © 2006 by Jennifer L. Holm

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