Aunt Babe & Aunt Jen (Continued)
By Brian Tervenski
Aunt Babe and Aunt Jen had lived here since after World War II when Uncle Ray Gaddis returning from service found work in textile mills of the area. Ray Gaddis was Jen’s second husband and she had a daughter, Delores, from her first marriage. Within a few years Ray and Jen and their children Dolores, Barbara and Raymond had moved into the newly built Projects for returning GI’s. Babe and her new husband followed Jen and the jobs to New Jersey. We usually stayed with Aunt Babe in her one bedroom apartment. We would unload the car and the kids would head for the penny candy store on the corner and buy candy cigarettes, wax lips, and Fire Balls, while the adults went inside and had coffee and talked. In an hour we were back in the car and following Aunt Babe’s car to the Old Mill Stream, a damned up creek that had been transformed into a first class swimming club.
Truck loads of sand and rustic landscaping, a bath house and refreshment stand made this artificial lake a destination for a summer’s day. We set up lawn chairs in the sand and spread beach towels and then headed for the water. No swimming beyond the rope and no horse fights were allowed but everything else was fair game as we romped in the water for hours.
Aunt Babe was full of life and fun. Her name was Ermida but nobody ever called her Ermida. She was the youngest of seven siblings and with her good looks and outgoing personality she was afforded more freedom growing up than the previous six kids. Maybe Nana had tired of trying to control her children and surely Babe, as the youngest girl, had Pop’s indulgence. In 1943 when she was nineteen, Babe married a dashing young sailor named Tony Ligamari and was a widow at twenty. His ship was torpedoed in action in the Pacific and the love of her life died a hero.
Two years later she meet Lou Cortiglia from Paterson New Jersey when she was visiting her sister Jeanette who had already moved to Patterson with her husband Ray. Lou worked in the textile mills along the Passaic, drove a shiny yellow convertible and fell in love with Babe. They were married and had one son Louis Jr. Babe and Lou and Louis always enjoyed good times and the money they made was spent. They lived in the moment. Maybe Tony’s death told her life was for good times. At any rate, Aunt Babe knew how to have fun. We enjoyed The Old Mill Stream and at dusk we showered and dressed, packed the beach stuff in the car, and headed for Tobeys, a legendary Dinner midway between Aunt Babe’s and Aunt Jen’s. In Poughkeepsie, my family ate at home or at relatives‘ houses. Always! But this was vacation and Tobeys was the high point of the trip. With your burger and fries you could get onion rings or a shake and with judicious sharing you could taste both. You sat in red vinyl booths and each booth had a small juke box device that allowed you to choose your songs while sitting at the table. One nickel and one song was the limit. There was no desert because Josie had baked a Lemon Meringue pie and we had that back at Aunt Babes. After the pie and coffee, we stayed outside and looked at the stars and enjoyed the warm summer night and the kids chased lightning bugs and lit Sparklers provided by Uncle Lou. When everyone was talked out we spread air mattresses and blankets and pillows on the floor in the living room and set the fans so that air was drawn in on one side of the apartment and expelled out the other and we were lulled to sleep by the magic of cross ventilation. Nana slept on the couch.
Truck loads of sand and rustic landscaping, a bath house and refreshment stand made this artificial lake a destination for a summer’s day. We set up lawn chairs in the sand and spread beach towels and then headed for the water. No swimming beyond the rope and no horse fights were allowed but everything else was fair game as we romped in the water for hours.
Aunt Babe was full of life and fun. Her name was Ermida but nobody ever called her Ermida. She was the youngest of seven siblings and with her good looks and outgoing personality she was afforded more freedom growing up than the previous six kids. Maybe Nana had tired of trying to control her children and surely Babe, as the youngest girl, had Pop’s indulgence. In 1943 when she was nineteen, Babe married a dashing young sailor named Tony Ligamari and was a widow at twenty. His ship was torpedoed in action in the Pacific and the love of her life died a hero.
Two years later she meet Lou Cortiglia from Paterson New Jersey when she was visiting her sister Jeanette who had already moved to Patterson with her husband Ray. Lou worked in the textile mills along the Passaic, drove a shiny yellow convertible and fell in love with Babe. They were married and had one son Louis Jr. Babe and Lou and Louis always enjoyed good times and the money they made was spent. They lived in the moment. Maybe Tony’s death told her life was for good times. At any rate, Aunt Babe knew how to have fun. We enjoyed The Old Mill Stream and at dusk we showered and dressed, packed the beach stuff in the car, and headed for Tobeys, a legendary Dinner midway between Aunt Babe’s and Aunt Jen’s. In Poughkeepsie, my family ate at home or at relatives‘ houses. Always! But this was vacation and Tobeys was the high point of the trip. With your burger and fries you could get onion rings or a shake and with judicious sharing you could taste both. You sat in red vinyl booths and each booth had a small juke box device that allowed you to choose your songs while sitting at the table. One nickel and one song was the limit. There was no desert because Josie had baked a Lemon Meringue pie and we had that back at Aunt Babes. After the pie and coffee, we stayed outside and looked at the stars and enjoyed the warm summer night and the kids chased lightning bugs and lit Sparklers provided by Uncle Lou. When everyone was talked out we spread air mattresses and blankets and pillows on the floor in the living room and set the fans so that air was drawn in on one side of the apartment and expelled out the other and we were lulled to sleep by the magic of cross ventilation. Nana slept on the couch.