ANNA MONICA / L’Observateur / March 15, 2000

March 19 is an important date for my family. It has always been and willalways be the day to honor St. Joseph, patron saint of the Sicilian Italians. We Monicas are Sicilian Italian-Americans, and for us, for 50 years, celebrating St. Joseph’s Day meant only one thing – time to build the altar. But no more.

For the third year we are not making a public altar. With mom, Vita, beingnow 84 years old, it means she kept the tradition until she was 81 and had bad knees. That also means she couldn’t and wouldn’t stop carrying on thetradition that had long been so meaningful to her until she was physically unable to continue. It had come to have great meaning to her children, too,but none of us had the dedication and determination to continue the tradition. We knew first hand how much work was involved.When I bake at Christmas the aches and pains are numerous, and I think about all the work mom did for the altars and wonder how in the world did she do it. For days and days, hours and hours on her feet or sitting at thetable making cookies, cleaning vegetables, cooking vegetables, making spaghetti gravy with cauliflower, and on and on. Fortunately, her sister,Frances, was always there working at her side, and as time went on we eight offspring were very, very involved in the work. Eventually, we allhad our special things to do whether it was getting the cheese for the artichokes, rolling and icing cookies or standing over hot oil cooking potato balls, cabbage, cauliflower, eggplant and more. Building the altarand theme was always Carl’s job, and making cannolis had become a specialty of mine.

Phyllis, Cookie and Maria had their spouses, O’Neil, Sammy and Wayne, pulling specific duties; Linda eventually took over the job of her late husband, Tony; Nancy did Frankie’s share of work while he was coaching; and late brother Fano always parked his truck for that special day to be with us. This tremendous special family effort became somewhat more ofa bittersweet event after we lost Tony and Fano. Continuing with thetradition was a huge sacrifice for us. In a way, building the altars afterlosing the boys was a test of faith, strength and courage for us, but it was also a witness to who and what they were.

It was my mom’s own decision that the altars would continue. That isunderstandable because her intentions were always pure. And, she alwayswanted us to know that never did she bargain for a favor with the saint.

Her altars were always sacrifices made for intentions; for people needing jobs, for the end of war, for sick people, and so on – always an intention for some good.

Some of our family grandchildren and great-grandchildren, such as Robbie, Randy, Neil, Scott, Sammy Jr., Todd, Casey, Wayne, Sunny, Ty, Nicholas,Katie, Gina, Mathew, Michael, Missy, Mikey, Ryan, Jonathan, Baby Katie, Lacey, Scotty and Jessica, will remember our altar tradition; or, the older ones mostly will. It is unfortunate and regrettable that some of theyounger ones won’t have as strong a memory as their older cousins, such as the large crowds that streamed in and out of the house hosting the altar. One year we counted over 700 plates of spaghetti served, probablyto as many people. Everyone who came was freely fed with spaghetti, veggies and Italian cookies. We did the best we could when we could. The good news is that our family does continue the tradition – but in private. Right now Mom is busy making a few cookies, will make herspecial gravy and we will gather to celebrate our Italian heritage and St. Joseph on that special day. The intentions are still there, and after all,when my family gets together, it is a crowd!Back to Top

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