The Store My Grandfather Built

 

The Store My Grandfather Built

 

by Alice Jane-Marie Massa

 

 

On the ship La Touraine, sailing from Le Havre, France, to New York, what dream did my maternal grandfather carry in his valise?  Born on October 6, 1876, in Levone, Italy, Martino Lanzone, at age twenty, left his homeland with one of his brothers for an adventure to America.  From Ellis Island, he made his way to Pennsylvania before settling in Vermillion County, Indiana.  After about six years of working at a store and bakery in Clinton, Indiana, my grandfather returned to Italy to marry Domenica Allice, also from Levone (in Northern Italy).  Once again on the ship La Touraine, from Le Havre, my grandfather sailed to the United States–but this time, with his wife.  With eighty dollars, the young couple arrived in New York on August 28, 1903.  Perhaps, by this time, my grandfather already had a dream to share with his bride:  probably, he had recently purchased the land for his store building in the rural town of Blanford.

 

The large, two-story building on the road that was eventually US Highway 71, in Blanford, Indiana, became the grocery store and bakery which must have been the culmination of a dream of my maternal grandfather. Always painted white, the wooden building sported a black wroth iron fire-escape on the north side.  Around 1904, the business venture was established as Lanzone’s Grocery Store.  (During my most recent trip to Indiana in 2014, my sister, Leader Dog Zoe, and I went to the Vermillion County Courthouse, at Newport.  Despite perusing numerous huge volumes, we could not find the record of the year in which my grandfather purchased the property in Blanford.  Nevertheless, examining and taking photographs with these old tomes provided a great way to spend a rainy day.)

 

By March of 1914, my grandfather was making crusty Italian bread and breadsticks in the brick oven.  A cousin Dale Martin Lanzone recalled that his father, Carlo (brother of Martin/Martino), rode his bicycle approximately seven miles from Clinton to Blanford to pick up some of the fresh loaves of bread and “peddle” the delicious bread to other communities in the surrounding area.  Additionally, Carlo helped with stoking the wood-fired brick oven in the bakery.  Moving to Greencastle in 1935, Carlo (Charles) Lanzone established his own grocery store in this Indiana community.  Keeping with this family tradition, Carlo and Martino’s sister Marianna Lanzone Pomatto and her husband Simon Pomatto began their first Italian grocery store in 1920, at Livingston, Illinois (near St. Louis).  The three sons of the Pomattos continued operating the stores in Livingston and Wilsonville until 1983.

 

The year 1914 was not only important for the establishment of the bakery, but also for the birth of my grandparents’ sixth child–my mother–on November 25.Earlier in this notable year, my grandfather had built a house for rental purposes:  this house in Blanford was the home of my parents for fifty years and the beloved home where my sister and I grew up.

 

Not only my uncle (born in 1910), but also the three daughters of my grandparents had their work to do for the family business.  At a relatively young age, my Aunt Zita (the eldest daughter, born in 1908) delivered the bread to nearby towns.  My Aunt Lydia (the middle daughter, born in 1912) helped with making breadsticks.  The only sibling to be graduated from high school and business college, my mother was the bookkeeper and tax preparer until the store permanently closed (in addition to being a full-time postmaster of our small town for 28 years).

 

From my grandfather’s Certificate of Naturalization, dated April 18, 1923, I learned that my grandfather had gray eyes and that he was only 5’6″ tall.  His height was surprising because his four children who lived into adulthood were on the taller side for their generation.  Of my four grandparents, only Martino died before I was born: he passed away two years after my mother was graduated from Clinton High School.  His graduation gift to my mother was an Underwood typewriter, on which I first typed and which my sister still has for a keepsake at her home.  As was customary in the year 1935, according to my mother, she, her two sisters, and their mother wore black for one full year of mourning.

 

After 1935, my Uncle Pete carried on with the bakery until 1942, when my grandmother and uncle continued only with the grocery side of the business.

 

In our small town, our family’s business had two major competitors.  Gisolo’s Grocery Store was located on the Blanford Cut-off Road (originally called “Grand Avenue”)–directly across the field and one country road to the west of our Blanford home.  The other competitor, Perona’s Grocery Store, was, a large, two-story brick building (with a dance hall on the second floor) and was located south of US Highway 163 and across the street from the Blanford Post Office.  Neither of these businesses, to my knowledge, ever had a bakery.

 

While I, on a rare occasion, went to one of the competing stores to purchase some candy, I believe my “Grandma Store” (as we called her) never set a foot in either Gisolo’s nor Perona’s although all competitors were respectfully friendly when encountering each other at other places.

 

As the decades progressed, the lower prices and variety of goods in nearby supermarkets brought the demise of all three of these grocery stores.  Even after our family’s store had closed permanently in 1982, my mother rarely went to a nearby supermarket in Clinton, Terre Haute, or Paris (Illinois):  fortunately, my dad enjoyed doing the grocery shopping since he had already retired.

 

The store which my maternal grandfather built was an important part of my young life and was a place where my cousin Carole and I played for thousands of hours.  The distance from my home to the store was a short bicycle ride or pleasant walk west on the Cut-off Road and then one right turn at my Aunt Zita’s restaurant.  After walking a few more yards and crossing Highway 71, I would be in front of Lanzone’s Grocery Store.  For more description of the outside of the store building and details about the inside of the two-story building, please return to this Wordwalk blog on October 26–two weeks from today because my next blog post on October 19 will celebrate somebody’s tail-wagging birthday.

 

Some of my relatives have already contributed recollections for my October 26 blog post, and I thank them for sharing their memories.

 

 

Hoping your memories are as beautiful as a Hoosier autumn,

Alice and Leader Dog Willow

 

October 12, 2016, Wednesday

 

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