Village people

My mother was one

Mentina Christopher grew up on Sixth Avenue and King Street from age 11. Her parents lived there ‘til the 1960s. The family came from Coalport, Penn. Before that my grandparents lived in Bleggio Superiore, Trentino, Trentino-Alto Adige.

My mother’s Greenwich Village years were her parents’ happiest she always said. ‘Village’ life for her was most influential.

That is why in 2014 I contacted Corinne Neary of the NYPL Jefferson Market branch to pitch her story for the #GreenwichVillageOralHistoryProject

Mentina’s audio is among a collection of stories available online and at the neighborhood branch (425 6th Ave.)

My grandfather came to America starting as a teen from Bivedo. He criss-crossed the ocean multiple times before settling in Coalport. The effort was to work the mines then bring money home, and go back to work some more.

My grandmother and their two daughters joined him in 1930. Nonna was 39. Mentina was born a year later, the ‘reunion’ baby.

Coalport was rural. Their small rented house had no heat or hot water. A glass of water would freeze at night in winter. They had an outhouse. My grandfather needed to heat water in a pot for his nightly bath because he emerged from the coal mine with black soot from head to toe. They had a garden and chickens to support a meal budget, not a hobby.

We visited Coalport in 2007. This is the house my mother was born in. Shown are my aunt Flora Beaver, me, Mentina Christopher, sister Chris Ingrisani, and cousin Ann Marie Campanaro. Photo by Julius Jay D’Souza

My grandmother was lonely in Coalport, my mother told me. She had lived in Verona and Milano cleaning houses for rich people as a young girl so loved the vibrant city life.

She missed her friends in Italy and had a sister in New York and aspired to be there too.

Mentina told me she felt sad for her mother and remembered those Pa years as a hard life for her parents.

My mother had a recurring dream that she could fly. I think it was a premonition because the dreams ended when they moved to Manhattan.

Her mother was so determined to leave Coalport that she once took her kids and sat at the train station and sat there for a long time telling her husband she was going to New York.

Ultimately, they made the bold move, but together in 1942!

They lived in a one bedroom apartment. My great-uncle (we just called him Zio) helped my grandfather get the job as a super. Rent was included.

Nonno who didn’t speak English no longer had to work the dreary coal mines. He was in his 50s by then. After work he could sit in the park around the corner and talk to men playing checkers that spoke his Tyrolean dialetto. Nonna’s best friend in Greenwich Village was a woman also from her area in Italy.

My mom’s short audio clip is all I have of her telling the “Village” story I loved hearing about and feel in some ways I am also from the “Village” because of her stories and how often we’d go together after a show or just to meet for dinner.

Jay Julius D’Souza and I attended the opening reception of The Oral History Project the year of my mother’s interview in 2014.

I met many ‘Village’ people like my mother that lived there from the 1940s to the 1970’s and described a similar close-knit kind of neighborhood.

The people seemed to love sharing their stories but importantly were also very eager to ask you questions and hear about you.

Mentina had that vibe too. She loved to learn from meeting people. She wanted to understand ‘your’ politics, or faith, why you like the music you like, and what inspires ‘your’ outfit or idea of places to travel.

For a few years she visited other Christian churches. Once she want to a pentecostal worship and attended a charismatic prayer group in a Catholic church another time.

She had a friend who was a Hasidic Jew in Crown Heights whose daughter let me jump Double Dutch with her friends.

I remember the two moms sitting on the stoop with littler kids watching and talking. My mother later told me about the customs of a Kosher home.

I have many stories like this I want to share someday.

But this post is to preserve a small piece of my mom’s important NYC years. She moved to Brooklyn then Queens then L.I. but always said she felt a kinship to Greenwich Village.

I read a post on LinkedIn by Chris Weiher about preserving our parents on video which is why I decided to write this one.

I didn’t videotape mom’s interview for the NYPL but wish I had.

This short audio is all we have of her telling about the important 21-year “Greenwich Village” roots in my family.

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