An Irish Girl and an Italian Boy in Maspeth

My paternal grandparents, Martha “Marcy” and Joseph Romano (or Ra and Daddy Ra, which is what my brothers and I call them) lived in Queens their whole lives.

In 1926, Ra was born to an Irish father and German mother in Maspeth, a neighborhood in Queens. She was the youngest of three girls. Ra and her family suffered greatly during the depression. Her father, Thomas Fell (whom my father is named after), was a talented mechanic and had his own auto body shop on West 125th St. in Harlem. (Now, I live on West 130th St. Ra and I laugh at the irony.) Despite his talents, Thomas took to drink. All the money he made went to waste in Irish pubs and so my grandmother Ra, her mother, and her two sisters went hungry.

In 1928, Daddy Ra was born to Italian parents in Corona, also a neighborhood in Queens. He was the oldest of five children: “In those days, Alexis, every child had their place. One goes to work, another goes to God, one goes to school, another goes to into the military. What have you.” Daddy Ra dropped out of school in 8th grade and went to work. Later, he enlisted in the navy.

At the age of seventeen, Ra dropped out of school too. She decided it was best to contribute to the family income. She got a job in a nearby factory where she met “the most handsome fella she’s ever seen,” or my grandfather, Joseph Romano. “Lexi, I have to tell you. I fell in love as soon as I saw him.” Daddy Ra agrees, “Me too, Red.” (My grandmother Ra had beautiful red hair.)

Their union, completely normal now, wasn’t accepted by Ra’s father, Thomas, for racial reasons. Ra says, “We were Irish and German. Daddy Ra was Italian. My father hated it and let me tell you, we all knew it.” However, Thomas’ prejudice didn’t stop my grandparents, for they married at ages 21 and 23 in 1949.

Ra and Daddy Ra quickly moved to Astoria, Queens where they had my uncle James, “Jimi,” in 1950 and my father, Thomas, “Tommy,” in 1955. All four of them lived in a small apartment on 30th Ave. until my grandparents decided to look for a larger apartment. They found one in Ra’s old neighborhood, Maspeth, Queens in 1958. The neighborhood was predominately Irish, Italian, German, and Polish.

The apartment, on 69th St. and Grand Avenue, was a three-bedroom railroad apartment above an Italian bakery called Pastosa. My grandparents lived there until 2004 when they decided to permanently live in their summer home in Dingmans Ferry, Pennsylvania where they still reside today.

She tells me the story. My father, Thomas, went to Catholic school. His teachers were all nuns, and some of them were cruel. One nun, an Irish Sister Victor, slapped my father in the face for horsing around the classroom. (My father had a mouth full of braces.) Of course, my grandmother Ra went up to the school the next day to meet with her. When Ra introduced herself as Mrs. Romano, Thomas Romano’s mother, Sister Victor was shocked. “Lexi, she was as pale as a ghost. She said, ‘I didn’t know Tommy Romano had an Irish mother.’ I was livid, Alexis.” Instances like that were few and far between, but they did exist.

My grandparents worked many different jobs. Daddy Ra, a man with no formal education, bounced from job to job as a machinist and a navy man. He travelled the world. I ask them about their parents and their prejudices. I wonder how my grandparents became tolerant if their parents were prejudiced.

My grandparents love who they love and this mindset is how they made it in Maspeth. “You live your life with wide open arms. That’s how you do it, Lex. That’s how you achieve happiness.”