HEID:

This is Debra Heid for the National Park Service. Today is Tuesday, May 26, 1992. I'm here with Mr. Ross Scarantino in Pittson, Pennsylvania. Mr. Scarantino came to America in 1919 from Italy. Good afternoon, Mr. Scarantino.

SCARANTINO:

How are you, Debbie?

HEID:

Good. What I'd like to start off with, could you state your full name for me, and spell your last name.

SCARANTINO:

Ross Scarantino. S-C-A-R-A-N-T-I-N-O.

HEID:

And could you give me your date of birth also?

SCARANTINO:

October the 30th, 1912.

HEID:

Mr. Scarantino, what town did you come from in Italy?

SCARANTINO:

What time did I?

HEID:

What town?

SCARANTINO:

Oh, what town, oh. San Cataldo. Sicily. San Cataldo. S-A-N C-A-T-A-L-D-O, Sicily.

HEID:

Do you remember that little town?

SCARANTINO:

Oh, yes, very well. I was just there about nine years ago and visited my old. We have hundreds of cousins there. My parents all have relatives there. And from there then we went to Caltanissetta. That's a province of Sicily.

HEID:

Well, before we get there, do you remember when you were growing up there? What type of little town was it?

SCARANTINO:

Well, it was a little town and I didn't do no work then because I wasn't old enough, but I was walking up and down the cobble streets. And when we went to church we took our chair with us to go to church because you don't bring your chair. You had to pay a penny to sit down, and that wasn't far from our home.

HEID:

And what did your father do for a living?

SCARANTINO:

My dad, he had a farm. He had a farm out there. That's all it was. And then he worked in the sulphur mines too before, while he was there. That's the mines that they have to go to work. They didn't want to work.

HEID:

What type of mine is it?

SCARANTINO:

Sulphur, sulphur, like the coal. Instead of coal it's sulphur. And when we used to go for water there's a big pit in the middle of the town, like, and we used to go for the water, go down and bring it up with the pails.

HEID:

What was your father's name?

SCARANTINO:

My dad's name was, well, either Italian or English.

HEID:

Italian.

SCARANTINO:

Italian? Colegero Scarantino.

HEID:

How do you spell his first name?

SCARANTINO:

Colegero. C-O-L-E-G-E-R-O. Colegero.

HEID:

And what does mean in English?

SCARANTINO:

Charles. It means Charles in English.

HEID:

And what about your mom? What was your mom's name?

SCARANTINO:

My mother's name was Archangela. Maiden name?

HEID:

Yes, please.

SCARANTINO:

Um, La Monico, La Monico. That was her maiden name, Archangela La Monico. I guess you know how to spell that.

HEID:

Did you have any brothers or sisters?

SCARANTINO:

Yes, just one brother, Joe, then. Now we have, I have another brother, Tony, Anthony. And a sister which, who died on us in 1918 during either 1918 or '19 when they had that flu epidemic in Italy that was killing a lot of us people. I think they had it around here, too, they had the epidemic. But it killed a lot of the little ones in Sicily then.

HEID:

So going back to when you're growing up in that little town, you know, what did you do? You said you were too young to work, but what did you do? Did you go to school?

SCARANTINO:

Oh, I helped my dad around the farm. That's one thing. I remember that. And I remember when we used to be sitting outside and then watch the horses and then I'd be in the center and the horse would go right around to do something. What he did, that horse, went right around the circle. You know, we had a rope around him. I forgot what it was. If my mother was here she would tell me, but I forgot what it was, something like that. Otherwise, and then at night I remember when we used to sleep outside, me and my dad, with guns, because they used to steal on us, on the farm. If you didn't watch your stuff they steal them on you, like now they do around here, at home, too. But out there we had to watch. I remember that. We used to sit, sleep outside with guns with us.

HEID:

Was this the neighbors who used to steal?

SCARANTINO:

Well, who knows. Who knows in them days, but my dad remembers that. I remember that.

HEID:

Is that because everyone was very poor?

SCARANTINO:

Poor, yeah, poor, and, gee, and how. 1919, 1920. Things weren't so good. So when my dad come back, I could say, from the service, he spent a year home. He decided to, you want me to say that?

HEID:

No, not yet. We'll get to that. We're still talking about the old country.

SCARANTINO:

Oh. And olives. And then my mother, I remember my mother telling me when the wheat, in those days, we used to get our wheat and bring it to the mill where they had the mill with the water wheel, used to grind our wheat. And then the olives, we had a lot of olive trees there. Because the last trip I went my cousin took us to the farm where we still have a piece of land there, I think. And he said, "That's your farm." And my Aunt Grace was there, "Yes, that's where you slept during the farming season, out there." And that little bungalow was still there. And then she showed me where the railroad station that we took when we come to come to America. I think Charlie was with me that time, I think. My son Charlie was with us that day, yeah. That's what it was. And other things. That's what kept us going on the farm, you know.

HEID:

What about school? You didn't go to school?

SCARANTINO:

No, no. I didn't go to school.

HEID:

Is that because your family . . .

SCARANTINO:

First grade. First grade I went. First grade, yes. Because, like I say, my grandson would kid me. I said, when I got here they put me in first grade. But the next year, the next grade, second, they skipped me a grade. And I keep telling A.J., he says, "Grandpa, how come you skipped a grade?" ( he laughs ) So I must have went to the first grade when I was seven years old.

HEID:

Do you remember that at all?

SCARANTINO:

No, I don't recall that. I don't recall that at all. But I must have went a little bit, when you're seven years old you have to go, six and seven you have to go there.

HEID:

What about, did you have grandparents there? Do you remember your grandparents, a lot of relatives?

SCARANTINO:

Oh, we had cousins, yes. We had a lot of cousins of my uncle's. My mother had brothers, four or five brothers there. And they were close but, like I say, I didn't, I was too young then. But my grandparents come to America. That's who called us. They say they sponsor you to come over, see. And then that's how we got here.

HEID:

So your grandparents left first to go to America?

SCARANTINO:

They left first, yes.

HEID:

What made them decide to go to America?

SCARANTINO:

Well, I don't know about them but my dad thought it was the land of opportunity, or better here. But my mother, she didn't want to come, but we had to go.

HEID:

Well, how did your father know it was the land of opportunity? Did your grandparents write to him?

SCARANTINO:

They must have wrote to him, I guess, you know. And that's how he decided to come after the war. He says, "Come here." So we did come.

HEID:

Did your father have to serve in the service in Italy?

SCARANTINO:

In Italy, oh, yeah. He was a prisoner for four, six months in the First World War. Oh, yes. He had there, three years he was in the service. And my mother used to tell us, they only used to give us a penny or two cents a day, the government, to live.

HEID:

So how was your mother able to make ends meet?

SCARANTINO:

The farm. Go out and farm. You eat on what the farm gives you. And then the wheat in there, but I guess that's how we eat in them days.

HEID:

So then your father comes back from the service.

SCARANTINO:

1918.

HEID:

1918, and then he decides at this point it's time to go to America?

SCARANTINO:

Come to America. Somebody, they must have, somebody must have been telling him about it, you know. Because I guess we were all surprised when he told us.

HEID:

Well, what about you? Did you know anything about America at that time?

SCARANTINO:

No, no. I didn't know nothing, no.

HEID:

How did you feel about leaving your town?

SCARANTINO:

Well, I'll tell you how I felt, I run away from my dad while we were getting ready to go on the ship. And he had to caught me and then whammo! "Get over here!" I remember that. I ran away. ( he laughs ) You tell her, she'll tell, she'll laugh. I ran away, you know. Not run away, get away. I didn't want to go on the boat. Oh, no. That's for sure. She said, "Look, we have to go. Papa says come. We have to go."

HEID:

So, now you're in the small town. How did you get from the small town to the . . .

SCARANTINO:

By train.

HEID:

By train. That's where I said my aunt showed us that railroad station when he, my cousin took us around our land where we owned. And he said, "Those were the railroad tracks was there, and that's, from there we went to Palermo." That's where we got the boat.

HEID:

And do you remember taking the train? Was that the first time you were ever on a train?

SCARANTINO:

I guess. I remember, I think so. I think it's, like I said I was seven, almost seven years old. I must have remembered, because, that's about the best I can say.

HEID:

That's okay. So now you went to Palermo, and that's where you got the boat?

SCARANTINO:

Palermo. ( he clears his throat ) That's where we got the boat. And that's where, they gave us another physical, and . . .

HEID:

Do you remember that physical?

SCARANTINO:

My eyes were bloodshot.

HEID:

Now, was this in, you're still in Palermo.

SCARANTINO:

I'm still in Palermo.

HEID:

Okay, so what happened?

SCARANTINO:

The doctors, we got on the boat, we got, I guess my dad had all the passports. I still have the passports, too. I still have them. I don't know if they're here, or over. I still have them. We got on the ship on December the 8th, on December the 8th. It took us sixteen days to come across.

HEID:

But, now, the examination the doctors gave you in Palermo, they didn't stop you from getting on the boat?

SCARANTINO:

No, no. But they saw my eyes were bloodshot, which they were. Even when I was here for years. It was just a, I don't know why. But then that's from there.

HEID:

Do you remember the name of the boat?

SCARANTINO:

That's what I was going to, it was a French ship. My mother told me it was a French ship and the name she couldn't remember. But I heard we could find that out by going to this, in Washington, archives or something?

HEID:

Yes. We can find that out.

SCARANTINO:

You know, when I was at Ellis Island I tried to go in that machine they say, but there was a line-up so big, I couldn't wait that long. Because we were only allowed two hours there. We went by bus. And the guy that left us off at noon, he says, "Be back by three o'clock." Holy smokes, three o'clock, and it takes, from the bus to the Ellis Island, I didn't get off at the Statue of Liberty because I saw the Statue of Liberty before. So I kept going there, I wanted to stay, the two hours I was there, and I wanted to go down to the machine, see if I can find out the name, but I couldn't. Now, this friend, a neighbor of mine, his grandson got, went to the archives in Washington, and he got everything. They even told him how much money he had in his pocket and the boat and everything else.

HEID:

We'll get back to that. Now, the boat, when you got on, do you remember what the boat was like? You know, what was the facilities like? I mean, was it, how did you sleep on the boat?

SCARANTINO:

We were down in the banana boat.

HEID:

The banana boat?

SCARANTINO:

On the bottom. That's what we called it. Now, my neighbor come over on the second, the second class. He was above us. They served him beer and butter. He never had butter and beer at home. I said, "Yeah, you're lucky. I was down on the bottom, banana boat." We had to hold our dish when the ship was going. You had to hold, my mother will tell you that. As soon as she tells that she starts laughing. Our dish in other ways were going, what are you going to do?

HEID:

And what type of food do they serve you on the boat?

SCARANTINO:

Gee, I don't remember that. It must have been spaghetti. See, good old spaghetti, what the heck. Everybody likes spaghetti, Jesus. But as anything else, I don't know. Maybe she might say something. I'll ask her.

HEID:

No, that's okay.

SCARANTINO:

I'll ask her.

HEID:

Now, what about, was everybody sick? Were you well? Were you able to walk around the boat?

SCARANTINO:

Yes, yeah. We were well. Throwing up, which usually is nothing, we had to throw up. You know, you were down the bottom.

HEID:

So you were seasick?

SCARANTINO:

Oh, and how. That's for sure. But that's, otherwise, then we landed. Is that all right?

HEID:

Before you landed, you're still on the boat, and it gets ready, you're coming into New York Harbor. Do you remember seeing the Statue of Liberty?

SCARANTINO:

The Statue of Liberty. I told my mother and my dad, "Ma, (Italian)." "I don't know." In Italian. Like I say, I asked Ma, "(Italian)." "I don't know." "What is this?" "I don't know." But then they held us there at port, and we had to, maybe you'll see pictures, like I have all kinds of pictures how we were. Like, you remember, how the cattle are in the stockyards, they put them there. Well, we had to get in a line and the doctors examined us and then my eyes again. They checked me out.

HEID:

This is when you get on to Ellis Island.

SCARANTINO:

That's when they sent us to Ellis Island.

HEID:

Okay. So when you were getting off the boat they looked at you and they sent you over to Ellis Island?

SCARANTINO:

All of us, the four of us. And so . . .

HEID:

So what did that feel like? Were you frightened? Did you know what was going on?

SCARANTINO:

I guess we were. My dad thought we were going to get sent back on account of my eyes. But they checked us again, checked my eyes again. So we stayed there overnight, two days we were there.

HEID:

Do you remember what it was like? Was it a lot of people there?

SCARANTINO:

Oh, gee, yes. Yeah, and how. All different kinds of people, you know. And not only Italians, because they picked us up, that boat must have come from another country and they picked us up. And we sat there, we all, that's all I had was just a little thing. Where we come it was warm. It was a little jacket on. So we all looked like greenhorns, like they called us, greenhorns. So we stayed there. Night come, we slept on the bench. And I saw the benches there, too. I went upstairs and saw the benches.

HEID:

And those are the benches you slept on?

SCARANTINO:

Yeah, they were there. In fact, I had pictures of it, I got, you know.

HEID:

Now, what about, did they feed you there?

SCARANTINO:

Oh, I guess they must have fed us. I don't remember. But then that . . .

HEID:

Well, what did you, being a young man, you know, being a little boy from Italy, what did you think about seeing all these different kinds of people there?

SCARANTINO:

Gee, I guess, you know, you get scared. You said, "Where are we? Ma, where are we?" We didn't know. The train, waiting for them to put us on the train from there, you know. Because my grandfather was supposed to come there to pick us up, and they got mixed up with their schedule. They were there a couple of days before and from there then they went home. So after they released us they put tags on us, get off at Pittston. Eleven o'clock at night we were down at the Lehigh Valley Station.

HEID:

So from Ellis Island they just put you on a train?

SCARANTINO:

On the train.

HEID:

And you didn't understand what was going on at this time?

SCARANTINO:

No, we didn't know a thing, and the conductor knew we were supposed to get off at Pittston, so we got off. December the 24th, 1919, we landed in Pittston. And I walked up here during the night, eleven o'clock at night. And there was snow, in them days, there was two feet of snow. My mother will tell you, we froze. And I said, "Ma, how do we get up here?" From the, we went to the police station which was near the Lehigh Valley Station. I said, "Ma, how do we get over there? Take us with the car?" "Yeah, with the car. With your feet." We walked up in that snow. Oh, man. She could tell you. The same thing I'll tell you, they make you laugh the way she started telling it.

HEID:

So then you found your grandparents here?

SCARANTINO:

Yeah. They lived on Pine Street down there but they took us up to a house here on Pine Street, they took us. So we stayed there overnight and then, till we got settled.

HEID:

So what was it like seeing your grandparents? I mean, that was the first time you saw them in a long time.

SCARANTINO:

Oh, nice, yeah. The first time I saw them, well, you know, younger, my brother Joe, he didn't know much. Maybe he was a little baby when they moved over here.

HEID:

But you remember them, right?

SCARANTINO:

Oh, yeah. I remember them, yeah. Yeah. But then, there's another story. When we got right here, you know, maybe I shouldn't say this, but my mother was in the family way, you know. ( he laughs ) And she was three months pregnant. She knew that. I didn't know myself. Maybe she wouldn't have been able to come over, I don't know. Maybe they wouldn't send her to come over. She got here. My brother Tony was born here six months after.

HEID:

So then you got here December 24th, so you spent your first Christmas here.

SCARANTINO:

Christmas here.

HEID:

So what was that like?

SCARANTINO:

Oh, yeah. Nice. Imagine what a surprise it is to see everything here. Not everything. You know, whatever is on the table there. It must have been a little better at home than where we are at home. At home you get to put the big dish of macaroni in the center and then you eat.

HEID:

And did your grandparents have any gifts for you for Christmas?

SCARANTINO:

Oh, I guess, you know, what else. In them days if you get a little toy you're lucky. But it was nice. And then after that, it wasn't too long ago, we started, my dad got a job in the mines, and we started selling papers, and I'm still affiliated with the paper, sixty some years. That's how we earned our first buck.

HEID:

So you were, you sold papers yourself.

SCARANTINO:

Oh, yeah, me and my brother.

HEID:

When you were little.

SCARANTINO:

Little, yeah, sure. You had to go to, it wasn't like now that you could, you get a check in the mail and not have to go to work. No, we had to, we had to do that. A couple years after, we got settled, but we earned.

HEID:

Were you able to go to school, then, when you were here?

SCARANTINO:

Oh, yes, yeah. We had to go. Jackson School, it's up here.

HEID:

Uh-huh. So this was a part-time job for you?

SCARANTINO:

No. We used to sell papers in the morning, in the morning and get up. My dad used to go to work in the mines. We'd get up at five o'clock with him. And then we'd sell papers, me and my brother, on the corner of the bank, and go to school, ready to go to school. Then at night we used to sell the Pittston Gazette. You had to work. And we survived, so that's my story.

HEID:

Well, do you think, looking back, do you think your parents ever regretted coming to America?

SCARANTINO:

I don't think so. Well, my mother, you know, she would have, I guess, would have liked to see her family, but she never saw her mother until '53 when she took a boat back home, and that's where she saw her family and then she had to come back home. But that's about the last time, '53. So imagine that.

HEID:

It sounds like your father made a good living that you were able to afford to go back.

SCARANTINO:

Well, not a good living. We worked hard. He made a good living, and the three of us, we worked. Tony, we wanted to send him to college, but he wouldn't go. So I got married, and I got three beautiful children, eight grandchildren.

HEID:

And what are their, what's your children's names?

SCARANTINO:

Well, Charles, that's the doctor. I don't know if she showed you Charles. Charles and Mary and then he has two children, Nadine and Charles, Charles Ross, they call him. Then Rossie has two girls, Tara and Mia. And then my little Indian, my little girl, she has four babies, four babies. A.J. Kelly, Michael and Katie. Why don't you see if Ettore is home or not? (?)

HEID:

Now, before we conclude, one last question for you that I'm curious about. Now, Ross doesn't sound like a very Italian name.

SCARANTINO:

Rosario.

HEID:

Ah. So . . .

SCARANTINO:

They changed my name, Rosario.

HEID:

Now, did they change, did your parents change it?

SCARANTINO:

At school.

HEID:

Oh, at school.

SCARANTINO:

On my passport it's Rosario. You know, that's my name.

HEID:

So it was a little hard for everybody to remember.

SCARANTINO:

I don't know, but they still, there's people around home here that has the name Rosario, but . . .

HEID:

Everyone got accustomed to calling you Ross, though.

SCARANTINO:

The papers have Ross on, that's all. It didn't make me mad, whatever it was.

HEID:

Now, one other question you mentioned when you came over here, they used to call you greenhorn.

SCARANTINO:

Oh, yeah.

HEID:

Is that here in the town they used to call you that?

SCARANTINO:

Well, maybe you heard it on TV. Sometimes greenhorns, and (?). When we come here I'm not, my mother told us there used to be Welsh here, Welsh and Irish. Now they used to control, they were popular, more people. My mother said, "Now, don't go the next corner, because they'll whip you." They were babies, and not kids, playing. So we would go there and we would come home crying. And then my dad, bongo, you get the rest. "I told you don't go up there." But little by little it, it finished. You started to play. Kids is kids. We had to play, but that's what it was always.

HEID:

Well, being an Italian immigrant, do you think they were prejudiced against the Italians, being because they were Irish and Welsh here, were they prejudiced?

SCARANTINO:

Well, I don't know. But they, you know, they just, from my part they thought they were higher up than us, you know, the Italian people. And the Polish people, too. They thought, you hear guys that I know work in the mines, they used to work in the breaker, these Italian fellows, and breaker is where you take the rock out of the coal, you know, and the boss was either Irish or Welsh. And if they didn't hurry they beat them, hit them. And this one guy that I worked, the fellow that I worked in the A&P he must have got, a couple of times he must have got beaten by the boss, you know. So one day he wasn't looking, he did something to him and he, with an iron thing, and he hurt him, too. He says, (?). He told us. He says some of them come, he says, "I told him. I gave it to him." We're trying our best here but, like I say, in the old days the Welsh and the Irish controlled the mines. I guess maybe you don't know about that, but they. So that's the way, little by little it fades away because we live here now, it's almost all Italians here now, almost, than Irish, see.

HEID:

What made your grandparents choose Pittston? Why did they come to this town?

SCARANTINO:

To work in the mines.

HEID:

Because they worked in the sulphur mines back home?

SCARANTINO:

The sulphur mines home. They worked here. And they didn't, my dad has no education. My mother didn't go to school. My father wouldn't let her to go school because she had to go work in the farm. She was one of eight children and she had to work, go to, but she still could write her name, though. She learned how to write her name.

HEID:

Now, did your mother work while she was here, or did she just stay home and take care of the children?

SCARANTINO:

No, just take care of the children. No, no, she never worked.

HEID:

So compared to the old country she might have had a pretty good life here.

SCARANTINO:

Oh, yeah.

HEID:

Comparatively speaking.

SCARANTINO:

She had a good life, and not an easy one either. You know, they're not easy in the old days, doggone it. Everything was, wash your clothes, this and that. It was no fun.

HEID:

So your dad spends all of his life working in the mines.

SCARANTINO:

He worked in the mines until, for ten years he worked in the mines. And one day he was like a, they called him a, with a lamp. They go in the mines, you know, they have a lamp. And he was, when they blast a hole in the, through the rock, to break the coal, he'd be there with the lamp. And if the lamp goes out, he passes, he'd better run quick, it's black death. So this time it got him, the gas got him, and he laid in the mines. He was dead. If it wasn't for this good neighbor of ours, Mr. Latore, picked him up, and he dragged him where the air was, he would have been dead ten years after we come here, ten years. And they brought him here, you know, in the old days they die in the mines. They'd used to, nobody home, they'd leave you on the porch. Yeah, oh, that's true. You're dead, nobody's home, so they put you on the porch. And until the relatives or somebody come to. So he, that was the last time my dad ever went in the mines.

HEID:

What did your father do afterwards?

SCARANTINO:

After that we got a little store in West Pittston and we're still there, my little brother is still there. We're there, we got that store in '28 or '29. It was a little grocery, a little candy store. And my dad didn't know how to read or write, but good people over there, they got, we got acquainted and they taught him how to get candy and everything. And he got good. He didn't know how to speak. He knew how to count, I guess. ( he laughs )

HEID:

What about learning English? I mean, when you came here I'm sure you didn't speak any English. How did you learn it?

SCARANTINO:

My dad, you mean?

HEID:

Well, yourself also.

SCARANTINO:

I went to school.

HEID:

So you learned it through school.

SCARANTINO:

Oh, yeah. I went to school, first grade. Then, like I said, from first they skipped me to third. Then I went to, I almost graduated, but I didn't graduate. I quit. Six months before my time I had to go to work. I got a job, so that's the way we got it.

HEID:

Was that because you had to help out with the family?

SCARANTINO:

Oh, yeah, Jesus, yeah.

HEID:

Life wasn't easy, was it?

SCARANTINO:

No, it wasn't easy. Thank God, though, from that little store we, we worked, we ate. We went to school, and my dad goes to the store, take care. At night how many times I used to have to go to Wilkes-Barre, and I had a big basket on a bicycle on Saturdays. I used to go there for toys for our store. That's almost eight miles, on the bicycle, go to Wilkes-Barre, buy the toys, and come back home so we could keep eating. But we ate, like I say. We ate, and that kept us going. My dad never went back in the mines, you know. I never went either. So that was the way it is.

HEID:

You're very fortunate.

SCARANTINO:

I'm lucky, thank God. Thank God I got three nice children. The oldest boy, Charles, he went to school almost eighteen years. When he graduated from high school I said, "Charlie, you go to Bloomsburg four years, and be a math teacher. Charlie, Rossie, you go to school four years too, and do whatever you want to do. Angela," I said, "you go to work, no school." That's what I said, but it didn't work out that way. And Charlie in his senior year he gave me a bomb, threw a bomb at me. "Dad, I want to go to medical school." I said, "What?" "Medical school. I've said it since I," I said, "Charlie, medical school, where are you going to get the money?" In them days they all say you had to have a pull to get in medical school, if your parents is a doctor, you know. I said, "Charlie." He says, "Don't worry, Dad." So what could I say? Okay. So he got accepted. After he graduated from there he got accepted at Loyola University in Chicago or St. John's in Flushing, Long Island, New York. Gee, I couldn't believe it. So he went there, St. John's. He went there and the poor kid ( he is moved ). I get choked up. He worked nights teaching undergraduates and I helped too.

HEID:

So there's a lot to be proud of, especially having an immigrant for a father, he did okay, and that's really something to be very, very proud of. And it looks like all your children did a wonderful.

SCARANTINO:

So he went there for three years. He had to go for leukemia and hematology. END OF SIDE ONE BEGINNING OF SIDE TWO

SCARANTINO:

He finished there. He said, "Dad, now I want to go to medical school." I said, "Charlie." Every time you moved him it's a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars, and I was only a grocer working. But he helped too, and Catherine had to go to work. So he went down there and finished his, he finished his medical school and his internship down there and then he gives me another bomb. "Dad, I want to go to Strong Memorial Hospital for cancer." What am I going to say? So he went, and we had to go there again. From Winston-Salem to Rochester, New York, Strong Memorial Hospital. He went there, I think it was three years, three or four years, and then he can, the head of the radiation oncologist, Dr. Ruben, he was the president of the cancer all over the world. He liked Charlie, he got to like Charlie, and he got close and told him, and he, when he was away he told Charlie, "Take care of things." He got to like Charlie. That was that, three years, three or four years, but he had it. And then he, when he finished, he got that degree, he's finished, I said, "Gee, Charlie, I hope you get a job now, or you're going to apply social security." Geez, eighteen years, imagine that. But he was, they were paying him, but enough to live on. Just to pay the rent, and he had a little girl then, a little girl Nadine, he had little Nadine. Then he got Charles while he was there, too. And I was kidding. I said, "Charlie, you're going to collect social security pretty soon if you don't go to work." So . . .

HEID:

I guess my final question to you, now, Mr. Scarantino, have you ever given any thought what your life would have turned out if you had stayed in Italy and never came to America? Have you ever thought of what it might have been for you?

SCARANTINO:

I wouldn't have what I had. I got a good woman, a good wife. ( he is moved ) What else could we want?

HEID:

At this point, let me sign off. This is Debra Heid for the National Park Service. Today is May 26, 1992. I'm here in the home of Mr. Ross Scarantino who came to America in 1919. Thank you very much.