Thanks for the Memories: Grandma Mildred "Millie" and Grandpa Nunzio Vitraelli

Thanks for the memories

This post is dedicated to my maternal grandparents, Mildred "Millie" P. Vitraelli nee Malouf/Gardos and Nunzio "Nick" Vitraelli.  Mildred "Grandma" and Nunzio "Grandpa" lived most of their lives in Addison, Illinois (a suburb of Chicago). The last few years of their lives were spent in Schaumburg, Illinois (another suburb of Chicago).

Mildred, born in 1927 in New York, was the daughter of Marie Cicero and Eugene Gardos (please see previous posts for information about Eugene Gardos). Marie was born in Castelbuono, Palermo, Italy and Eugene was born in Hungary. The family moved to Chicago, Illinois, where Mildred's brother was born. Eugene passed away in 1935, and Marie married John Malouf. The two kids were adopted by John Malouf, and the kids took on the surname Malouf.

  

Nunzio, born in 1925 in Chicago, Illinois, was the son of Leonard Vitraelli (aka Vittorelli, Vitorelli, Vittoreli, and Vederelli) and Lucy D'Orazio. Leonard was born in San Marco La Catola, Foggia, Apulia, Italy.  Family story is that the Vitraelli's had a vineyard in Italy, and one of Leonard's brothers/family members died from eating an unripe olive.  Lucy was born in Alfadena, L'Aquila, Abruzzo, Italy.

Foggia, Apulia Italy:

Pictures courtesy of wikipedia.com

My mom and her sister and brothers have shared some stories with me about the early lives of Nunzio and Mildred, although I am hoping to learn more. Nunzio owned a fruit and vegetable cart which he ran on Maxwell St in Chicago. Nunzio's brother, Michael, was drafted for World War II, and was killed in action in the Phillapines. Nunzio and Mildred liked to dance, in fact that's how they met each other. They had five children together, my mom was one of them.

My favorite memories of my grandparents are my family's weekly Friday visits to their house where we'd watch Wheel of Fortune and "TGIF" with grandma.

Grandpa loved to bowl and loved to talk about bowling. Grandpa worked at Dominick's as a produce manager.

Grandma worked odd jobs at the factory (my mom said she'd bring home a box of items and she'd have to put screws in them.  The family would sit around the kitchen table putting the little screws in the different items).  

I remember going shopping with Grandma at Straford Mall. She always picked out Alfred Dunner brand clothing.  Whenever I see Alfred Dunner clothing, I think of her. 
She taught me how to play pinnochle, and we played Scrabble on a regular basis. Grandma was unbeatable at Scrabble! I remember when she called all her friends to tell them that I had finally beaten her at Scrabble.

Grandma was a big fan of Notre Dame football, and wanted one of her grandchildren to attend.  There's still a couple of grandchildren left to fulfill her dream (ACT scores and money kept me from attending).  Grandma also loved the food channel. We used to tease her that chef Graham Kerr was her boyfriend.  I remember making Christmas cookies with her, especially the candy cane cookies, where we had to "roll snakes" of red and white dough together.

I remember visiting her on the holidays at her old house in Addison and playing on the piano in the living room and playing detectives in her "scary" basement.  I remember the time when I was finally taller than Grandma, she was only about 4'10" (so it wasn't too hard to do...). 

Grandma was a truly loving person, although her heart was as loving to her.  She had many heart attacks and bypass surgeries.  Grandma passed away in 1995.                                                                           I need to do some file organization, because I cannot find Grandma's obituary...it's here somewhere... I have created a memorial page for her on Findagrave .

I remember when Grandpa took me shopping for my birthday after my grandma passed away and bought me a jean jacket vest. He took me to McDonalds where we had hamburgers. My grandpa would always stick his french fries in the top of his hamburger so they were standing up...a hamburger castle. 

Grandpa would have coffee with Cocoa Puffs in the morning. Grandpa called me and my sisters the "three rozzes (sp?)".  Grandpa always held his lips in a scrunched up position that my mom and her siblings called the "funge face".  I remember visiting him in the hospital right before he passed away.  His face had turned yellow from jaundice and he was hallucinating.  He told my cousin there was soccer balls on the ceiling (my cousin loved soccer at the time).  Grandpa passed away shortly after our visit in 1996 (cause of death: cancer).

Grandpa's obituary from the Daily Herald:

Prayers for Nunzio "Nick" Vitraelli, 70, a resident of Schaumburg and formerly of Addison, will be held at 9:15 a.m. Wednesday, April 3 at Ahlgrim & Sons Funeral Home, 330 W. Golf Road, Schaumburg, going to St. Marcelline Church for 10 a.m. Mass.
He was born June 21, 1925, in Chicago. Burial will be in St. Michael the Archangel Cemetery, Palatine. He died Sunday, March 31 at Alexian Brothers Medical Center. Mr. Vitraelli was a produce manager for Dominick's Finer Foods, and retired after 30 years of service. He was the husband of the late Mildred; father of Richard (Joyce), Eugene (Halina), Donna (Richard) Swanson, Karen (Rick) Brown, and Lynn Vitraelli; brother of Connie Hayford, Mary Vitraelli, and the late Joseph and Michael, and grandfather of Victoria, Richard II, and Michael Vitraelli, Dawn and Ryan Swanson, Melissa, Christina, and Diana Brown, and Anthony and Dominick Censotti. Visitation will be from 3 to 9 p.m. today at the funeral home. Memorials may be made to the American Cancer Society or Masses appreciated. Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL) Date: April 2, 1996

I also created a memorial for Grandpa at Findagrave.

I miss them both everyday. Thank you for the wonderful memories.

Mystery Solved: Disappearance of Eugene Gardos (Part 3)

Continued from yesterday:

Eugene Gardos left his family in 1929 never to be heard from again………that was until Eugene’s great grandson, David, (from his first wife) and I (Eugene’s great granddaughter from his third “wife”) made an ancestry.com connection.

A few months ago I received a message on ancestry.com from David. He noticed that we had posted the same passenger list record to our family trees. He contacted me to determine if our two great grandpas, Eugene Gardos were the same person.

1922 Passenger List, Hungary to U.S.

At first our connection seemed unlikely. My Eugene Gardos had a birthdate of 1891 (which was estimated from a census record), and his Eugene Gardos had a birthdate of 1884. David’s Eugene Gardos showed up in the 1930 Federal Census in New York, while my Eugene Gardos showed up in the 1930 Federal Census in Chicago.

1930 Federal Census, New York, New York, Eugene Gardos and family

1920 Federal Census, Chicago, Illinois, Eugene Gardos and family

Despite these challenges, we kept digging. David shared a story with me his family story about how Eugene Gardos was in the movie business, and had helped Vilma Banky come to the U.S. to get a movie contract with Sam Goodwyn. Then, I told him my story about Vilma Banky…..now we were curious!! Could they really be the same guy, despite the differences in birthdates and census records?

Vilma Banky (1901-1991), Hungarian Actress

Our next step was to share pictures. David had a picture of Eugene Gardos and his family circa 1920 (posted in Part 1 of this blog). We also had the picture of Eugene in his U.S. passport photo (posted in Part 2 of this blog). My family supposedly has pictures of Eugene, but they have yet to be found.

While my grandma, Eugene’s daughter was deceased, her brother, Arthur is still alive. His wife, my aunt, and my cousins on Arthur’s side have seen the picture of Eugene. My family knew I was doing genealogy research on the family, so during my sister’s bridal shower I showed them a couple pictures of family members. Two of the pictures I showed were Eugene’s passport photo and the picture David had shared with me. I actually showed them a bunch of pictures, some related and some not related, and asked them if any seemed familiar....so they couldn't just think it looked like him.

Both Arthur’s wife, Ginny, her two daughters, and my uncle confirmed that the passport photo and the picture David sent, matched the pictures they've seen of Eugene Gardos. They said the only difference in the pictures was that he didn't have a mustache, as most of the pictures they saw of him, he had a mustache.

Talking about Eugene more stories about the family came out. Eugene was in the textile business….his passport application includes a letter from his textile company. Eugene’s third “wife” always told the family that their marriage record was lost or burnt, although my family was always suspicious. I have not found a marriage certificate. Ginny told me that Marie and Eugene were 18 years apart, and they probably lied about their ages in the 1930 Federal Census in Chicago. The 1930 Federal Census of Chicago also stated that my grandma, Mildred, was born in Illinois, when she was actually born in New York. I never knew she was born in New York.

The story began to piece together. Someday, somehow, and somewhere in New York Eugene and Marie were introduced to each other. They had an affair, Eugene was still married to his second wife. Marie got pregnant and had my grandma, Mildred in 1927. Eugene kept the affair and the birth a secret from his other family. During that time, Eugene and his wife Theresa had two kids, Elsa and Robert. The affair continued and Marie got pregnant again in 1929. Only this time, the stock market crashed, and proved to be a good time to run away from his marriage. Him and Marie ran away with their daughter, Mildred, and moved to Chicago where Arthur was born. They remained in Chicago, not able to get married, as Eugene was technically still married. Five years later, Eugene died from a heart attack…maybe all the stress from running away from his family or leading this double life? Meanwhile, in New York, Eugene’s wife didn’t know what happened to Eugene, and when it came time for the 1930 Census, a year after he disappeared, she included him as part of the family.

While the story is just a guess about what actually happened, it matches the family stories and historical records. While his wife, Theresa is deceased, Eugene’s daughter, Elsa, and my great uncle, Arthur are still living….discovering they have half siblings 81 years later. It seems like a movie…..

While I feel horrible for Eugene’s wife and family he left behind, if he had never had the affair with Marie and moved to Chicago, my grandma wouldn’t have been born, my grandma would never have met her husband, my mom would never have been born, and I wouldn’t be here today.

As Brad Paisley sings, “To me it’s all so clear, every one of us is here, all because two people fell in love…”

I thank David for reaching out to me and helping me discover the mystery of Eugene Gardos…I would never have known his birth name was Goldberger. I am so glad I was able to help David solve the mystery of the disappearance of his great grandfather, Eugene Gardos.

Mystery Solved? The Disappearance of Eugene Gardos (Part 2)

Continued from yesterday:

Here’s my story of Eugene Gardos:

Eugene Gardos and Marie Cicero were 18 years apart. They were never married, to anyone’s knowledge, and had two children. Their first child, Mildred Gardos (my grandmother) was born in New York in 1927. Marie was pregnant with their second child, Arthur, in 1929 when they moved from New York to Chicago where Arthur was born. Eugene died of a heart attack in 1935. He always said he had a bad heart from the war, but the family never had record or knowledge of him serving in a war. Eugene was buried in Rose Hill Cemetery in Chicago, Illinois. His death record was found under the name, Eugene Jacob Gardor.

How Eugene and Marie met, and Eugene's past were very secretive. The only story anyone knew about Eugene, was that he helped Hungarian actress, Vilma Banky, get a contract with Sam Goodwyn from MGM. Whenever the past was brought up with Marie, she would get extremely mad and defensive. She wouldn't talk about the past and in one incidence called her daughter, Mildred, crazy for wanting to find out about the past.

Marie Cicero Gardos remarried John Malouf a few years later. John Malouf adopted Marie and Eugene's two children, Mildred and Arthur, and the two kids took on the Malouf surname.

Marie died in 1979 before anyone ever found out the truth.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Tomorrow, in the third and last part of the Eugene Gardos mystery, I’ll tell you how Eugene’s great grandson and I made our startling connection and pieced together the mystery of Eugene Gardos.

Mystery Solved? The disappearance of Eugene Jacob Gardos (part 1)

Eugene Jacob Goldberger (aka Eugene Jacob Gardos) was my great grandfather, father of my maternal grandmother.

This is the story of Eugene, as told to me by Eugene's great grandson in 2010:

Eugene Jacob Goldberger was born March 1, 1885 in Turja Remete, Hungary (now part of the Ukraine). He came to the U.S. in 1910, with his wife and two sons, and lived in Omaha, Nebraska. He changed his name from Goldberger to Gardos, as Goldberger was "too Jewish". In Nebraska, Eugene's wife gave birth to a daughter. The family moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, during World War I and eventually made their way to New York. In route, Eugene's wife died during childbirth (the child also died).

Eugene remarried and they had 2 children together. The family story is that Eugene apparently had quite a bit of wealth (probably illegally gotten) during the 1920's. Eugene Gardos was arrested for bootlegging, and tried to escape the law. He obtained a U.S. passport and left the country in 1921. He was arrested upon his return in 1922. {Here's a NY Times article from 1922 describing his re-arrest from that trip, after he previously had jumped bail.}

Eugene was in the movie business, and financed a movie in Hungary, based on a famous Hungarian classic novel ("Pal Utcai Fiuk." -- means "The Boys of Paul Street").

The family story is that Eugene Gardos helped Hungarian actress, Vilma Banky get a contract with Sam Goodwyn (of MGM) in 1925. {note: Vilma Banky's story can be found on wikipedia, her immigration record matches the family story. She arrived in 1925, and she did indeed get a contract with Sam Goodwyn. Eugene Gardos isn't mentioned on the page}

Eugene disappeared from his family in 1929, never to be heard of again.......

Tomorrow, I'll tell you my story about Eugene Gardos and how I developed a connection with family, 81 years later.