Remembering Vincent Civitano

I know my birth father through the stories told to me about him.

I know him by studing the pictures I have acquired through the years.

I know him by the mannerism and expressions of my brothers and his brother.

I know him by researching and writing about his family, my family, the family that has come before us from the simple peasant village of Grumo Appula, in the Puglia region of Italy.

As I remember him on this anniversary of his passing, those of us who knew him intimately, remember the boy and man he was and the gap left in our lives with his passing.

Vincent Anthony Civitano 

24 April 1934 – 20 June 1990

I know him by seeing myself in him

This photo of Vincent was taken in about 1953/54. He is about 19 or 20, serving in the Army in the Korean War. The photo of myself, high school graduation, 1971 and I am 18. This was one of the very first photo’s I received after I found my birth family in 2004. I saw myself in him immediatly. Below is a picture with the two of us transposed on each other.

 

Vincent was the son of Frank Civitano and Catherine Langellotti. Vincent joined his sister, Nicoletta (4) born in 1930. Living at 1114 Metcalf Ave, Bronx, his father Frank was working as an ice proprietor and later delivering coal in those early years. Many of our family members began in the ice and coal business which provided a stable and steady income for their families.

Vincent was preceded in death by his father in 1982.  His son, my brother, Vincent Jr. joined them both in 1996.

As it is with genealogy, we look back into our past to move forward and through life celebrating and remembering those who have gone before in a effort to make sense and understand our present.

Today I remember and celebrate you

Vincent Anthony Civitano