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CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
With my new title of Assistant Superintendent of Construction and a salary of more than $100.00 per month, Marie suggested that we should think of getting married.
“My dear” I said, “Are you out of your mind?”
“That’s what you thought when I told you to leave Chicago and go with my brothers.”
“But I am only a beginner.”
“You will not be for long. Joe says that you are doing better than he expected.”
“But Joe told me it would be a few years before I could build and I know he said it to encourage me. I have no illusions.”
“You will be building in less time than you think.”
“Do not try to jolly me.”
“I am not jollying you. I don’t want you to get a swell head, but you are learning fast. Look how you can speak English and that is more important than you realize.”
“You are very sweet and always boosting me more than I deserve, but we must wait to get married until I can support you in the manner you are accustomed to living.”
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“I don’t mind living modestly. Besides, I have money of my own.”
“That is exactly the stumbling block. I you did not have any money, we could get along and you would be satisfied; but, as it is, we will have to wait until I can stand on my own feet.”
“We can get along on what you are making now. We can rent a small apartment and I will cook and do all the housework. I am good at it.”
“I know you are, but you would not like it, if you had to do it day in and day out.”
“I shall love to do it.”
“Marie, that is romantic talk.”
“It is not. My mother makes us all work.”
“It is good training. I admire your mother for it, but why put a yoke on yourself.”
“A yoke? Is that the way you feel?”
“Not for myself but for you. I am used to hardship but you are not.”
“Nonsense! What hardship is it to live on $25.00 a week?”
“You cannot move into an empty apartment. What about furniture?”
“My family will give me some and I can buy the rest with my money. It will be my furniture.”
“Have you talked to your family about all these plans of yours?”
“I have. Not in all the details, but we have discussed the matter. My mother and Joe approve of it. Charles thinks we should wait.”
“Charles is right.”
“No, he is not right. He looks at things too seriously, like you.”
“It is better to be serious than light.”
“You can overdo it.”
“You are pretty sure of yourself.”
“In this, I am. It is my life and yours. I have no big ideas and I am willing to cooperate. You are not living in a cheap furnished room and never get a decent meal. How can you work?”
“You selected the room, and I am well pleased with it.”
“Anthony, I like ou the way you are. I don’t want to wait. I want to be with you and help you get ahead.”….
Our marriage, on April 26, 1909, heralded a happy, active, fruitful life, of which our iches reward is epitomized in the first chapter of these memoirs.
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(photo)
April 1957
On the subsequent unfolding of “the road I have traveled,” numerous notes were jotted down in 1944-45. I still hope to complete the task; but, shouldn’t I get around to it, part of the record was very kindly summed up a few years ago, in a midwestern magazine, from which the article is reproduced on the following page.
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• No story of a Campagna venture would be complete without reference to the head of this outstanding family of builders. For Mr. Anthony Campagna is a builder in the broadest and finest meaning of the word.
He was born in an Italian mountain village southeast of Naples. His first training was for the legal profession. Indeed, he graduated with honors from the Law School of the University of Naples. Coming to American in 1908 he continued in law work with a firm in Chicago for a short time.
Then – on a visit to New York, Anthony Campagna met the fabulous Paterno brothers. Joseph Paterno offered him a job in the construction business.
“The throbbing, kaleidoscopic building activities fascinated me,” Mr. Campagna recalls. “I relinquished a law career to devote myself to what was perhaps my destined vocation.”
The young man rapidly rose to prominence as a builder of quality apartments. These building would be monuments enough for an average man. But Mr. Campagna has even more enduring achievement to his credit.
ASSUMES CIVIC LEADERSHIP
He served as a member of the Board of Education of the City of New York from 1943 to 1949. As chairman of its Committee on Buildings and Sites, he directed, without pay, a 100 million dollar program of school construction.
On completing his term the City Council passed a resolution commending Mr. Campagna for devoting half of his time to public service. The Council found further that Mr. Campagna had saved million of dollars for the city through the exercise of his experience and judgment.
In 1950, Governor Dewey appointed him a member of the State Commission on School Buildings.
Mr. Campagna was one of the founders, with the Paterno brothers, of the Casa Italiana at Columbia University.
He restored Virgil’s Tomb in Naples. He contributed substantially to the Herculean excavations; to the Italian Historical Society in Rome; to the orphans of World War I and to many other philanthropic causes here and abroad.
In 1930, King Victor Emmanuel III conferred on him and his descendants the rank of Count. It’s a title that Anthony Campagna, loyal to American democracy, will never use. “Builder” is title enough. And his sons are earning it, too!
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(photo)
FIFTEEN YEARS OF BUILDING 1912-1927
From the rocky mountains of my birth, one of them silhouetted at lower left…to the skyline of New York…
Providence – Faith – Labor
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(photo)
CASA ITALIANA
A CENTER OF ITALIAN CULTURE IN AMERICA UNDER THE AUSPICES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
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(photo)
Front Section of Our Former Residence • Riverdale-on-Hudson, New York City
Awarded gold medal for is distinctive character of Italian Renaissance.
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(photo)
CAMPAGNA crest
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TRANSLATION
Be Decree of my own initiative, dated March thirty-first nineteen hundred and thirty, it was my pleasure to bestow upon Anthony Campagna the title of Count, transferable to his two sons Joseph and John and from them tot heir direct descendant, in the order of the first born male. VICTOR EMANUEL
*****
In order to traditionally complement the title, the Heraldic Institute wishes to affix to it: “of Castelmezzano” and it had to be cleared. After a thorough search, I understand the only survivor was found – impecunious and half blind – in a cheap rooming house in Naples. For the petty sum of fifty or hundred dollars, he gladly surrendered all claims to his ducal ancestry.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
Worldly glory so passes!
*****
Informed that a nobility title from a King to an American citizen had no predent, I made inquiries at the State Department and no objection was raised, in spite of some fuss by a Senator and others.
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(photo)
Small scale reproduction of touching memento, secretly collected and presented to me on my Seventieth Birthday
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SUSIE IN BRILLANT POETICAL VEIN
TO DAD
The talents of a gent we love are many and widespread.
He’s agile on a sylvan trail or on a coaster sled.
His prowess as a fisherman is proved without a doubt:
He smokes a pipe and keeps the plug from ever going out.
At swimming he has met the test and kept himself afloat,
And as the husband of Marie he never missed the boat.
Beneath a tree or in his den he dotes on reading books,
He has a natural flair for dress – unconscious of his looks.
He is a music maker, too, on mandolin or fiddle,
He once raised weights from tow to head to benefit his middle.
He plays a sporting game of golf and takes a proper stance.
He dearly loves to sit and think whenever there’s a chance.
On autumn days he takes his gun and goes out shooting rabbits.
Returning with an empty bag is not one of his habits.
And when from these activities he knows not which to choose
He finds a sunlit corner where he settles down to snooze.
Among the gifts not pictured here, (it is his very best),
In winning love from all he meets, and in this he is blessed.
A guy for whom a tender spot is found in all our hearts
Is ANTHONY CAMPAGNA — Man of Many Parts!
A very Happy Birthday and many more of them! All our love, Susie and John
Johnny, Davey, Jeramy
Pelham, New York
December 31, 1954.
Susie and John arranged the little celebration at their home, in Pelham. Our son Joe and his wife, after a long train ride from St. Louis, arrived just as the rest of our family was gathering for the occasion. It was a thrilling climax.
I deeply cherish that unforgettable evening!
Next: APPENDIX
[Note about pages below. There is no page 167 nor page 176. They are not missing. The numbering error is an oversight.]
