Little Pink House_ A True Story of Defiance and Courage - Jeff Benedict [17]
Augusto and his wife, Rosa, clung to their Italian heritage. They spoke, ate, and prayed in Italian. Yet all six of their children were taught to speak perfect English outside the home. Together Augusto and Rosa helped Italian immigrants get into college and medical school; they helped found Cabrini Hospital; and they helped start schools for immigrant children in New York City. In 1919, with Rosa stricken with pneumonia, Augusto turned to his best friend for help. Dr. Vincent Gaudiani, a brilliant Italian American surgeon who had received his medical training in Rome, saved Rosa by operating on her at home. Augusto and Rosa went on to have one more daughter, Vera, who grew up and married Gaudiani’s son, Vincent Jr., himself a doctor.
Vincent Gaudiani Jr. and Vera had six children. Claire was the eldest. Her father had a profound influence on her. Highly educated and an extremely demanding perfectionist, Dr. Gaudiani wasn’t satisfied when Claire came home from school with a 98 on a test. If any other student had a 98 or higher, Claire had not done well enough. He taught her an order of priorities: ambition, focus, and intensity.
Claire’s life became a quest to satisfy personal drives and ambitions. Everywhere she went she broke barriers and stirred controversy. At Indiana University, she became the first married woman with a child to complete a Ph.D. in the French and Italian department. The department had to take an unprecedented vote to grant special permission when Claire insisted on breast-feeding her baby during her doctoral exams.
Getting Pfizer to New London was just another barrier to clear.
7
WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD
September 27, 1997
Her red hair tucked under a wide-brim sunhat, Susette rested on her hands and knees on the sidewalk in front of her house, surrounded by piles of weeds she had dug up. Sweating within a long-sleeved shirt, she yanked on a root as she heard a car pull up behind her. Remaining on all fours, she looked over her shoulder. A shiny Jaguar stopped at the curb, a few feet from her.
A middle-aged man wearing jeans and a loose-fitting, short-sleeved T-shirt got out.
“I heard this place got bought up,” he said, looking down on her.
She stood up. “Yeah, I bought it,” she said, wiping the sweat from her face. “Who are you?”
“Billy,” he said. “Billy Von Winkle. I own some buildings in the neighborhood.”
“I’m Susette Kelo.”
“It’s pretty hot to be working in long sleeves,” he said, grinning.
She removed her hat, letting her long red hair fall over her shoulders. “Redheads burn easy,” she said. “I have to cover up when I work in the sun.”
He nodded.
“So you live in the neighborhood?” she asked.
“I used to,” he said. “What do you do?”
“I’m a paramedic. What do you do?”
“Nothing,” he said, laughing.
Von Winkle had spent much of his adult life in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood. At one time, he had worked at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center. Twenty years earlier, he had quit his job there and started buying up rundown buildings around the fort. He moved into one of the places. One by one, he renovated the others, installing new heating and plumbing systems and converting them to apartments.
“I drive around all day because I have a bunch of rental properties in the area,” he said. “And I own the deli on the corner.”
“You married?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’ve got two teenage sons, and my wife, Jenny, is a registered nurse. I call her ‘Do-what.’”
Susette gave him a puzzled look.
“Every time I tell her to do something, she says, ‘Do what?’ So I call her ‘Do-what.’”
Susette burst out laughing.
“What about you? You married?”
She stopped laughing. “I’m divorced,” she said.