The death of the Mafia Don

Despite the dislike of Elsa for my mother and her refusal to accept her into the family, my mother, and father got married. The marriage was rocky from the start due to the fact that my father grew up privileged attending the best schools, private tutors, and lack for nothing and my mother’s upbringing as a bastard child. The chemistry was there but the lives were completely opposite. They fought a lot and as a result, my mother and Albert grew close. It was simply unacceptable for dissolution of marriage in the fifties, especially in an Italian family. Albert would take my mother out to lunch and they would talk for hours. Hindsight tells me that the only reason my mother stayed in the family was the close relationship she had with Albert. He took the place of the father that she never had.
Over the years, my mother would talk about Albert with compassion and love. It did not matter to her what others said, he was a Saint in her eyes and would remain so until the day she died. He treated her kindly and loved her as a father would love a daughter. In essence, he fulfilled Maslow’s belongingness level in my mother’s life. Elsa, on the other hand, treated my mother with disdain and hatred. She simply had no need for a non-Italian daughter-in-law and never missed an opportunity to belittle my mother, especially in front of my father. You must remember, Albert Jr, was her baby, and no woman would ever be good enough for him. While the fights continued at home, mom stayed with my father because of Albert’s pleas to keep the family together.

They lived in New Jersey until October of 1957 when my Grandfather died. His was no ordinary death; he died in an unspeakable manner. At 10:20 in the morning on Oct. 25, 1957, he stopped into the barbershop at the Park Sheraton Hotel for a shave and haircut. He frequented the establishment operated by Arthur Grasso. That morning, he sat in the fourth of twelve barber chairs and leaned back as barber Joseph Bocchino placed a hot towel on his face. Two masked gunmen burst into the shop and unloaded handguns into the 55-year-old his body. He was hit in his head, back, right hip, and left hand. Witnesses said he lunged from the chair and attacked the reflection of his attackers in the mirror in front of him before collapsing dead in a pool of blood on the floor. The killers were never caught and this began what would become a slow spiral down for my mother.

After Albert died, the family, and I mean the wife and children were confused and afraid. A small funeral was held, simple ceremony was conducted in front of an inexpensive coffin, and Elsa wept loudly and nearly collapsed. Very few people attended other than my father, mother, Elsa, Glorianna, his brother Tony, and a few very close friends. He was buried without much fanfare in a non-Catholic ceremony in New Jersey.

For the next four months, my mother and father stayed in the house in Fort Lee, along with Elsa protected by two Doberman Pincher guard dogs, one of which was still alive when I was born. They were armed and afraid. They helped Elsa back her things and while clearing out the house my mother found over $80 thousand dollars hidden in a dumb waiter. Not surprising for the times. In February 1958, Elsa left the family home in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and returned to Canada. Reporters located her at a large, two-story brick house in the North End neighborhood of Toronto's North York suburb. Her decision to leave was apparently a hasty one. On March 10, 1958, a Newark, New Jersey, court dismissed her application for U.S. citizenship because she did not appear for a hearing.