July 17, 1944
Dear Sis,
Received your three July 6th Vmails and I can’t get over it. How did you manage to get my wife to go swimming? It’s beyond me. And then even my little honey got her feet wet. My but time has changed a lot since I left home. I just hope my two honeys are having a good time in Cranston. Emily should get to go out to mom’s more often. It’ll sure make her pass the time much faster until I get home. Mom ought to make her eat plenty so she’ll put on a little weight. I’ll be waiting for those snapshots and send them quick. I want so much to see them. I had an idea John Paliotto was killed in Anzio because he was in Africa, but I couldn’t find him. I’m sorry to hear he died, but such is life. Poor kid was just enjoying life. It’ll happen to a lot of others before it’s over. Such is the sufferings of war. At the end, no one wins.
Love,
Brother Connie
Tears come to my eyes each time I read this, one of several letters my grandfather, Constanz Paliotto, wrote to his youngest sister, Louise, while stationed in Italy and north Africa during World War II. My grandfather was 52 when I was born and, like many veterans, shared little if anything of his experience during the war. His reaction to John Paliotto’s death shows an empathy and an air of resignation I’d never witnessed.
My grandfather grew up in Cranston, Rhode Island, where my Aunt Louise still lived with her older sister Kay and younger brother Alexander. But my grandparents and my infant mother were living near my grandmother’s parents in Barrington when he was deployed. My grandfather enlisted in September 1942, and my mother was born in six months later. By the time he returned from the war in 1945, she was two years old.
These letters often mention my grandmother, Emily, visiting Louise and Kay while my grandfather was serving (and if I can find photos, I’ll add them). My grandparents moved back to Cranston in 1968, next door to Louise and her husband, James DelBonis. Alexander built both their houses.
John Paliott-O is actually John Salvatore Paliott-A, a private in the 83d Chemical Mortar Battalion who was killed in the Battle of Anzio in January 1944. He was 19 when he died. John graduated from Cranston High School as part of their “speed up” program and was an 18-year-old “full-time high school student,” according to his World War II draft card, when he enlisted in December 1942. Two months later he enrolled in college and became a member of the Rhode Island State College Army ROTC program (now the University of Rhode Island).
The misspelled last name isn’t surprising. My grandfather likely wrote his own accidentally, though it is common to find relatives listed with an A an I or an O at the end of their last name in official records or newspaper articles, and we do come from Paliott-I’s going back generations.
My grandfather doesn’t refer to John Paliotta as cousin, and it’s unlikely he considered him one, though I suspect I could find a connection if I continue to look. John grew up in the same neighborhood of Cranston, at 8 Rose St., and had five siblings. His father, Giuseppe Antonio “Joseph” Paliotta, had six siblings, including five brothers. So there are a lot of Paliottas to dig through.