September 2024 – It's All About Family

More Cousin Memories

I started my memories of my cousin Mal here and I’m going to continue the story now.

In Mal’s senior year of high school, he and 5 other young men in the state were selected by Senator Thomas Dodd to take the special examinations for an appointment to the Naval Academy. The senator “bypassed” the standard selection of principal and alternate and instead placed all of them chosen on a competitive basis and he was one of the two.

*Mal’s graduation from Notre Dame HS West Haven*

Mal headed off to Annapolis in 1960, the same year my twin and I were born, and our older sister was 2 years old – and he was our first cousin – a whole different generation.

Mal went to Annapolis with plans to play football. My Aunt Judy said he had to stop because of headaches but according to his obituary it was “an epic boxing match” that put an end to his football career.

Parents weekend freshman year

When Mal was in high school he started dating Margaret Donroe – Margie – from Hamden. My aunt would tell us how they would be on the phone and Mal would have the phone resting on his shoulder as Margie just chatted away on the phone and he would grunt occasionally to let her know he was listening. Margie was so vivacious and pretty and I just thought they were the most beautiful couple in the world!

*Margie at Bob’s Holy Trinity school graduation 1960*

Naval Academy graduation June 3, 1964

June was a busy time for the Bellafronto Family! Mal graduated from the Naval Academy on Wednesday, June 3 1964.

He and Marge were married three days later in Hamden Connecticut on Saturday, June 6th. My sisters and I were 6 and 4 and we were at the wedding but I’m not sure about the reception.

After their wedding and honeymoon, Mal and Marge headed off to his duty station in Yokosuka Japan where he would be aboard the guided missile light cruiser the USS Oklahoma City, the flagship of the 7th Fleet.

While they were in Japan, I would look out my bedroom window and watch the sun come up over the hill and I would think that on the other side of the hill was Japan and as the sun set there, it came up here! Their oldest son, Malcolm III, was born in Japan and their second son, Eric, was born in San Francisco after his tour was completed.

*Japan was going to sleep on the other side of this hill…*

Whenever they would come to the east coast, Aunt Judy made sure everyone got together to visit with them.

After Mal left the Navy, he got into the paper industry. I remember them living in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, maybe Illinois, California, and finally Oregon. It was too bad that by the time I moved to California, they had already moved!

As the years went by, we didn’t see them as often because Aunt Judy and Uncle Mal moved to Florida.

When my cousin Bill got married in Illinois in 1987, we were together with Mal and Marge (known as Maggie by then) for the first time in a long time. Aunt Judy and Uncle Mal were there too, and we’ve always had such a fun time being with them, this visit was no exception.

*Marge, Mal, Aunt Judy, Uncle Mal, and my twin Gail*, *his goddaughter*

I saw Marge one last time at their son Eric’s wedding in San Jose in 1993 or 94 when we were living in California. Sadly, she passed away in 2009 after a reoccurrence of breast cancer.

Fast forward….

In 2013, Mal’s brother Bob was hosting a family reunion at our cottage in Lebanon CT for his daughter Cathy and her family visiting from Morocco. Mal, young Mal, and Eric came out from the west coast for the party. Bob and his wife Teri brought Aunt Judy who was now 96 years old. We had a wonderful time visiting with everyone! It felt like one of the Posluszny Fourth of July parties I’ve written about. We shared hours of memories and a lot of laughter.

The following year, 2014, Mal and Mary, his partner of a few years, were heading east. Mal would be attending his 40th Naval Academy reunion. I met with Mal during the week and we took a walk around the home on Clifton Street that his mother and mine grew up in. It was in bad shape after water damage and (probably) foreclosure, but the walkway to the back of the house was still there and the odd little entry into the basement.

I also contacted the owner of the family home on Lincoln Avenue to arrange a visit there. Their parents bought the house from Aunt Judy and Uncle Mal and they bought it from their parents. It really is a great neighborhood! We both enjoyed walking through the house, seeing the changes, and seeing what stayed the same.

Mary came out the following week, we had dinner together, and they stayed at our cottage in Lebanon Ct. The cottage his family had for the majority of his years growing up was in the next town so he and Mary spent time driving around the area and visiting the former family cottage on Pickerel Lake.

That would be the last time I saw him, but I enjoyed an email exchange, infrequent but more frequent than that with other long-distance family (hint, hint).

I talked to Mary, his partner last week and we had a nice conversation about their time together and my memories of him.

Malcolm James Bellafronto Jr 1942-2014

A Cousin’s Passing

I found out earlier this month that one of my cousins passed away in Oregon on July 15th. If you know me, or read my posts, you know that I am the Keep of All Things Family so I wanted to share my memories and thoughts on him.

My cousin, Malcolm James Bellafronto Jr, was born in October of 1942. He was the son of my Aunt Judy, my mother’s next older sibling and her husband, Mal. He was nicknamed Butch (I don’t know how he got that name). They lived on North Orchard Street when he was born.

When he was a year old, my Uncle Mal went into the Navy and my Aunt Judy and Butch moved in with my grandmother, grandfather, Aunt Tootsie, and my mother. He was a big little kid! He shared a few stories with me and although he doesn’t recall much of living on Clifton Street, he did remember this story:

During the war my mother and I lived with Gram when my father was in the Navy. I don’t have any specific memories of that period. I do have some vague recollections of Grandpa P.

There was one incident that my mother told me about later. Apparently, I used to spend time out in back with Grandpa. You remember how big the garden was. There was a gate leading into the garden that you had to lift up to get in and out. Well I wandered into the house one time and everyone wanted to know how I got out of the garden. So I showed them, lifting the gate with a loud grunt. Evidently, Grandpa always grunted when he lifted the gate. Mal was 18 months old at the time of that video!

*Aunt Judy holding Butch and sister in law Millie 1944*

He was the center of attention while living on Clifton Street!

In 1945, while his dad was on leave, the three of them drove cross country to California where his ship was docked. Aunt Judy and Butch were planning on staying with her Tante Lizzie and Uncle Ben while Mal was out to sea but he got back on board ship and was told he fulfilled his service and so was done and they came back home to Connecticut.

His brother Bob was born four years later and they eventually moved around the corner from us on Lincoln Drive in a home that Uncle Mal built with help from the students in the Wilcox Tech carpentry program where he was an automotive teacher.

The majority of males in our family attended Notre Dame High School in West Haven, CT. He played football there and relayed the following story to me:

“For the 3 summers of my high school years I would live with Gram for the two weeks before school started. My dad had August off and the family would stay at the lake in Moodus. I started early for football, 3 a day drills. Walk to the train station in the morning, train to New Haven then 2 buses to West Haven. We were on the field by 8 and finished up around 4. Then buses, train and walk to Gram’s. What I remember was how long her hair was and how she would brush it every night while we watched TV. And she was an absolute fanatic about wrestling, pounding the couch and yelling at the TV. For the 3 summers of my high school years I would live with Gram for the two weeks before school started”

Also – “But the main memory is of Gram’s cooking. The pastries she made on holidays. Her cheesecake was out of this world. Tootsie got the cheese part right but could never get the crust. As far as regular meals, I remember everything being overcooked and pretty well tasteless.”

He also told me that when they were building the stairs for the cottage in Colchester, he was the free labor! He said it was a lot of hard work and it kept him in shape for football.

He also told this story about staying at Gram’s house during the summer and the trains that passed along the side of the house going from the steel mill to the main railroad tracks:

“I also remember picking up coal that the engineer would throw into the yard when they stopped at the street. You remember the train tracks going to the steel mill behind the house.

I slept in the front bdrm by the tracks. I distinctly remember one night when I was staying there for football waking up in the middle of the night to the most god-awful noise and most brilliant white light filling the room. Had no idea where I was and what was happening.

When I finally came around enough to look out the window, I saw that the commotion was a very large steam engine stopping at the street with its carbon arc front light shining in the window. Scared the hell out of me.”

*Cousin Charles Jakiela, my parents, Butch at their wedding (altar boys)*

I hope you don’t mind if I end this here. After graduation from Notre Dame High School, Mal was heading to the Naval Academy in Annapolis Maryland.

To Be Continued….

They Came In Boats

The week 30 topic for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is Boats. I’m a week late, will try to get back on track!

SS Blücher from Hamburg Germany to New York. It carried 2,102 passengers; 333 first class, 169 second class, and 1,600 third class. My material grandfather, Konrad Posluszny, arrived on this ship on December 5, 1902.

SS Vaderland in 1906 from Antwerp Belgium. It was part of the Red Star Line. It carried 342 first class, 194 second class, and 626 third class passengers. My paternal grandfather, Charles Jakiela, arrived on this ship on November 17, 1906.

SS George Washington in 1910 from Bremen Germany. When it launched in 1908 it was the largest German built steam ship and third largest in the world and could carry 2,900 passengers. My paternal grandmother, Antonia Liro arrived on this ship in September of 1910.

*SS. George Washington from Bremen Germany*

These are just a few of the ships my ancestors sailed on during their immigration from the German-Austrian region called Galicia.

Second and third class passengers were divided into “messes” and cooked their own food and cleaned their own berths. These trips took approximately 11-15 days. They would usually bring a trunk of belongings which went in the hold for the duration of the trip and they would bring a bag with the essentials for their travel. I found this information here .

My grandfather Posluszny was traveling with $3 in his possession. Based on a conversation website, that is the equivalent of $109.72. Imagine traveling somewhere today with not $109.72 on you with no other options to pay for anything!

The all passed through Ellis Island on their way to New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts where they settled into their new lives.

Automobiles

The week 29 topic for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is Automobiles. There’s no one better to tell you about than my father in law Paul Reinhart!

Paul was born in Iowa on his family farm in 1929. Living on the farm he learned to repair the machinery they owned. He told us when he ended up in Korea in 1950, he took aptitude tests for a few different jobs in camp and they put him in the Motor Pool and his experience just grew from there. After the war, Paul grudgingly went back to the farm in Iowa, but when one of his friends from the Army suggested he head out to California, he hopped on the opportunity. For the rest of his employment years, he was involved with automobiles.

One of his biggest loves was racing and his cars. His first race car was a 1957 Corvette when he entered the Southern California Corvette Association race world in 1960.

*1957 Corvette raced between 1960 and 1962*

The bright orange and purple were the official colors of Union Oil 76 where he was a partner at one of their services station/garages. If you look close, the “Big Three” refers to the station Big 3 Tire & Brake Inc.

It was while he was a rookie in 1960 that he got his first major win at Cotati (northern California) Raceway and a kiss from Jayne Mansfield! In addition, he ended the season as Rookie of the Year.

His success on the race track continued through 1961 and 1962 ending both years as the B Production SCCA Divisional Champion.

*1962 Pacific Division B Production Champion*

October 1962 began the showdown between the (Chevy) Corvette Z06 and the (Ford) Shelby Cobra. Four Z-06s were on the track again a Shelby Cobra. The Corvette won the race but it was only the start of a heated competition. Chevy and Ford were in it to win it. Paul stuck with Chevy and in October headed to St. Louis to pick up his Z06 and drive it back to California. No fancy sponsor or delivery for him! His first race in the new car was in November of 1962.

He quickly learned the Z06’s brakes and suspension were junk. Chevy sent out a crate a parts but by the beginning of the 1963 season the Z06s were in trouble. The Ford Cobras were just too hard to beat and to make matters worse, two of the stars of the Z06s, Bob Bondurant and Dave McDonald defected to Ford. By March of 1963, he decided he had had enough and sold the Z06.

But he didn’t stop there! He picked up a BMC Genie Mark 8 from Joe Huffaker because “he liked the looks of the car”. It had been built for Pedro Rodriguez but the year prior, Pedro’s brother, Ricardo, was killed in a crash and Pedro temporarily retired from racing.

*BMC Genie Mark 8 raced from 1963 to 1967*

Paul had success in the Mark 8 for a few years, but by 1965 he was racing against Mark 10s and the big names of Ken Miles, Mario Andretti, Jackie Stewart, and Parnelli Jones. Between that and not having any big named sponsors to pay the bills, he sold the Genie and in 1968 drove a Camaro for a friend. In his words, “After a couple of events, I realized how much I missed the thrill of racing with the greatest drivers in the world and conceded that if I couldn’t race at the top, it was time to move on to other things”.

In 1981, while browsing through the local trader paper, he came across someone selling a 1963 Z06 and it just happened to be his original car.

He bought it thinking to use it as a street car, but he missed the racing and with the blessing of my mother in law, Wanda, he began driving it in historic races along the west coast with the most notable being Laguna Seca and Sonoma Raceway. Those two locations are where I had the thrill of watching him race, and they DID race!

He raced the car from 1984 though 2000 and had so much fun, he sold the Z06 in order to go back to his roots and rebuild his first Corvette – the 1957. Although he had some parts to the original car, it became more of a re-creation of the original.

*Paul Reinhart and his “restored” 1957 corvette*

He stayed true to the Union 76 orange and purple and the Big Three theme. He raced this car from 2002 to 2013 when he sold the car, but raced it for them in 2015!

*The Z06 on the auction block 14 years after he sold it*

*A Genie MK 10B model car with Paul listed as one of the drivers!*

*1957 Corvette Paul in the original / Cody in the restored*

Both cars continue to race in vintage races on the west coast and their owners were friends and fans of Paul during and after his years of vintage racing.

In the years after racing and before he died in October of 2021, Paul was in the process of restoring a 1957 Chevrolet truck. The parts had all been painted and were stored around the house and the frame and engine were in the garage. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen and we were fortunate to find someone to purchase it at the beginning of our week of cleaning out his house (with plans to bring it all home)! How lucky we were to find that person!

As I said at the start of this, there is no one better person to talk about when I talk about Automobiles. The amount of information I have could fill a book, and there are already books either about him, mentioning him, or quoting him about other drivers. It’s a thrill to comb through the information and see how much he was revered as a driver, a person, and a Chevy man through and through.