Finding Lizzy

As I talk to others about my story, I find that almost everyone I know has secrets in their family. Hidden tales of sordid affairs, children born out of wedlock, sexual proclivities that were looked down upon in a time when being yourself was just not possible and one of the worst stigmas of all, which still exists today, mental illness.

This is my story of Lizzy, a long lost Aunt, a true beauty plagued by mental illness, who before my birth, was shunned by her family, cast out to live a life of homelessness and despair and who ended up being buried in Potters Field, a place where the most forgotten and indigent were laid to rest. To this day, it's unknown where Lizzy is buried and it is sad to know that she may not be resting in peace. I like to think that Lizzy has reached out to me from beyond the grave, to give some closure to her life and to tell the tragic story that was forgotten until now.

Lizzy was a poor soul who's name was only whispered at family gatherings. She was my grandmother's little sister, one of nine in the family. She was born in the early 1900's shortly after her parents, my great-grandparents, arrived in Ellis Island after a grueling journey from their homeland in Italy. I am told that her mother, my great grandmother, Maria, was placed in some type of asylum when Lizzy was just a little child. Her mother had been unable to take care of her large family and was committed to this mental hospital and eventually died there. This left Lizzy in the care of her father, my great grandfather, Ludovico, who later changed his name to Tony, probably to try to fit in better with the American culture and to hide his immigrant roots.

After his wife's death, Tony was tasked with taking care of his large family and worked as a baker. He also seemed to be a bit eccentric. It was known that Tony was haunted by the death of his wife and there are stories of him telling his children that he would see the ghost of his wife lurking in the alleyway behind their Philadelphia row house. He hid his money in his shoe when he returned from work early every morning, after arriving home from the bakery where he toiled until the sun came up, making bread for the following day. He was also said to have a mean streak and was rumored to have had a heavy hand with this children, probably beating them if they got out of line.

It seemed that some type of mental illness runs through my family, something that I only found out recently. I am now piecing this story together from snippets told to me by one of my last relatives on that side of the family, my Aunt Lil, who will be 87 in April, and by a recent DNA search I had done. This and a series of other seemingly unrelated events led me on a journey to find out about my missing Aunt Lizzy, the story surrounding her and the secrets my family held on to until now.

As a child, I remembered hushed conversations about Lizzy but never thought too much about it. Here and there, there were mentions of her name and that she was crazy. I come from a big Italian family which is almost an oxymoron since all Italian families back in the day were large. There was always a lot of confusion and activity at family gatherings so conversations were rushed and topics changed in an instant, where the woman talked about their latest recipes and the men about mundane things like cars or politics.

Growing up, my family was very close. We came from very humble roots, and like many immigrants, arrived in America with basically only the shirts on their backs and whatever they were able to carry, which in many cases, were children. They sacrificed it all to make a better life for themselves and their offspring. When I think of my children and how blessed they are, I thank God that my grandparents had the courage to leave their old lives behind to come to an unknown place, where they didn't know a soul just so their children and grandchildren could grow up with so much more.

Times were very, very hard for my family in those days. They were dirt poor. All they could do was worry about their own survival. There was never enough to eat and barely any clothing to wear. Even for my own grandmother, when she had her own burgeoning family, everyday living was a constant struggle. This was during the Great Depression. She would make bread daily along with spaghetti with red sauce, or polenta. These were the staples that could feed lots of hungry mouths and with minimal cost. They would eat that each and every day, sometimes for all three meals. Christmas meant maybe and orange and an apple and if it was a really good Christmas, you might get a handful of hardtack candy. There was a big box in the cellar filled with old shoes that the kids could rummage through to find a somewhat decent pair that they could wear. On cold winter mornings, they would walk together to school with one of the older sisters holding her baby sister's hand, sticking them in her pockets to keep them warm because they only had one pair of mittens between the two of them.

As for Lizzy and her story, I had learned that tragedy struck Lizzy's family again when she was just a young girl. One night, early in the morning, on Tony's way home from work, he was struck and killed by a truck. Details are sketchy but it was thought that this left the oldest son, John, in charge of the family. My own grandmother, being a few years older than Lizzy had her own family by then and was already out of the house. Who knows how John was able to take care of his younger brothers and sisters, but it is thought that he too, had a mean streak and would supposedly beat Lizzy, as she turned into a beautiful young woman and if she dared to get close to any potential suitors. Maybe John was jealous, a typical older Italian brother just watching out for his sister's honor? Or maybe it was something more? One can only imagine what was going on at the time. Maybe this had something to do with Lizzy eventually becoming unruly and bordering on becoming mentally ill? I have no idea if my own grandmother knew what was going on or if she could have even helped since she had her own daily struggles to deal with.

It is said that Lizzy started running away from home, and was becoming increasingly promiscuous, flirting with any guy who would give her some attention. Today we realize that this was a call for help and that many women behave like this, having been sexually abused as children and begin to act out on it later on in life. I don't know if this is the case with Lizzy but something evidently sent her over the edge. Maybe she just inherited a gene from her own mother that made her crazy? One can only speculate.

So fast forward to me and how I started to become interested in Lizzy's story in the first place.

It began when I stopped at an intersection one day after picking my youngest son, Luca, up from school. There was a homeless woman standing there on the corner and I had seen her many times on previous trips to pick up my son. I never looked her in the eye as I didn't want to bring attention to myself otherwise I would feel guilty and have to give her money, something which I refused to do for the many homeless people I had started to see around town. I didn't want to contribute or enable their 'supposed' drug use. Then one day, as we approached the intersection after a school pick up, Luca said to me when we both saw the homeless woman again, "Nobody deserves to live like that! She is someone's mother, daughter, or sister. Mom, if you give her money and she uses it to buy drugs, then that's on her. But for you, you will have good Karma!"

Out of the mouth of babes! It suddenly hit me that what Luca said was so true. Who was I to judge? There for the grace of God, I was living a life of great abundance and for this unfortunate woman, who knows what happened to make her fall into despair, hopelessness and eventually homelessness? So I ended up giving her a dollar this time. I wasn't going to worry about how she'd spend it.

Then something very strange happened. Just a few days after seeing this homeless woman on the street, I was coming out of Walmart, which I almost never go to, and there standing right in front of me, was this woman, asking me for money! We were in a completely different location and here she was, impossible for me to ignore! It was freezing cold that night (and I live in Florida so it was unusual) and I immediately jumped into action. I remembered what Luca had told me and this time, I was not going to look away. I struck up a brief conversation with her and found out that her name was Antoinette. She had been on drugs, ended up having a baby that she had to give up, then found some help getting herself clean. She was in the process of finishing a course to become a court reporter when she ended up falling through the cracks, struggling to support herself with no one to help her, eventually landing her on the streets. We talked for some time. I realized that Antoinette was not stupid or on drugs and I felt like I had to help her. I told her to stay there, then raced home to get her a heavy blanket, warm clothes, toiletries and some food. From that point on, I completely changed my attitude about homeless people, and woman in particular. I helped Antoinette as much as I could and ended up losing track of her. I still think of her today and wonder what ever happened to her. I wonder if she is even still alive. I cared about her and I vowed to help others whenever possible and started carrying around "homeless kits" with the essentials that could help mitigate the uncomfortableness of living on the streets. I began handing them out at intersections whenever I saw a homeless woman.

During this same time when I met Antoinette, I had been given a gift to get my DNA tested and had submitted it to Ancestry.com. The results that came back perplexed me. There were 'hint's' that came back with people who were closely related that I had no idea who they were. I began to get very curious and started my research. To make a long story short, after talking to my Aunt Lil and through the DNA search, I found out that Lizzy had given birth to two children, a boy and a girl, and both had been given up for adoption thru Catholic Charities. They were born ten years apart, in the 40's and 50's, to two different fathers. I was absolutely stunned! These were my cousins and close relatives that I never knew existed! And they didn't even know that each other existed either! As I came to find out through further research, Lizzy had been homeless and also suffered from mental illness. My family evidently cast her out and never had contact with her again. That was until I found her and her story, found her children, and ended up re-uniting them. They both ended up having amazing lives, due to the sacrifice of Lizzy giving them up for a better life and are in touch with each other to this day, living not far from where Lizzy was born.

I realized that a serendipitous thing had happened. Two worlds, two totally unconnected stories began to collide and I was piecing them together. I came to the realization that this was all happening for a reason. The incident that happened between me and Antoinette made me aware of Lizzy's story which had happened many, many years before and something that had to do with my own family and our story. Lizzy's story was very similar to Antoinette's.

I thought it was strange that I suddenly became aware of the plight of a homeless woman, a complete stranger, and at the same time, came to find out that one of my own family members, many years earlier, suffered the same fate. I have come to believe that Lizzy reached out to me from her pauper's grave. She needed me to find and re-unite her children and to tell her story so that she would not be forgotten. And for me, it was a lesson that I should not judge others. If Lizzy had been one of my sisters or a cousin, would I have cast her out, shamed her and never spoke of her again? Would the stigma of being mentally ill and homelessness be too embarrassing for me and my family?

I don't want to demonize my family in how they treated Lizzy but I want to believe that I have learned my lesson in not judging others. You never know what someone might have gone through to put them into the circumstances that they sometimes find themselves in. As my Aunt Lil said, "Times were tough in those days and it was a constant struggle for survival. They were all just trying to get through the day. Taking care of Lizzy would have been too much for them to bear."

This is a story of how a simple DNA test turned into a journey into the past, revealing a sordid family secret, hidden for over half a century, and how a voice from the grave started a search for the truth.