I think of her devotion to technique, and how it’s the basics to which an artist returns, time and time again. Simple technique serves the artist and the creation by providing a foundation upon which the art is made. For the writer, this is the central idea upon which a story is written. Every day, I ask myself as I work, “What am I trying to say?” Lucy asked that same question, in her fashion: “What am I trying to build?” Technique provides the way to the answer. Restraint is a goal born of precision.
Wear what you like, not what looks good on someone else.
Lucy believed that excessive shopping was a sign of a person who had no idea what looked good on her. Somehow, the sea of choice was supposed to bring a customer closer to knowing what she was looking for, but Lucy knew better.
Lucy thought it was better to make a list of what you love to wear. Begin with styles you have worn and loved. Remember moments when you felt your best, and gravitate back to those styles to winnow down your preferences. Too often we are influenced by trends, or the opinions of others, when really all we need do is wear what we like. Trust who you are, know what you like, and the choices will be clear. You will never be mired in the mud of trends or distracted when you keep the basics in mind. At the end of your search, you’ll find you have less clothes, but exactly what you need and will enjoy wearing.
I learned the importance of a uniform from Lucy. I travel, and therefore I need well-made clothing that doesn’t wrinkle or bind. As a mother, I don’t have a lot of time to think about what I’m going to wear, and as a woman, I don’t want to spend a lot of time worrying whether I look appropriate. I admire beautiful fabrics and architectural styling. Simplicity is a lesson I learned from Lucy, and it’s a lesson I continue to learn as I go through life.
When it comes to clothing, the face is the most important feature.
Of all the things I appreciated about Lucy’s skills as a seamstress, I marveled the most at her collars. Collars serve the same function on a garment as a frame surrounding a painting. The placement, arc, and curve of the neckline frame the face and provide an overall sense of proportion and line to the garment, to emphasize a woman’s most important aspect: the face that presents her to the world.
Lucy often made generous collars, which appeared opulent, whether on a coat or dress. Lucy often lined coats with a bright satin, so a rich shot of color peeked out from a sturdy wool.
Lucy believed accessories should mirror the simple lines of a garment. A thin, long chain with a locket worn with a square collar looks prim, yet artful. A lustrous roll collar on a simple A-line coat gives movement and swing to soft wool. A layer of chiffon over a straight silk chemise lends an ethereal mood. No one element should ever throw off another; rather, they should work together in harmony. Simplicity, clean lines, and a clean silhouette work on every age and every figure.
Lucy’s daughters wear dresses created by their mother.
Lucy built clothes for children to ladies of a certain age, so her acumen and experience making clothing for women was extensive. Throughout her career, she built upon her basic principles, therefore her work was never out of style, never felt antiquated—the emphasis was on the person wearing her creations, not the clothes themselves.
I try to be simple, but like the Italian/Latina girls that ride the B train, I love hoops, chunky jewelry, and bold statement pieces. I like a lot of shine. Here, I may seem to part company with Lucy, but not for long. I often look at the mass of necklaces around my neck and eventually, before I leave the house, remove one or two, knowing that overkill is the opposite of restraint. The effect should never be cluttered or maddening, but tasteful, and hopefully fun.
Make it by hand, and it will last forever.
There is something about a garment made just for you that takes an article of clothing from merely pleasing to the heights of true art. This custom creation doesn’t have to be a couture ball gown made from hand-embroidered silk, or any number of ensembles for fancy occasions, it can simply be the most comfortable pajamas you’ve ever worn.
When Lucy made me pajamas, she chose an antique floral pattern. My favorite set was made of one hundred percent cotton with a small forest green floral, with alternating ticking stripes and strips of flowers. You could easily use this same fabric to make bed linens, napkins, or a parasol.
Lucy knew, by sight, how to fit your pajamas to you. The neck was round, lined, and lay flat. She left extra room in the short puffed sleeve; the bodice flared out and stood away from the waist of the pant. The top never wrinkled or looked sloppy. The pants had wide, straight legs, and the waistband was elastic, covered in the fabric and tacked so it never bound or rolled over. When you put the pajamas on, there was no aspect to them that was uncomfortable, itchy, or tugged. When you slept, they moved with you, weightless and adaptable. The pajamas were so simple, so beautiful, that I easily could have worn them out in public, and they would have looked like a 1970s playsuit.
The greatest lesson of my grandmother’s skill as a couturier was her intent. From her, I learned that if art is made with love, from the heart, to please someone, it will be treasured, passed down, and remembered. I think of my reader when I write, as Lucy thought about her customer when she built a dress for a special occasion, or her granddaughter, thousands of miles away, sleeping in the pajamas made just for her.
Lucy imagined the customer wearing the dress, and the impact she would make when she entered the room. I imagine the serenity I feel when I read a book that moves me, and I’m introduced into a world that I want to stay in until the story is told. The power of a garment reinventing the woman is the exact feeling I attempt to create with a story. I hope my reader is inspired to feel the possibilities of love and life through a story or finding, in the character’s experience, a new way of looking at things. I hope you will feel better, uplifted, and your best, after you’ve read a story I have written, just as Lucy hoped a customer felt when she wore a custom dress or coat. When you walked out into the world in a creation by Lucy Bonicelli, you had a certain sense about yourself. Maybe you carried yourself differently, with a sense of pride and possibility. I hope you feel the same, when you read one of my novels. Art makes the spirit soar. And when the spirit is lifted, life follows.
Chapter Five
Security
Viola in 1948 next to a snazzy car.
Whenever I spent time in Viola’s home in Pennsylvania, I spent a lot of time reading. (You cherished that delicious downtime from the chores.) Among the Literary Guild oeuvre of romantic novels and biographies left by the former owner were self help books published during the Great Depression that caught my attention: The Magic of Belief in a plain black leather binding, no dust jacket, and Think and Grow Rich, again no dust jacket but a brown leather cover embossed with a top hat, stack of gold coins, and a pair of men’s formal evening gloves. Further, a practical guide to life published in the 1950s called How to Live 365 Days a Year with a bright red and white jacket that shouted “Read me!” was stacked with the others on the shelf.
There was also a how-to book written in the late 1940s, the paperback How to Win Friends and Influence People, with a bespectacled author Dale Carnegie on the back jacket. These books were read, obviously, time and time again, evident from the loose bindings and dog-eared or bookmarked pages.
When I asked my grandmother about these books, she told me they belonged to my grandfather. The themes were centered on one idea: how to manifest personal success by harnessing the power of your subconscious mind to visualize your goal and get the result you want. The reader, through his own determination and mind control, could attract wealth, shape his financial destiny, and therefore achieve personal happiness. This all sounds very dreamy, and it was—here was a philosophical approach to life that required belief followed by action.
I imagined my grandfather, hat in hand, going from buyer to buyer in the garment district, using the tips in Dr. Carnegie’s book to score an order for the Yolanda Manufacturing Company. I conjure
d Viola at sixteen, walking the floors of the Bangor Clothing Company, imagining herself with a desk in the front office, as detailed in the exercises in The Magic of Belief.
There was no prestigious college degree, impressive business school master’s degree, or family connections that either of my grandmothers or grandfathers could rely upon as a calling card to attract business. They had nothing to recommend them but their experience and desire to lead. They had to invent their own financial philosophy and life plan. They also had to see their goal to eventually achieve it. They had to imagine the building, the workforce, the operation itself. They had to think big when ideas were all they owned. They stuck to the tenets of visualization, which is to picture the goal repeatedly, then take the steps to see it through to completion. They did not rest until the factory in their mind’s eye was in full operation in Martins Creek. Think and Grow Rich contained aspirational advice with specific steps to wealth: how to take the thoughts in your head and turn them into cash.
Viola taught me to save, and the time value of money.
The first rule of savings is sacrifice. I couldn’t have everything I wanted, when I wanted it. Viola said, You know what you earned each week. You know exactly what your basic expenditures are, then factor in your debt. First, before you pay any bill, pay yourself. Whether it’s five dollars, or fifty or five hundred, secure an account and begin putting money in it today.
Viola and Michael were big on taking the savings and buying government bonds. They were big supporters of bond sales during World War II, and these purchases were the backbone of their personal savings.
They believed in saving money that you will not touch for years. “Forget it’s there!” Viola used to say. That money will accrue interest, no matter how meager, and provide you with a return on your savings. Viola taught me that the road to wealth is making saving money a habit. Once you get into the habit, and the earlier you start the process the better, your savings will grow, and as they grow, so will your sense of security and your ability to take a risk. If you want to take a year off, for example, you need to save two years of salary. You’d be surprised, with the occasional windfall and extra paycheck, how you can make money work for you.
Before I left temping as a secretary, I squirreled away enough cash to get me through several months, which led to my first job writing in television. To this day, I have the habit of saving for particular things, and depriving myself of silly expenditures in the face of one wonderful thing. And there have been times in my life when that one wonderful thing was a medical emergency or the need for an unexpected plane ticket.
Buy a home.
Lucy, widowed at the age of thirty-five, was in an entirely different financial situation from Viola. Lucy didn’t have a life partner to share the dream or the work to secure the purchase of a home. While her husband was a veteran of World War I, Lucy received no restitution, even though the cancer that killed him was from mustard gas dropped on his platoon in World War I. Lucy did not look for windfalls, or miracle money, nor did she expect her family in Italy to bear the responsibility of helping with her family. With her youth, skill, and vision, she figured it out. She knew she had to invent a plan and, with meager savings and the loss of my grandfather’s income from his shoe shop, build a new life alone.
Lucy was living with her three children in the brick building on 5 West Lake Street in Chisholm. She was renting, but did not own it. The same tentacles of the horrors of the Great Depression had reached her mining town, and she could see that things would eventually get better, but not any time soon. In a bold move, she went to a wealthy Italian man (he owned several successful restaurants) who had emigrated from Bergamo (so she shared his background) and asked for a loan to buy her building. This man, Gildo Salvi, cut Lucy a good deal. Within five years of my grandfather’s death, and on Lucy’s fortieth birthday, she owned her building outright. She told me that every night when she went to sleep, she imagined owning the building. And payment by monthly payment, scraping here and skimping there, she made the payments on a timely basis and paid back the loan. Like Viola, Lucy used visualization as a tool to meet her goal.
Lucy never forgot the generosity of Gildo Salvi, and would often repeat his name to me. On the day of her last payment, Lucy delivered it in person. Mr. Salvi told Lucy that he had never expected her to honor the debt in its entirety. He knew of her circumstances, and figured he was doing a good deed, and that was repayment enough. Lucy said, “You don’t know me, Gildo. I could not rest until I paid this debt.”
Lucy credits this act of generosity from Mr. Salvi to her family as a solid indication that help was there if you needed it, but if you took that help, the responsibility to pay back the debt was a vow not to be broken. She told me the happiest day of her life was the day she handed Mr. Salvi the final payment on the building. She had done it—on her own, dollar by dollar, with the satisfaction of this note, made the future of her family’s home secure forever. Lucy now could focus her energy on maintaining the building, providing for her family, and saving for the education of her children.
When it came time for my husband and me to buy our home, I realized that I had an issue.
I don’t know how to buy real estate devoid of emotion, because land, houses, yards, and gardens are where a family thrives. Houses hold memories and the fascinating stuff that defines the taste of the occupants. I think of Viola’s cluster of Murano glass grapes and Lucy’s striped leather ottoman when I think of them. Forgive me, as a smart banker or perceptive broker will tell you not to do as I have done. I worked at first to survive, and then to build a family, and now I work to maintain my family. Luckily, I am half of a team with my husband, but I think of Lucy and how circumstances can change in a moment. I live in a state of preparedness for the worst.
Money and emotions are more closely tied than we know. When you buy your first home, make your love of it one of the reasons for buying it. The sting of paying off the bank won’t hurt as much, when you look at it positively. If your goal is to build a happy life, you will attract the money you need to maintain it because you will work harder to hold on. A home that you own will bring your family years of happy memories, and a place where you can wander without shoes—my definition of happiness.
Keep meticulous records.
Every once in a while, I take Viola’s work ledgers out of the closet. I like to look at the neat Palmer Method penmanship in fountain-pen ink (midnight blue), chronicling the salaries of the employees and the expenditures of the Yolanda Manufacturing Company. (Did everyone born before 1950 have exquisite handwriting, or is that just me?)
I like to peruse the list of names of the employees and their salaries, written on thin blue lines. There are margin notations of payouts to suppliers. There are comments about unexpected expenses, like a shipping payment that was tacked on, or an extra ten dozen high-end hangers that were not included in the supply order.
Meticulous record keeping is the sign of a serious business. No matter how small your business is, whether you are a one-man operation or you work for a corporation, records are key to understanding what is going out and what is coming in and the labor required to fulfill the obligations of the company. Account for every penny on paper. There is no delusion in numbers. Viola said, keep illusion on the screen at the local movie house; in life, face the facts. Live the factory life in all aspects of living: put one foot in front of the other, one deal at a time, and soon, stitch by stitch, order by order, blouse by blouse, payroll will be met. And after payroll comes profit. And when you get paid, pay yourself first.
Viola worked in extras in her budget. There were allowances for the car, Grandpop’s 16mm movie camera habit, and Viola’s hat addiction. However, there was no hiding the numbers or manipulating them to put anyone’s mind at ease temporarily. Building wealth takes a plan, an honest and ongoing assessment of expenditures and sacrifice. Treat yourself, Viola believed, but never go into debt doing so.
Say no to credit cards. br />
Banks make fortunes off of credit cards, off of you and me. Credit cards were anathema to Lucy and to Viola. By the time I graduated college in the 1980s, there I was, without a job or savings, and I was deluged with offers of free money in the form of credit cards. In my youth, the cards were tempting, and there came a time when I used them to temporarily make ends meet, but I always paid them off on time. When I look back now on the high interest rates that I paid, I wish I had saved the money I gave to the banks.
When I veered off course financially, and lots of us do, I soon turned it around. In 1983, at the behest of a brilliant Merrill Lynch money manager, Tom Sullivan, I bought $500 worth of bonds. Today, that investment is worth over $5,000, and I cannot touch it until my retirement. It pained me to give Tom the money to invest then, and through the years, I wanted to cash it in. I’m so glad I didn’t, because it reminds me that even when I had nothing, I saved. Not only must you live on what you earn, you have to save on what you earn. The sooner you begin saving, the sooner you stop losing sleep over money.
A Marriage Proposal and a Partnership
Michael asked Viola to go for a drive at lunch one day. He took her to 37 Dewey Street in Roseto, Pennsylvania, and parked the car in front of a double red brick home with a green awning, and a long backyard suitable for growing a garden and hanging the wash. Viola took in the charming house on the wide street, and loved it on sight.
The front porch was lovely, with furniture and flower baskets hanging from hooks. Sitting in the car, my grandmother could imagine their future. This house was a few miles from her father’s farm, and a block from the Trigiani family homestead on Garibaldi Avenue. Yet there was a sense of privacy on this lovely side street that curved off of Garibaldi. It seemed to Viola like its own world, one that she would like to be a part of.