I was going to name this story “Illiterate” but changed my mind because that sounds rude. Today, in America, you seldom meet someone who is illiterate, and the term seems almost insulting.

But I had two grandparents and a great-aunt who couldn’t read or write. Formal education wasn’t part of their Sicilian childhood. Survival was.

It didn’t seem strange to me. It went right along with no English, or broken English, and stories of a far-away place called The Old Country.

I watched my mother sign her name as witness when they “made their mark” as the saying goes. My great-aunt didn’t know the alphabet, so instead of an “X” my mother told her in Sicilian to “make a cross” like on a rosary. Zia Rose slowly scribed a squiggly “t”, a mark distinctly her own.

My grandmother Sorbello needed new eyeglasses, but how do you give an eye test to someone who is illiterate? No alphabet, so now what?
The chart consisted of the capital letter E in block form, facing up, down, right, left. Nani would point her finger in the direction of the E as the doctor projected smaller and smaller rows on the screen. Problem solved.

This same grandmother practiced long and hard to write her name–Carmella Sorbello–in 1944 because she wanted to sign her citizenship papers herself, not just “make a mark.” She also took pen in hand with great care to sign the letters written by my aunts to my dad serving in the South Pacific during World War II. Nani couldn’t read the letters, sent or received, and she couldn’t write them, of course. But her signature, in hesitant cursive, said it all.

Those were the only documents she ever signed herself, to renounce all allegiance to Italy and become a US citizen, and to send a bit of herself to her soldier son. I have kept them, treasured family heirlooms.

My paternal grandfather never seemed bothered by the fact that he couldn’t read. He just found ways to deal with it.
Pa rode the bus to work every day for 25 years in Rochester, NY. How did he know which bus was his out of all the dozens that stopped downtown? He knew numbers, so that was a start. But the #7 line could go down Park Avenue or Portland Avenue. Since he needed either Park or East to get home, he just looked for the bus with the shorter name. Four letters in Park and East. He never got lost.

Whenever I traveled, I sent postcards home to my grandparents. Pa always spotted them in the pile of mail. He’d study the picture, usually of mountains, trees, or flowers–my family’s passion–then ask someone to read and translate what Melia (his name for me) had written.

I wonder now if he recognized my handwriting. I wonder if people who can’t read can’t read can distinguish individual writing. Would he have known if I had sent a letter in a plain envelope? Would he have smiled at those mysterious lines and loops and said “oh, it’s from Melia”? I wish now I had thought to ask him.

So. What happens to the progeny of these illiterates? Are their families disadvantaged, somehow set back by these circumstances?

Here’s a story:

My grandfather had some dental surgery done when he was in his 90′s and his dentist prescribed an antibiotic. I took the prescription across the street from my grandparent’s house to the drug store.

“I’m Mr. Pennise’s granddaughter,” I said to the pharmacist. “And I have a prescription here from his dentist.”

“Oh, yes. I know Mr. Pennise,” he said. “Nice old gentleman. Rather quiet.” (He was quiet. But he also didn’t speak English.)

The pharmacist read the script, then said,
“Oh, just a minute. There’s a problem with this.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Well, for the patient’s name, it’s fine. It’s got your grandfather’s name, Mr. Sam Pennise. But down here, for the doctor’s name, they also wrote Sam Pennise.”
“That is the doctor’s name,” I said.

It took just an instant for him to look up and smile.
“His grandson?”
“Yup,” I said. “His dentist is his grandson. And also his namesake.”
“That’s wonderful.” He seemed genuinely pleased.

It is wonderful.
And that, in short, is what makes America great.

Advertisement