MEMORIES OF LENA WALL

Lena (Ancona) Wall and I were not especially close but I was her son’s wife and she was his mother and so we kept a decent relationship during the 30 years I was married to her son. Lena was full-blooded Italian, more specifically Cicilian. Her ancestors moved from Cicily to Chicago where she lived in an Italian district. If I remember correctly, she moved to Mt. Vernon in the 4th grade and was the only non-English speaking student in the class. She never did fully master the English language while in the meantime she forgot much of the Italian language. Her use or misuse of some English words was oftentimes humorous. Three examples that come to mind are “friction” for the word “affection,” “Ho de ho” for “Lo and behold,” and she called a watch a clock. Her words left me puzzled many times but I would eventually figure them out. We laughed at the way she butchered the English language, but not to make fun of her. It was just a cute characteristic of hers, part of what made her unique.

Lena and Tallie had four kids: Mary Alice came first (now Mary Mullinax). John and Jane are twins and Donnie is the youngest.

She had several brothers and sisters: Joe, John (Big John), Tony, Elizabeth and Josie. They were the typical loud, hyper Italian family. Lena’s husband, Tallie, was more low key, laid back. He was the one who built the snow cone stand and he poured the snow cone machine in his foundry from a pattern. He was a patternmaker. He worked in the car shops until he built a foundry in his back yard and would make things people needed that hadn’t been invented yet. Several of his ideas were stolen and patented because he never really knew the process. But before he had his cardiac arrest which disabled him, he made several snow cone machines. He designed the cutting blade so that it would shave the ice really fine rather than gritty like the usual snow cones of the day.

Lena would go into the snow cone stand in the morning and refill the syrup bottles from large jugs. Where she obtained her syrup was top secret. She didn’t want competition. I forget how many flavors she had – 27, maybe. (How many can you name?) She had to mix certain ones and they had to be kept refrigerated. She would also refill the straw spoons. Remember them? The snow cone stand was not air conditioned. It had screens all around and she used a rotating fan, but that was it. The ice was kept in an industrial-type cooler. She started selling around noon and continued until dark. Very little could keep her away from her snow cone stand. She was even late for one of her grandkid’s wedding because she had to sell a few more snow cones.

Donnie got the job of purchasing the ice once he got his driver’s license. He had a bad car accident on the curve by the bridge on his way to town. A drunk missed the curve and sideswiped him with his arm out of the window and the doctors discussed amputating it, but all turned out well. Keeping the snow cone stand going wasn’t easy going. It was not only work, it was hard work.

Lena had another little quirk that I remember. My family was at her house one evening when a tornado warning was issued. The wind was blowing ferociously and instead of finding a safe place in the house, she ran outdoors. I was told she always did. She had to be coaxed indoors.

Lena’s mother was a Torregrossa from the produce family. They weren’t particularly a close-knit family. I don’t know a whole lot about them but what I do know I probably shouldn’t tell.

Lena’s dad ran a store that was in the brick building to the right of the snow cone stand. It burned down once and was rebuilt. He was a hard man. That’s all I will say about him. He died before Lena’s mother died and she lived downstairs in the building until she died. There was an apartment upstairs.

Tallie, Lena’s husband, built the house they lived in. It is well built. He was as good with woodworking and even carving as he was with patternmaking. He was super-talented.