Louisa Caruso & Joseph D'Agosto
(circa 1962)

"Grampa Joe, in short, was a great man.  Wasn’t hard to see where my father came from.  The apple never falls far from the tree.

Grampa was a 'mans – man.'  He was an outdoorsman, a hunter, a resourceful survivor in the wilderness.  Dug his own wells, his own septic tanks (and installed and made them, so that they were environmentally efficient.  In other words, he didn’t use tanks completely, he used rocks and minerals to refine the waste.

Grampa taught me how to hunt, how to shoot, how to fish and catch them with my hands, he taught me how to use a knife, and by the time I was seven he invited his friends over to the house in the mountains to see me shoot and light a cigarette from a distance.

Needless to say Grampa and Grama Louise loved me to pieces.  Every year, the day school was out, they would pick me up and off to the country we’d go for the whole summer.  They tearfully brought me back two days before school started. I hated to come back.

Grama and Grampa Joe were deeply in love.  I used to marvel at them. In the evenings on the porch in the country . . . while listening to the animals of the forest, they would hold hands and embrace.  They were at such peace with themselves, the universe, and nature.

I loved them more than words can say.  To this day, my most valuable possession is a cross from Grama Louise.  I have carried it with me since I was 15 years old.  I would not part with it for any amount of money in this world."

                                  Louise Spahr