Francesco Magro

“Larger than Life”
That’s a phrase used to describe a lot of people, but there’s no one it applies to more than my father, Francesco Magro. Francesco was born in 1932 in Randazzo, Sicily to Antonio Magro and Venera Salanitri Magro. He was the middle child of 3 boys, and spent his childhood helping his father in the family-run wine vineyards.

He loved to tell us stories of his childhood, and we often heard about how his rebellious spirit got him into trouble, like on his very first day of school when he got into an argument with his teacher and got sent home. While taking attendance, the teacher had called out the name “Francesco Magro”, and my dad didn’t respond. He was never called Francesco at home, as he had the nickname of “Ciccino”, and no one had ever explained the concept of a legal name to him. But the teacher got angry that he didn’t reply when called and labeled him a troublemaker. That started a lifelong distrust of authority figures that lasted his entire life. He did not like school very much after that, and at the age of 10, he decided to stop going to school and start helping on the vineyards and also working at a barber shop in town. He always told us so many stories about his childhood, and his memory of those times only got more and more vivid as the years went by.

He often told stories of the war when German soldiers had occupied his town. In 1943, during WWII, American soldiers started an offensive to push the Germans out. One day, American planes were flying low and dropping pieces of paper warning the people in town that they were about to start dropping bombs and to evacuate immediately. Many people fled into the countryside and families were separated. After a few days, my father and his parents returned to the town to survey the damage. While looking through the wreckage, he heard weak cries for help as he was climbing over the debris of his grandmother Vincenza’s house. She had spent several days without food or water, and only survived because she was under a table and because Francesco was dangerously climbing where he probably shouldn’t have been and heard her cries for help.

His first words to her when she was pulled out of the rubble was, “Nonna, you look terrible!” and she responded by slapping him across the face. He was always surprised that she had the strength to do that even in her weakened state.

By the time the war ended, he was a teenager, and he was also working in town as a barber. He enjoyed his independence and loved to go to the movies and spend time with his friends. Due to his outgoing personality, he also got recruited into a band playing drums even though he didn’t actually know how. But he was really good at saying yes to things and then figuring out how to do it later. The band was called “Gli Amici” (The Lovers), and he was given a few quick lessons on how to play various beats. He picked it up fast, and made up for his lack of musical training with enthusiasm. The band played all of the weddings in town and were very popular.

During this time, he had taken up smoking as a social activity, and his father absolutely did not approve. The one and only time he got caught smoking by his father, they got into a terrible argument, and he moved away to Bologna, Italy where he continued his career as a hair stylist. However, he later did move back to Sicily when his father became ill and passed away soon after, and he helped run the family business until 1957, when his uncle passed away unexpectedly in America.

Francesco arrived in America alone, speaking no English, to settle the estate of his uncle. All he had was his Italian/English dictionary and an address and phone number of the Romano family in Boston who had come to America decades earlier from his same hometown of Randazzo. Feeling lonely and hungry, he paid them a visit. When he appeared at their door, he was introduced to several cousins who all lived nearby, including Mario and Rose Romano, who had 3 daughters. He was soon invited to the family’s lake house, but on the way, they needed to pick up the youngest daughter, Nancy, who was just finishing college in Bridgewater, MA where she had received her teaching degree. Nancy was quiet, smart, beautiful and independent. Francesco was so surprised and impressed when she got into the driver’s seat and drove the family the rest of the way to the lake house. He had never seen a woman drive a car before, and he kept looking over at her in disbelief and admiration. Francesco spent many weekends at the lake house and became like a family member to the Romanos. The cousins and sisters would all be goofing around on the lake, but Nancy would be off to the side, reading books and quietly doing her own thing while still enjoying the company of everyone.

One night in July of 1957, he was invited to a birthday party for Nancy. He wanted to buy her something special, because Sicilians can never show up to a party empty-handed. He had one of the cousins drive him to Jordan Marsh in downtown Boston, where he bought a musical jewelry box that played “La Vie en Rose” and had a ballerina dancing. (We still have this music box.) When Nancy opened the gift, she became emotional and started crying, and he thought he had done something wrong. But Nancy’s mother, Rose, explained to him in Italian that Nancy cries when she’s happy.

Later that evening, they went to Nantasket Beach with some cousins and decided to go on a boat ride. My father loved to tell the story of how he and Nancy danced that night and he was “smooching around” with her. They decided to go up to the top deck to get some air, and for some reason, he felt as though maybe he had been too forward with her, as she seemed to be angry with him. He took out his Italian to English dictionary and asked, “Are you mad at me?” but she didn’t reply, so he was left wondering what she was thinking. The boat docked, they all went home, and my father was invited to stay over.

The next morning, Nancy’s mother approached my father and said in Italian that Nancy had told her he had asked her to marry him. Confused, he tried to replay the previous night’s conversation. Apparently, when he had asked her, “Are you mad at me?”, she heard “Are you marry me?” and assumed it was a proposal in broken English. (My mother always rolled her eyes at him over the years whenever he told this story and denied it happened this way, but that was the story he always stuck to.)

When Francesco recovered from the shock, he realized that he actually did like Nancy a lot and started seriously thinking about getting married. He discussed it with her father and soon they were planning a wedding. On November 30, 1957, a mere 7 months after Francesco had arrived in the United States, he and Nancy got married in a double wedding with her oldest sister, Clara. They bought a house in West Roxbury, but the weather in Boston didn’t agree with my dad and he soon started to get sick a lot. He eventually needed to have his tonsils removed. Nancy got a teaching opportunity in Phoenix, Arizona, so they decided to move out west and buy a house.

Soon, their first son, Tony, was born. And less than 2 years after that, another son, Mario Francis was born. But Nancy didn’t like being away from her family, and she had developed allergies to just about everything in Arizona, so they decided to move back to Boston with their growing family. Another teaching opportunity came up in Sharon, Massachusetts and they bought a house there. Nancy started teaching English at the high school, and Francesco started working as a barber in Chestnut Hill, just west of Boston. A few years later, he decided he really didn’t like working for other people, and when he had the opportunity to buy his own hair salon, he took the plunge and set up Elegantissimo of Chestnut Hill on Hammond Street. They then had a third child, Elizabeth.

Their lives were happy, and filled with family, friends, animals and travel. Our house in Sharon was definitely the only one with a constant menagerie of goats and turkeys, along with several cats and dogs at any given time. Francesco always felt it was important for his children to see Sicily, and traveled every few years with one or more of us to visit his family. We all have many happy memories of playing in the wine vineyards where our father grew up. When we were all young, they also bought a vacation house near Plymouth, MA, right on the ocean, where we spent every summer eating lobster, playing on the beach, and swimming in the ocean.

Francesco owned his hair salon in Chestnut Hill until 1985, but finally grew tired of city life. He sold his shop, found a farm in Vermont and opened a barber shop in Northfield. That same year, their first grandchild, Francis, was born, and they were soon blessed with 5 more grandchildren—Christina, Daniel, Regina, Krista and Alyssa.

Nancy continued to teach English in Sharon until 1993. They both decided to retire to Florida where their daughter had recently relocated, and found a beautiful house in Marathon, in the Florida Keys on a canal. Francesco enjoyed his retirement by cooking for all of his neighbors, and just about every day of the week, someone was stopping by to say hello. He was the only person anyone had ever seen grow tomatoes in the sandy Florida Keys soil. He never told anyone his secret to growing them, but all of the neighbors marveled at his green thumb. He could grow anything anywhere, and prided himself on using fresh ingredients from his own garden. His love of cooking became even more evident when his daughter, Elizabeth, announced her engagement in 2009. He hilariously exclaimed to her, “I think you should elope. I hate going to weddings where there is bad food.”

He insisted on doing all of the cooking for the wedding. He recruited the entire family as sous chefs, met up with an old friend from Vermont for all of the vegetables and meat, and threw the biggest party any of us had ever seen for over 100 guests. And he brought his own wine that he had started over a decade earlier. It was really something and people are still talking about it.

In 2015, Nancy’s health issues forced them to sell their house in Florida and move back north to Rhode Island to be closer to family. Francesco lovingly took care of Nancy until her passing in 2022. They welcomed 4 great-grandchildren—Anthony, Olivia, Gavin and Cassidy. Francesco took up knitting, continued gardening, and cooked every day for himself and whichever family members happened to visit him each day. He loved Guarino’s Italian Bakery rum cakes, knitting scarves, sweaters and blankets for everyone, watching YouTube, telling stories, and sitting near his fireplace on cold days. He hosted every Thanksgiving and Christmas, and was so proud of his family and their accomplishments.

Sadly, Francesco passed away on August 27, just 2 days after falling ill, and before he got to meet his 5th great-grandchild. He was almost 93, and had recently started telling everyone that he was almost 100 and was planning to live to be 106. He was also planning a trip to Sicily in October to visit his brother, Nunzio, his sister-in-law, Maria, his nephew, Antonio, nieces Velinda and Gabriella, and great-niece, Giulia.

He loved his house so much, and we can still feel him there. It’s hard to believe that we won’t see him at the stove cooking anymore. We won’t see him watching the swans, geese, and ducks on the lake. And we won’t see him knitting next to the fireplace, or sitting at his giant dinner table telling stories.

His son, Tony, wrote, “I still look to my left every morning as I sit outside, where he used to appear from the lower driveway, slowly making his way up to the front yard and his persimmon tree he loved so much. Though he isn't physically here, I hear him asking us if we want any eggs for breakfast, as he waters his garden that he proudly shared with neighbors and friends over the 9 years he resided at Riverview Drive. The garden was his paradise, and he often said this was the best house he ever had, and also the ‘last stop’ on his journey of life.”

While we are all devastated at his passing, he lived an extraordinary life surrounded by people who loved him, and we are all smiling when we think of the great gifts he gave to us in the form of memories he leaves behind.

And the spirits of Francesco and Nancy Magro live on in the family tree that would not exist if it weren’t for all of the circumstances that led them to find each other.