Columns

Chicago’s beautiful St. Anthony of Padua church came into being 50 years ago under the direction of its pastor, the Rev. Adolph Nalin. Fr. Nalin, with the suggestions of his committee proceeded full-steam ahead with his plans for the church as he dreamt it. Fr. Nalin took trips to Italy to select everything from designs and styles to art and decorations from the many churches he visited. The results of those scouting trips were eventually incorporated into his design for the church building. Father also visited the quarries of Tuscany and the Arighinni Studios in Pietrasanta to see the workers …

In my perfect operatic scenario, the elevator in my apartment building is empty when I step into it, I cut loose with my best basso profundo rendition of Verdi’s “La donna e mobile” as the door closes, and when arrive on the seventh floor, there’s no one there to give me that “What was that?” look. When I grew up in Roseland, there was one place to go for amateur, yet very (to us) professional opera: the Roseland Operetta Club. The club was located at 372 E. Kensington St., a few doors down from Raymond Levine’s men’s clothiers and just …

No matter where you went to school as a kid, there was the ‘play’ part of your life. If you lived just outside of Roseland in Stewart Ridge, that life existed at West Pullman Park. However, if you lived in Roseland, that exciting part of your life centered on Palmer Park! Whenever the topic of Palmer Park comes up, whether at Spaghetti-Os or the Roseland Roundtable meet-ups, you immediately get two or three people telling stories about the fun they all had. During the ’60s, that usually involved swimming or taking part in classes or clubs. During the ’40s and …

“Writing the book” on Roseland I began writing Petals from Roseland for Fra Noi in October 2008. In the ensuing three-and-a-half years, I’ve developed a greater appreciation for all things Roseland. For example, Roseland includes representatives of many nationalities, chief among them being the Italians, of course (although, the Dutch, Irish, German and Slovak residents might see things differently). The history of the Italians in Roseland is intertwined with all our friends and classmates of different ethnic backgrounds. Once Roselandites left the enclaves surrounding their homes, they entered the world of Roseland at large, which included all those other ethnicities. …

Our Italian culture has been a source of personal pride since we were little kids, running out of St. Anthony’s Church and directly into Pat & Matt’s after Sunday Mass for our penny candy treat. Unfortunately, many of us let our religion slip off to the sidelines of our lives. That is, until we established ourselves or we needed to get married in the church. At the point in our lives where we had children, we usually came back for good. That’s somewhat the case with our Italian culture, except for the fact that our culture had to wait until …

It’s that time, once again, to catch up on stories and column suggestions that are too short to merit a column on their own but nonetheless deserve recognition. This edition of the column also serves as proof to those people that I have met at different meetings, dinners, and events and have received mail and e-mails from that I pay attention to the faithful followers of Petals from Roseland. Earlier in the year, I devoted a column to St. Anthony’s Church and the fact that there are a good number of people from years gone by that still attend Sunday …

For the past 10 months, I haven’t let a column slip by without at least one mention of the All Roseland Reunion and Dinner Dance. Well, you won’t be seeing any further mention of that event because 430 people visited, dined and danced on Sunday, Nov. 13. These were the people who paid attention to this column, the notices on the Facebook Roseland Roundtable page and Bonnie Sandona’s monthly pronouncements in the Spaghetti-Os newsletter. Interestingly, I’d like to quote the Daily Southtown newspaper while they were talking about attendance at the event: “… some 2,000 people who grew up thinking …

What can be better than an opportunity for a reunion with old friends to catch up on the good old days of Roseland that we all miss? The answer, of course, is two opportunities! In November (but after my deadline) there was (and will be) the All Roseland-All Ages Reunion Dinner Dance, for which over 400 tickets were sold. However, even before that event for all of Roseland there was the annual St. Anthony Dinner Dance held at the Serbian Social Center in Lansing on Oct. 8 In a way, the St. Anthony’s Parish and the St. Anthony Dinner Dance …

With this being November and traditionally the American time of Thanksgiving, I thought it would be appropriate to highlight one of the Roseland business that was legendary for its generosity. When I was a little kid going into Pat & Matt’s to pick out my penny candy, I sometimes overhead the men talking about a celebrity sighting in Kensington. Of course, I didn’t really believe it because my little mind couldn’t register that a star would come to Roseland/Kensington/Bumtown. That, of course, was before I’d heard of the legendary Raymond Levine. He ran a store that bore his name at …

Interviewer: CJ, you have been writing Petals from Roseland for three years now — happy anniversary, by the way — and based on the 36 columns or so that you’ve written, what have you learned? (Now, I can put down the mirror and answer the question.) Three years ago, when I began writing this column, my background consisted of my having been born and brought up in Roseland, which I left in 1970. Since Fra Noi editor Paul Basile selected me to write the column, I have attended monthly dinners, community breakfasts, club meetings, picnics, reunions, pizza gatherings, church festivals, …