Fra Noi Embrace Your Inner Italian
Carl Liture — who sold newspapers at the Century of Progress world’s fair in 1933-34 and witnessed the landing on Lake Michigan of Italo Balbo’s historic transatlantic flight — turned 100 on Dec. 26, 2025.
The eldest of two sons born to Giuseppe and Giuseppina (Varvaro) Liturri, Carl grew up in the Italian enclave known as The Patch on the Near Northwest Side of Chicago. (The spelling of his last name was changed when he registered for school and the staffer wrote it the way it was pronounced rather than asking him for the spelling.)
Carl worked a series of jobs throughout his youth to help support his family, including stints at a flower and print shop, as a line worker in a manufacturing company, and as an elevator operator.
He met Norma Mirabelli in the neighborhood around Roosevelt and Sacramento in 1941 when he was 15 and she was 11. Friendship blossomed into young love, but then Carl was called off to war.
Joining the Navy in 1944, he served as a machinist on the Shangri-La, from whose deck he witnessed Japan officially surrender in 1945.
The pair stayed in constant contact during Carl’s time in the service, and when he returned, they pledged themselves to each other.
Norma’s recently widowed mother objected to the union, so they eloped, running off to Paducah, Ky., to be married before a justice of the peace on Aug. 17, 1946. Within a couple of months of their return, fences were mended and it was happily ever after since.
After the war, Carl started out as a streetcar conductor, then joined the Chicago Police Department in 1956, where he served until his retirement in 1986. He began working part time at Thillens Check Cashing Service in 1953, retiring a remarkable 66 years later in 2019 when he was a spry 94 years young.
Carl and Norma raised two children, Carl Jr. and Sandra, in Chicago and Cicero, moving to Westchester after their children were grown. Norma passed away in 2021, and Carl continues to live in his Westchester home with Sandra, who takes excellent care of him.
A longtime member and past commander of the Italian American War Veterans Post 1 and a founding board member of the Italian American Veterans Museum, Carl participates each year in the wreath laying ceremony at Navy Pier commemorating the Dec. 7 attack on Pearl Harbor.
