Tag Archives: Linda Grisolia

A surgeon serving in Vietnam, he still vividly recalls a four-day stretch during which he and his team toiled to save the lives of a couple dozen severely wounded Marines. Paul Rubino was born in Bitritto, a small town near Bari, Italy. When he was 12 years old, he and his mother, Domenica, immigrated to Chicago where his father, Vincenzo, had been working as a candy maker. The family settled into a third-floor apartment on Grand Avenue and May Street, above Taccogna Foods, now known as Bari Finer Foods. The close-knit neighborhood was largely Italian, many from Bari. Everyone looked …

Choosing between the Peace Corps and the Marines during the Vietnam War, she made a decision that had a profound positive impact on the rest of her life. The oldest of four children, Diana Frances Fecarotta was born in Chicago and grew up in the heavily Italian neighborhood known as “The Patch” near Grand and Ogden avenues. Her parents, Joseph Gerris and Francesca Mary (Lombardino) Fecarotta, were born in Chicago and both sets of grandparents emigrated from Sicily. The family lived in a six-flat owned by Fecarotta’s maternal grandparents. Her mother had three sisters who lived either in the building …