Tag Archives: Steven Decker

La Signora Vincenza Tomasello and her five daughters were busy shopping, baking and preparing their home for visitors on a very special day, a truly glorious day. The women were thrilled because it was March 19 — St. Joseph’s Day — but it was so much more than that. The year was 1946, World War II had finally ended and their men were home at last. The Tomasello women were preparing for their annual St. Joseph’s Table, and every detail had to be perfect. Three tiers tall and topped with a statue of San Giuseppe, the table would be laden …

Stationed in Italy during the Vietnam War, Steven Decker had a remarkable vantage point on the 1968 crisis in Czechoslovakia as an air traffic controller at the U.S. Air Base in Aviano. The middle of three children, Steven Decker was born in Chicago to Roy and Kathryn Tomasello Decker, who were living near North Avenue and Larrabee. When Decker was 3 years old, they moved to Logan Square, where he grew up living close to his Sicilian-born grandparents and his mother’s five siblings and their families. On Sunday mornings, Decker awoke to the smell of sauce cooking in the kitchen. …