When I think about my Uncle Leon I remember walking on Park Lane South in Richmond Hill with him, Uncle Paul, my father and a few of us kids. We were on the bridge that crosses over the railroad tracks and Uncle Leon was telling us a story about his experience working for the railroad. We actually walked down the slope at the edge of the bridge to the tracks below. This was a big deal for me because I was a bit of a railroad nut at that time in the mid to late fifties. I loved anything to do with trains, especially around Christmas when I got to set up my Lionel train set under the tree. I don’t remember what he was talking us about, but this may have been around the time when he gave us a few old seats from a passenger car that was being remodeled. My father used those seats to create a dining area in our basement in Tarrytown. During the summer we pretty much lived in the basement because the rest of the house was too hot. Us kids slept in the basement (maybe on those old train seats) and my parents slept upstairs in the living room on a fold-out couch. Nobody dared to sleep on the second floor!
Fast foward about 65 years when Uncle Leon’s great-granddaughter, Sara Grab, contacted me to find out more about her Italian ancestry.