In My Father's Footsteps: McKeesporters, you knew this was going to happen!

A Brief History

My father, Jim Stevens, as one of the soldiers of the 601st Tank Destroyers, was on active duty for the entire engagement of the North African Campaign and The European Theater of Operations in WWII - for over 4 years. He experienced 546 days of actual combat. While he fought at the Kasserine Pass and El Guettar in North Africa and then in France and Germany, it is the Italian Campaign that I have chosen to focus on. Jim has often said that he would have liked to return to Italy. For him it would have been a ritual journey allowing him to reconcile the brutality of the war he fought with the people, culture, beauty and history of the country that he also experienced. At 91, he cannot take that journey so I am taking it for him.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

McKeesporters, you knew this was going to happen!

This trip continues to prove that the McKeesport connection is everywhere. Our guide today was Silvano Casaldi, an historian from Nettuno. During our lunch in a little pasticceria in Nettuno I chatted with him about my mother being from Abruzzi. I explained that she left to go to Pittsburgh when she was 4.

Wait for it...

"Oh, Pittsburgh, I have cousins in Pittsburgh, well really in Bethel Park, Clairton and West Mifflin."

"I know it well, I grew up in McKeesport."

"McKEESPORT! My uncle and my cousins lived in McKeesport for many years before moving to the other Pittsburgh suburbs. My uncle worked for National Tube works. I was just in that area 6 years ago to visit my cousins."

So, the streak continues of finding former McKeesporters in the darndest places.