Italian American Man of the Year

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On Oct 9th 2022, Joe Ragucci was honored with “Italian American Man of the Year” at a ceremony at Woodbridge Town Hall sponsored by State Senator Joe Vitale and Colonia Knights of Columbus at their annual Columbus Day celebration.

My Italian American Story:

Being an Italian American has been an important part of my entire life.  Both of my grandparents immigrated to America from Italy, my maternal grandparents from the mountains north of Naples settling in Carteret, and my paternal grandparents from Monte Sant Angelo in the Gargano mountains along the Adriatic Sea settling in Port Reading. Growing up in Port Reading most of the people around me were of Italian descent.  I was blessed to meet and marry the love of my life, Rose whose family was also Italian Americans.

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Italy – Padre Pio, Monte S’Angelo

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In 2002 we took a one week pilgrimage to Italy with Fr. Ken. The trip was designed as a Padre Pio Pilgrimage but one stop was the mountain top town of Monte S’Angelo where the Ricucci family had originated. Thus, it became Padre Pio pilgrimage but also a Ricucci family pilgrimage. Rose and Joe convinced Dominic Ragucci, Anthony Ragucci, and Priscilla Ragucci to join us since they had never been to the town of Monte S’Angelo that Dominic and Anthony’s parents came from.

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2021 Pandemic Update

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We are just about to celebrate Thanksgiving without the large family gathering. The effect of the pandemic has reduced as many people have been vaccinated although masks are still required for many indoor locations. We are back to church with few restrictions remaining.

This will be the first time in 50 years that we didn’t host the entire family in our house for Thanksgiving. The family is now scattered with many family members in North Carolina and Mike and Tammy having moved to South Carolina. We had an intimate Thanksgiving last year with Rosalie, John and Ben due to the Pandemic restrictions but now we realized that it is too much for us to host 20+ people any more. So we were invited to John’s brothers home to celebrate with the Cook family.

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2020 Pandemic

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Well, it almost Thanksgiving and the year 2020 has been a very strange year with the Corona Virus Pandemic infecting the entire world. Here in NJ we have been in some form of “lockdown” since the middle of March with no end in sight. For most of the spring we would only go out to grocery shop and then only early morning. Lots of things were hard to find like paper products. Everyone is wearing face masks whenever we are within 6 feet of another person. No Masses at first – could only watch Mass on the TV, then one “parking lot” Mass a weekend. The hardest part was staying home and only “facetime” with Rosalie, John and Ben.

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Matteo Ricucci

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Matteo Ricucci came to the US from Italy several times (in 1909 and then 1911 with his brother Antonio. However, he never remained in the US but returned to Monte S’Angelo in Italy. During World War II he became an interpreter for the US forces since he could speak both English and Italian. He died in Italy.

Rosalie as a child

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Some stories of Rosalie as a child:

  • Sleepwalking
    When Rosalie was young (under 10) she started to walk in her sleep. We had an alarm system so when she started walking down the stairs the interior alarm would sound. That would scare her and she would run back to her room and pretend to be sleeping. At the beginning we would not know what happened but once we saw her running back to her room and told her it was ok. Don’t be afraid. It happened for a short time.
  • Fainting
    When she was young (early teens) she was prone to fainting when she got scared or had a fever. It was scary at first but she learned to sense it coming on and was able to keep it from happening.
  • What else??

Aunt Mary’s VCR

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Aunt Mary had a problem dealing with technology and especially with her VCR recorder. She could not figure out how to use it and she would call me – Joe I need help! So I would go upstairs and once more teach her how to record or play videos on the VCR. Several times I put together step by step instructions but it didn’t help. So I “fixed” her VCR many times.