About Joe

Oil painting of my father done around 1950.

Joe Candela at Coney Island late 1940's

My parents very nearly did not meet. One summer day in 1946, Janice and a girlfriend were heading for Staten Island. When they got to the subway, there was a bus loading at the curb. It was a group from Danny's Bowling club, heading for an outing at Bayside Park, on Long Island, and some of the guys lingering outside the bus suggested that the girls come along. Declining, they got on the train, but after a few stops, decided to head back uptown to join the guys heading to Long Island.  Luckily the bus was still there.

In that group was my father, Joe, who had his young nephew Jo-Jo with him. Joe's mother had died in 1943 while my dad was in India serving in the Army. He was a sentimental sort, and wore his mother's wedding ring in her honor. One can hardly blame my mother for assuming that he was a married man. The highlight of the day at the beach was a rowboat ride. The small boat kept drifting farther and farther into Long Island Sound, so Joe took the oars and was able to save the day by getting them back to shore. Janice was impressed! So, began their courtship.

Joe and Janice on a date in one of my dad's first Fords

Joe was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1922, the youngest of six sons, to Sicilian immigrant parents. When he was about 7 years old, he moved to New York City with his mother, his dad having run into trouble with the law during prohibition, was institutionalized, in Kalamazoo. His Uncle Vito was his father surrogate, sponsoring him at his religious confirmation. He attended school close to where they lived, on the upper east side, which was not the fashionable neighborhood it is today. He went to the Machine and Metal Trades High School on East 96th Street, where he made friends that he knew for the rest of his life.

Joe, bent over, 2nd from the right with his classmates from the Murray Hill Vocational high School. According to Uncle Harry, Murray Hill was highly esteemed, and Joe was as proud of having attended there as if it had been Harvard.

Joe, front row, on the left. He graduated from the Machine and Metal Trades High School
on East 96th St. where this photo was taken.

As a student he made a set of three copper pitchers. This was the smallest one.

I imagine that Janice must have had many admirers. I know that she always felt awkward and inexperienced...after all she was younger than many of her friends, having skipped two grades in school. Joe and his Italian-American ways must have seemed positivly exotic to my mother. She felt that she had to learn a new language. He'd want to go out to "Get a Beetz (pizza)" for instance, his uncle Vito spoke of going to "East Alamost (East Elmhurst)" in his heavily Italian accented English. Even though my dad did not speak Italian, his speech was influenced by those who did.

Joe and Janice photographed by friend, John Grabowski

In his sentimental way, he placed my mother on a pedestal, treated her with great respect, and won her heart. Her family was not thrilled with the fact that she seemed to be getting serious with a man who had only a vocational high school education, but once the wedding had taken place late in 1947, the Campbells gracefully accepted their new son-in-law, and were soon completely won over by his sincere enthusiasm and outgoing manner. What he lacked in education, he made up for in love for their daughter.


Jo-jo Candela, Joe, Janice and Uncle Harry (Harrison Campbell)

The Kitchen at 1189 First Avenue, l. to r. Leona Rem ( Janice's childhood friend) and me on the lap of Uncle Harry.

From Uncle Harry and Aunt Joyce, a description of the living arrangements at 1189 First Avenue:
-- We were there quite a few times. It was a small place -- three rooms including the kitchen. No corridors. Your entered the kitchen (and yes -- there was the bathtub under its cover) and walked from room to room, the doors or passages being on the left. Your bed was in the middle room, as was a piano. Your parent's bed was in the next room, along with your mother's studio (on the right) and your father's sheet metal shop (on the left). We've debated -- probably this was one of those famous cold-water flats.
The apartment was on the second floor over a candy store! Just like the jokes about New York, your parents used the pay 'phone in the candy store, and occasionally they would get a call and somebody from the store would holler up the stairs. The back room looked out on an air shaft. The sun would make a short appearance once a day, a brief sliver of light, and you would excitedly announce it as to anyone who happened to be around. The apartment did have its own toilet, by the way, off the back room on the left. If pressed, I can provide proof. There was street life, of course. Your father seemed to know everybody on the block. He'd chat with some guy who was fixing his car, or someone who was getting the air or a shop-keeper. There was always somebody out there evenings and weekends.

Our feeling is that Joe must have been pretty lonely when you first moved out to Westchester. When I visited your parents while interviewing in NYC I'd sleep on the floor in the middle room -- your room. You had some kind of bed that was considerably higher than my pallet. One night I awoke to find your hand reaching down to retrieve your blankets which had fallen down on me. After you fished up yours, you fished up mine, and then got a good grip on the slack of my PJ's. At this point we negotiated. Even then you had a long arm and a good grip.

My dad in his "workshop" at 1189 First Avenue

Joe had a creative gift for working in metal and wood. He could figure out how things worked and fix them. He and my mother collaborated on many projects. the largest being the design and construction of their new home in Dobbs Ferry. Sadly many of his other creative efforts went unrecorded.

According to Uncle Harry, the Campbell men puzzled over how to repair the failing barn foundation. Leave it to Joe to show up with a bag of cement. He went to work and fixed that deteriorated barn in a weekend! Joe ws a can-do guy!

This is me, sitting by a makeshift ladder as our house in Dobbs Ferry was going up. We spent every weekend there, assisted by many helpful family friends. The new home would have a large basement workshop, in addition to a garage workbench. Room for any project my dad could imagine.

The finished house from the backyard. It had rows of windows in the living room and basement and broad eaves to keep out the summer sun. The basement corner window was my dad's workshop window.

More comments from Uncle Harry:

Joe did not like to be idle.. Did NOT like to be idle. Your mother learned not to let Joe get into his clean clothes, etc., in advance of a social call or a church visit or whatever. When it was time to depart, Joe was likely to have spent the spare moments fixing the car or something and he and his suit would be a total mess. Probably not every time but it did happen accordinig to your mother.

Joe gave me a pair of Vice-grips for Christmas early in our connection. He believed Vice-grips were the most important tool one could own.

Our cat, Morgin, on the window sill in Daddy's workshop.

Joe made a set of these Craftsman style lanterns with Mica shades.

He once combined the front of a Ford with the back of a Plymouth. It actually ran and was refered to by us as the "Fordaplymouth".

From Uncle Harry:

This tale is not much but it adds to the general picture.As the reader knows, Joe's automobile back in the early Dobbs days was a convertible. The top leaked leaked and eventually wore out. Joe replaced it with a sheet metal -- sheet metal was his occupation -- he was a graduate of a well known and highly respected school that taught the tin smith trade at the high school level. The roof was an excellent job, truly. Joe made a trap door, so to speak, in the roof. He would take this off when whisking around Westchester County. When he went through an underpass he would check to see if anyone was looking down and if so, he'd give them a wave (to everyones great amusment -- the hand sticking up through the trap roor and waving!------ Don't know if this helps you form an image but this was Joe!!love -- Uncle H.

He loved cars, especially Fords, and had one of those big round Fords, he called, "Old Betsy". He knew how to work on cars and how to fix anything. He also loved to sing. Around the time he met my mother he was taking singing lessons from someone who claimed to have taught Frank Sinatra. Joe's singing career never got going, but he still loved to sing, and from him, I learned many of the standards of the Big Band Era.

"Daddy's Girl" at Grandma's in Athens, PA, with Daddy, and the new Ford.

Again at Grandma's. We called this, "Juicy Girl Sandwich"

From Uncle Harry comes a story about one trip back from Athens that reflects my father's outgoing nature:
The Yanuzzis were a very entrepreneurial family than operated a fruit stand at the curves on Keystone Avenue in Sayre. And that gave the double curve its name -- "the banana curves".
The Candelas met the Yanuzzis when your father missed a stop sign in Sayre and collided with a pickup carrying two of the Yanuzzi brothers. You were on your way back to Dobbs after a week end in E. Athens. As your dad told it, there was a humdinger of an argument. At some point I guess they ran out of breath or something and one of the brothers said "Are you Italian?" Joe said yes, and they fell into each others' arms, at least figuratively. The brothers then gave you a tow to their place on The Banana Curves, and the three of them fixed up the car as only your father and his like could do. You and the rest waited, maybe ate bananas or whatever, then it was on to Dobbs.

He built a wooden coffee table in the shape of an artist's palette. Janice painted colored circles around the edge where the paint would have been on an actual palette.

Daddy made a special swivel table for the TV. We could turn it to face the living room or dining room...and there was a speaker in the base. That's Phil on the floor drawing.

In our backyard we had a circular train track with a small flat car one could sit on and ride by turning a hand crank. Using his metal making skills, he built enough track to circle the entire yard. In addition, he created an engine with an oil barrel in its side as the boiler. He fabricated a sheet metal cab. this was powered by a lawnmower engine. It never quite had the strength to pull much weight, but, painted a flat black, the miniature engine, was impressive to behold.

Our Michigan relatives, Aunt Helen, Cousin Marjorie and Uncle Joe Candela (my dad's adopted brother) in our backyard. Note the train track at their feet.

Daddy created these trellises out of sheet aluminum, assembled with pop-rivits.

In an earlier post, a drawing of the beds he made for us three girls. The mattress was placed on a chest three drawers high. The top drawer was a pull out bookshelf. At the head end, a high door served as a vanity table, and it swung open to reveal a large storage area behind.



Below, a photo taken at Wyalusing, PA. Baby Philip in Janice's arms and Grandpa holding the picnic basket. Behind them, Daddy's pride and joy....a 1959 Ford Country Squire Station Wagon. This was the car we took on our cross country trip the following summer. The only car my dad would have wanted more would have been a Lincoln Continental. He never did get one of those, but one Christmas my mother somehow managed to get a chrome plated Lincoln grill that she placed under the christmas tree.

I am surprised that I don't have more shots of this car. We were all very impressed with it. It was really fast! I remember my dad taking it up to 100 mph. on the open highway once. It did that speed with no problem. I seem to remember that he said it had a police engine.

Family group shot of Phil, Nancy, Me, and Marjorie.

Once , I admired a hutch/desk I had seen in Seventeen magazine. I don't think he had ever constructed such a complicated piece of furniture, but he made a very accurate replica of it for my bedroom.

The Mustang with its new tail lights.

As a Ford lover, he could not resist purchasing one of the new Mustang's when they came out. It was a bright red model 1964 1/2 and he was one of the first people in Westchester to own one. People remarked on it wherever we went. He was thrilled to be among the group of new Mustang owners who were taken to dinner by Ford and given Mustang tie-tacks.

At that time, Thunderbirds had long narrow "sequential" turn signals that flashed in the direction of the turn indicated. Joe realized that they would fit perfectly in the space at the back of the new Mustang, and ordered the lights from the parts department. He cut the holes out of the back panel and we spent a long time pouring over a very complicated wiring diagram, threading the wires through the sides of the car to the dashboard. Once the lights were in and working, we REALLY stopped traffic! He even wrote to the Ford Motor Company to suggest this modification. He received a perfunctory letter, but, sure enough a few years later, Ford took his advice.

Response to Joe's request for a wiring schematic for 1966 Thunderbird.

A noncommittal reply to Joe's letter suggesting sequential turn signals for Mustangs, and below, an article showing the new 1967 Shelby Mustangs with their T-Bird sequential turn signals....wonder where they got that idea?

Joe changing a tire on the Mustang. We spent many hours helping Daddy in the garage....pumping the brakes, handing him tools and running back and forth from the house with hot cups of coffee.
He created Christmas cutouts of sheet metal of Santas's sleigh and reindeers which he attached to the side of our house at Christmas. The brackets allowed them to be silhouetted by the colored lights he place behind. He also built metal Christmas candles about 5 feet tall that he placed on either side of the sidewalk by the mailbox. All these projects were done with the collaboration of my mother, of course.

When I went to college, I needed furniture for my unfurnished room. Daddy built me 3 versatile shelving units that I used as room dividers...one 6' wide and two 3' wide. They were not fine furniture by any stretch of the imagination, but so useful! I kept them through many moves and used them in a variety of ways.

The ever useful bookshelves used as room dividers in my Pratt dorm...and below in the living room of our San Francisco apartment.

My male cousins and guy friends loved to hang out with my dad, and, as he put it, "shoot the breeze". They enjoyed spending time with him in the garage working on projects. My friend Manning Stelzer, loved Triumph sports cars, and due to Manning's influence, Joe broke with his Ford tradition and in 1966, bought two Tr-3s. One to fix up and one for parts. The parts car was kept under a tarp on the east side of tha garage. We had a great time driving that little car all over Westchester county. Later he purchased an MG 1100, a boxy little car with about a 4" clearance from the road.

Me emerging from the Triumph ....Manning Stelzer in the background.

It did not have side windows, rather "side curtains" that could be manually dropped into place if needed. Not the car to drive in the rain, but a whole lot of fun any other time..

1959 - Joe and Janice in the driveway of Eleven Secor Drive.

Joseph Vito Candela June 1, 1922 - December 28, 1968