Y and I

For devotees of Tracy and Hepburn, the y and i in the naming of this blog should be self-evident. For those of you who never saw Adam's Rib, Tracy and Hepburn shared a pet name. His was spelled Pinky and hers was Pinkie. In the European fashion and with the lack of a definitive neuter designation from moviedom, the y version is the name of the blog and the i with no e is the version chosen for the blogger.

'This blog is meant to commemorate the comings and goings at the place known as Cappyland. Many of the events occuring in and around Cappyland have acquired legendary gloss with the telling and retelling over the past eighty-some years For those who like a punchy beginning, the purchase of the property set the tone. Giovanni and Margareta, the protagonist immigrant couple had decided that Greenwich, CT was the place to settle down. They found a place near the rest of the Sardinian immigrants and bought their first piece of the American dream; a large property with rental income from two apartments. It is a time-honored method for immigrants and others to gain a foothold. They planned on the rental income to pay their mortgage. The closing was immediately followed by tenant issues.

The tenant took this change in ownership as an opportunity to change his life as well. His methodology was a tad questionable. He nailed all of the windows and doors of the house shut and set fire to it. That was one thing. That his mother-in-law was sleeping in the upstairs bedroom was more to the point. Half of the house was destroyed, before the fire department could get the fire under control. The tenant's mother-in-law leaped to safety from the second floor and was unhurt. Because it was 1926 and the first 24 hours of ownership; there was no insurance yet in place. Our couple and their family members should have realized then that tumultous happenings were inherent to the property.

The new owners, who we shall call Capps, met during WWI in the company town of Hopewell, VA. She was only 16 and one of six sisters who had fled Belgium with their mother after the Germans had marched all of the men in their village out and shot them. Their village was then destroyed and they became refugees. Her real name was Margareta, but we shall call her Maggie.

He was one of five brothers who left Sardinia under passports with a different family name. Legend has it that one of the brothers was in love with a local girl. Somehow a rival for her affections ended up with his throat slit and all of the brothers saw fit to find their place in America. Which brother was the murderer has never been told and they took their truth to the grave. His given name was Giovanni Paolo, but he will be known as John Sr.

There is a family rumor that Maggie came first to Chicago with a Catholic organization and worked in the textile industry there. The facts show that she, her mother, and her sisters boarded a boat in Antwerp, already in the employ of DuPont Artificial Silk and came to New York. They then moved on to Hopewell, VA on the James River where DuPont had set up a town for its employees.

Shipping records show that the Capp men arrived in the States and also went directly to Hopewell and were employed by DuPont as well. How John Sr. and Maggie met is lost to us, but family lore has their first date as a visit to the Virginia highlands where these new-made Good Ole Boys had erected a still. The products of this still went to fund their adventures in the New World. It was to supplement their company wages and from all accounts they did quite well.

There were two small glitches in the budding romance of John Sr. and Maggie. Their first date was rudely interrupted by officers of the law and that interruption became an overnight in the local constabulary. Maggie was incacerated as well. It has never been established whether she was inbibing or was merely a bystander. Speculation later on gave 60/40 that she was sharing cups with her date, but no one was willing to verify that hypothesis.

It is known that when Maggie returned to home after her first date with John Sr., her mama was not enthralled with the derring-do of the new boyfriend. Maggie was only 16 years old and John Sr. was almost 30. As any parent can empathise, the age difference alone would have been enough to cause parental obstruction. Arrest for illegal production of alcohol was more than enough to push her parent over the top and into prohibition of further association.

Maggie was having none of it. She dug into her position as only a teenage girl can do and flatly refused to part with her Bad Boy. Eventually, John Sr. proposed and Maggie accepted. Mama laid it out to Maggie in French, in Belgian and in recently acquired broken English. "Marry him and I will have nothing to do with you!" Again, Maggie refused to end it. Her mother and sisters quit the artificial silk (rayon) business, packed up, and moved to California. Maggie never saw her mother alive again.

Maggie married her John. Their wedding party consisted of extremely somber-looking brothers of the groom. She was as tall as her new husband, but he and his brothers were so broad across the shoulders that they had to turn sideways to enter a room. They were quite willing to wrestle their new world into submission.