Louise

Carotenuto

She was the fifth of nine children and truly the "middle child" with her oldest sister, Josephine

nine years older than her and her youngest sister, Beatrice,  nine years younger than her.

Her parents, Antoinette Albert, born in the Harlem section of Manhattan in 1889 and Angelo Mauro, born in the San Felice section of Caserta, Italy in 1879 had a typical arranged marriage.  In birth order the children were Josephine, Mildred, Joseph, Marie, Louise, Frank (deceased as a 2 year old), Augustine, Frank, and Beatrice.

Louise graduated from Ulysses S. Grant Elementary school as valedictorian, but as she always said, because two schools graduated together and the other valedictorian was from a more "elevated" section of  North Bergen than lowly Shadyside,  she became the salutatorian.

She graduated from Union Hill High School and as with all her siblings because "money was tight" went right to work. For a period of time she worked in a nearby Laundry and there met her future sister-in-law, Ann Carotenuto Provitera.   Ann's brother, Pat Carotenuto  returned from the Pacific in 1945 and Louise and Pat were married in 1947.  She lost her beloved husband at his young age of 68 in 1988.

In 1944 she joined the Navy as a WAVE, Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, and was honorably discharged in 1952.  She spent her years in the military working and living in New York City doing clerical work.  She met and made wonderful friends during those years and was pen pal to many soldiers when they went overseas.  As those in her family know, her penmanship was impeccable and her writing style was warm, chatty and friendly.

Her love of music was legendary as was her beautiful, rich, singing voice. She knew all the words to every popular song written from 1925 to 1950.  As I heard her say many times "If I heard a song once, it was mine."  Last month,  having only seen Pirates of Penzance once in her life, when asked if she knew the music, she began the "Major General's Song". Unfortunately, around 1949, her deafness struck.  If there was one big sadness in her life, it was the lose of the enjoyment she derived from hearing music clearly and her difficulty understanding people when they spoke.  The advent of closed captioning in the 1970's at least made TV accessible to her.