Tommaso Giorgio Pellegrino

Tommaso "Tom"; Peacefully passed away at home on Tuesday, April 17, 2012 in his 90th year surrounded by his wife and family. He will be missed by his loving wife Santa, his children Vince (Angela), Adriana (Frank), Angelo (Uura) and Mary (Clem). Proud Nonno to Amanda, Nicholas, Mark, John (Dawn), Michael, Steven, Jaakob, Giordan, Thomas, Alexander, great-grandchildren Nathan and Dominic. He will be fondly remembered by many nieces, nephews, extended family and friends here and in Italy. Friends and family will be received at the T. Little Funeral Home & Cremation Centre, 223 Main Street, Cambridge (519-623-1290) on Thursday, April 19, 2012 from 6-9 pm. A Funeral Mass will be held at St. Ambrose RC Church, 210 South Street, Cambridge on Friday, April 20, 2012 at 11am. Entombment to follow at Mount View Cemetery, Cambridge. As an expression of sympathy, donations may be made to the Cambridge Memorial Hospital – Medical Daycare or Community Care Access Centre - Cambridge (CCAC).

I want you to know how much we appreciate seeing you all here this evening, though I am sure we would all prefer to be gathering for more festive reasons somewhere else entirely.

EULOGY

I would like to express on behalf of my mother Santa, my sisters Adriana and Mary my brother Angelo and myself, our greatest appreciation for all the support that you have given, the kind words, phone calls, expressions of your personal sorrow, flowers, coming over to the house and so on. We have always known that we can count on you to be there in time of need and you have been there for us. I get to come up here and say a few words today and maybe you won’t but either way, I want you to know that we are very much aware that my Papa, who is your Nonno, Zio, Tom, or Tommaso, that he was very much a part of your life and also in your heart; this we have always known. We know it is not just 5 of us here at the receiving line that are grieving but all of us, his whole family and close friends, we are all feeling the pain of this personal loss.

I would also like to thank the many doctors and CCAC, and Abby from CCAC, they have been fabulous and we are indebted to them.

If you will allow me I will take a few minutes to just touch on some of the early formative years of my Papa’s life. The first thirty years that we likely know the least about but the ones that likely had the greatest impact on his future thinking and actions. I will call my Papa, Nonno for the sake of all of his grandchildren and I will do my best to be brief.

Born on Feb 26, 1923 almost 90 years ago, in Sternatia, a small village in southern Italy in the heal of the boot. Nonno was one of five brothers and one sister. Such a big family yet they managed to live in a very very small two room house with only a few beds. They went to the local school only a few steps away from home and Nonno finished his schooling after grade 5, which is all that was available in the village at that time. As you know, Nonno has always insisted that we all get an education, that school is important and that you must go to school to get a good job. We can see why he insisted so hard and as we reflect further we can see how these early years entrenched his principle for family and a simple and peaceful life.

After school he and his family worked at the local farms tilling soil, harvesting crops, grapes, tobacco, olives and so on mostly for other local farmers. There was much physical labour and very little payment. Nonno has always cherished the family and I can remember from when I was small he would tell me that “you must always be there for your family”. Those were undoubtedly difficult years; can you imagine any of us asking our children to work from that young an age.

Life was tough and to draw a better picture of his life I unfortunately need to draw on more trying times and difficult situations that he had to cope with from a very early age.

• When Nonno was but five years old, his younger brother passed away as a result of an accident. That would have been of a profound loss to him.

• When he was 13, his father passed away from pneumonia, leaving his young family to cope.

• When he was 16, his older brothers were called to fight in the wars in Africa leaving him behind.

And if that was not enough,

• A few years later, when he turned 18, he and his three older brothers were then drafted and sent to fight in WWII.

Can you imagine all this? Any one of these incidents would be enough to cause most of us to run for psychological help, but in his case it just made his resolve to his family and for a simple and peaceful life even stronger.

• Nonno was never in favour of war and did whatever he could to resist, but he was forced to go.

• He tried and managed to lengthen his training time as he did not want to fight.

• Nonno was part of the Auto squadron and had to drive the military vehicles through the mountainous areas in Albania.

• He told us crazy stories like when he was on his first mission, they were very green and had just arrived in Albania and they were in the valleys among the mountains and they were camping for the night scared that the rebels in the mountains would fire on them. Him and one of his comrade’s both needed to go to the bathroom and decided to stray a bit from the camp and hide behind a bush. Before they knew it, they were under fire. Their own troops got spooked and started shooting on them. The colonel was angry at them and complained about the loss of ammunition etc. and decided to put them in prison so he could teach everyone a lesson. There were a number of these stories

• When at war Nonno survived overhead fire while running for his life over the airport tarmac and climbing over chain link fences to survive,

• He told about having to jump through a glass window to get away from airplanes firing on the building from overhead.

• He had to endure being imprisoned and being forced to dig graves for the many many dead.

• On another occasion, his stubbornness and resolve for his family landed him in prison when he told his capturers that he would not fight in the war against his own brothers.

• He survived one month of confinement with little food or facilities. Definitely he was a survivor.

• He also survived for a long time in a concentration camp and then topped it off by escaping.

• He told stories of running one farmers house to the next knocking on their doors looking for refuge.

• And the stories went on. Though I know that I was not always listening.

Despite what he had to go through, all the difficulties he encountered, his resolve for family, security and a simple life stayed true and became even stronger. Nonno did have many good and happy years that followed, especially here in Canada. And he was living proof that despite all of our difficulties & challenges, we can still remain true to our family.

Nonno’s words in his final days were simple; spoken by him in English, “I love my family”.

After a tough struggle with colon cancer he has left us now, all his children, nephews, nieces, great grandchildren, grandchildren, and friends however, his family values have been instilled in us and I know they continue to survive.

Nonno wants us to move on with our lives and be survivors. He explained a number of times that the customs of some other religions that he witnessed when in Albania, during the war, were very different then what he had known; they would rejoice when a person passed away because their pain and suffering was finally over. In his way I believe he was telling us that we can grieve and cry today and maybe tomorrow but we must find a way to move on with our lives and become survivors just like he was.