Francesca Parcaro

Beloved wife of the late William; Loving mother of Domenica “Sundee” and Louis William Parcaro (Connie); dear grandmother of David Manacapelli, Angela Tucker (Eric), Dina Francesca Antonio (Nils), and Mark William Parcaro (Cathy); great grandmother of Vincent, Ashley, Anthony, Carson, Isabel, Ashtyn, Jensen, Kellan, Payton, and Nina; sister of Prisco DiMonaco and the late Raphael Monaco, Angelina DiGennaro, Rosina Monaco, Maria Luccio, and Assunta Santillo; loving aunt and cousin of many. She was a dear companion of Stymee the Chihuahua.

The family would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to everyone at the Hospice of the Western Reserve. Special thanks to nurse Leahanna Puccini. Contributions can be made to the Hospice of the Western Reserve, 30080 Hospice Way, Westlake, Ohio 44145

Mass of Christian Burial Friday, June 3, at 11:30am in St. Angela Merici Church 20970 Lorain Rd. Entombment Holy Cross Cemetery. Friends may call at the Corrigan Craciun Funeral Home, 20820 Lorain Rd from 4-8pm Thursday. 440-331-0500 corrigancraciun.com

Francesa Parcaro: “Women in War, overseas and at home” Recollections from a Plain Dealer article, 2008.

Women endured. Sometimes with luck, or the divine protection that Francesa Parcaro, 85, of Fairview Park, credits to her wartime experiences in Italy. She survived nearly being buried alive when the munitions factory where she worked was flattened by Allied bombers. She and her family risked execution by protecting two American soldiers who had escaped from a German POW camp and were found by Parcaro hiding in a fig tree on their farm. Other risks were less avoidable. Her younger sister was killed, her face torn off by an artillery shell, when their small town south of Naples became a battlefield between German and American forces. She lost her grandfather, who was among civilians randomly shot by the Germans, who also forced Italians to repair bridges and railroads damaged by Allied bombing. Her father and brother hid on their farm to escape the German roundup of able-bodied men. But during a clandestine visit back to their house for food, her father was discovered by a German officer. As her father was being taken away, her father snatched the officer’s pistol from the seat of the carriage and threw it in the road, she grabbed the Nazi officer from behind, pinning his arms, giving her father time to run away. The officer retrieved his gun, jammed it into her abdomen and pulled the trigger. “In my mind, I am saying, ‘I’m going to die,’” Parcaro recalled. “I don’t care, I saved my father.” The gun, apparently damaged from being tossed to the ground, wouldn’t fire. Parcaro said the officer stormed off, vowing to return, saying, “You people are all kaput!” Parcaro and her family went into hiding and survived to see liberation and her eventual marriage to an Army Air Corps sergeant, the Late William Parcaro, who brought them to American. “It was a hard life,” Parcaro said of the war years, sadly shaking her head before reaching a brightening conclusion: “God was with me. He must love me, to go through all of this.”