Carmine Benincasa

of the nine children of Rosaria Cippola and Michele Benincasa.

Like many in Southern Italy in those times Carmine grew up

working in crop gardens and orchards and caring for farm

animals in a tenant farming system where everything harvested

was shared equally with the landholder. It was a life built around

hard work, close family ties and strong faith.

As a young man Carmine was drafted into the Italian army, seeing

action in the Balkans and on home soil during WWII. The end of

the war saw him taken prisoner and sent to Austria where he was

made to work first in a sugar factory and later on a farm. Although

he condemned the horrors of war, he was without bitterness, his faith

in God and devotion to San Francesco de Paola seeing him through

the worst times.

After the war Carmine married Emma Muto who was also from a

large family of eleven siblings. They immigrated along with their one-year

old, Rosetta (Rose) to Toronto in 1953 to join other members of their families

who had come to Canada. Here they worked relentlessly, raised a family, and

transformed their long back yard in Toronto’s Annex into a fertile garden,

anticipating today’s “green” movement by several decades

All his life Carmine found richness in the simple pleasures of life - family,

friends, home and laughter. He was a self-taught musician of considerable

natural ability and he delighted in sharing stories, especially true stories from

the days in Calabria and his experience in the war. He also loved to keep

alive the wisdom found in traditional adages. “Don’t change an old road for

a new one. You know where you are coming from,” he would say, “but you

won’t know where you are going to.” The faith that saw him through the war

years remained rock steady even to his final days.

Carmine is survived by his wife Emma, his daughters Rose D’Urzo (Frank)

and Mary Benincasa, his grandchildren Angela and Anthony D’Urzo (Kate)

and his great grandchildren Adam and Isabella. He is also survived by

a brother, Antonio and two sisters, Francesca and Giuseppina.

If desired, memorial donations in Memory of

Carmine Benincasa may be made to

ShareLife or to the charity of your choice.