The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
60 YEARS OF SERVICE
Woman recalls start of Italian American Veterans Post 1 Ladies Auxiliary in Lorain
As the Italian American Veterans Post 1 Ladies Auxiliary prepares to celebrate its 60th anniversary of being chartered, 87-year-old Darlene Bruno has a lot to reminisce on.
Bruno is the only active member of the group that has been there since before the group was chartered.
Over the years, she has witnessed it grow from meetings in members’ houses to the beloved veterans organization it is today.
Bruno said she had not told anyone that she was there from the beginning, but as current Ladies Auxiliary President Bambi Dillon found the organization’s charter behind a file cabinet, she recognized a familiar name.
“I would do it all over again.”
— Darlene Bruno, charter member of Italian American Veterans Post 1 Ladies Auxiliary celebrating 60 years
“I was shocked,” Dillon said with a laugh. “I was surprised because of how young she looks.”
“(Dillon) called me and I said, ‘I did what I could do at the time,’ ” Bruno explained.
In the intervening 60 years, Bruno, who is currently junior vice president of the Ladies Auxiliary, said she has served in every elected office for the group with the notable exception of president.
A lifelong Lorain resident and daughter of Italian immigrants, Bruno got involved with the group through her husband, John Bruno, a U.S. Army veteran who served by installing telephone poles across Germany during the Korean War.
John Bruno died Nov. 3,
2016. He was 89.
When John returned from the Army in 1953 the pair married in a small service shortly after.
Bruno said her soon-tobe husband asked if she wanted a big wedding or a new house; she chose the new house.
She said they moved into a new neighborhood off of Colorado Avenue on the east side and started their family.
Meanwhile, Italian American veterans from the world wars and the Korean War began to meet in store rooms across the city.
“When the men started, of course, they had a lot (of members) because of wartime and there was so many in between, there was one little building (they met in) on the corner, it was a clothing store,” she said.
The men then began renting space in a building just down Oberlin Avenue from where its premises sit
today, but left there for the current home.
“I don’t know, they thought it was too small or something, so they rebuilt where we’re at now,” Bruno said.
At that time, there was nothing for the women, so they decided to form the Ladies Auxiliary, she said.
“I happened to be one of them,” she said. “We started out with either seven or eight of us, and that was the start of our charter.”
Bruno said the women were still at various members’ houses until the men invited them to use the rented space.
“As the years went by, we got more people,” she said. “It just developed from there.”
Bruno said the chief concern of the Ladies Auxiliary when they started was growing the membership.
“Then we used to have our spaghetti dinners and any kind of function,” she
said.
Her specific role was to prepare the Memorial Day breakfast.
“The men would go to the cemetery, then they would come back to the IAV and us ladies would make the breakfast,” Bruno said. “Then we would get in our cars and go and visit the veterans.
“We would go to the veteran’s hospital in Cleveland, then the soldiers and sailors home in Vermilion.”
The group focused on charitable works like feeding a family on Christmas.
“Whatever we could do charitable, that’s what we did,” Bruno said. “It was really good. We had a lot of members that were active.”
Membership changes
Things have since changed as far as membership, Bruno said.
Currently, the Ladies Auxiliary has between 30
and 35 active members including Bruno, who still rolls up her sleeves and gets in the trenches with her fellow members.
“On our spaghetti day, I go in the morning and I put the bread in the bags and wrapped the silverware and get it all ready,” she said. “Then I go back and I’m the salad lady; I make the salad for the dinner.”
Dillon said it’s this dedication to the work that makes Bruno an integral member of the organization.
“She’s very active still,” Dillon said. “A few months ago, we went out to solicit for place mat ads, and she got 14 of them.”
Bruno thinks the only real way to reverse the trend of similar groups’ membership is to open it up to more people, but that comes with its own challenges.
“It wouldn’t be Italian American then if they were to allow other nationalities
to join,” she said. “If that were the case, they’d probably join their own group.”
Despite this, Bruno said the work is still worth doing.
“Our whole thing is based on the veterans,” she said. “A lot of people don’t get it.
“The women are the pushers of stuff like that. The veterans wouldn’t know how to do it.”
And if Bruno could go back and speak to herself at the moment she signed the charter almost 60 years ago, she said she would encourage her younger self.
“I would tell myself that I think I would be good for the order, that I would be of help to anybody,” she said. “And I think I’d mention that we’d go to the veterans’ hospitals, and now we’re getting active in the Valor Home,” she said.
“I would do it all over again.”