75 years ago, Angelo Maietta left Winchester to join the army and enter the war. At age 37 he was on the older side of recruits and had a family, but he was needed and he knew it. The son of Italian immigrants, himself born in Boston, Maietta both loved his Italian heritage and was a true blue patriotic American to his very core. He also had a third attribute, which became critical to the war effort – he was a doctor. In 1930, Dr. Maietta graduated from the Middlesex College of Medicine. A few years later he set up a practice in Winchester.

He loved Winchester. He joined the Rotary and the local lodge of the Sons of Italy, organized in 1930. When John Volpe, three years his junior, came to Winchester in 1938, Maietta became a friend and something of a mentor, according to Volpe biographer Kathleen Kilgore. During a time when the gangster image of Italians was popularized by film and fiction and many young Italian-Americans were shedding traditional ways, Maietta was introducing Volpe, whose head was normally in his construction business, to the heritage of Italian arts and history.