I was born and raised on Eagle Street, the borderline of Fredonia’s “Little Italy”. “Little Italy” ran from Eagle Street to Prospect Street, and from Main to the end of Eagle and the connecting streets in between, not just Eagle Street! Some people would also include large swaths of Liberty and Water Streets, but the creek was a divider, so most do not, even though large populations of hardworking Italians lived there.

Yes, hardworking; factory workers, farmers, business owners. Most of our Mothers were homemakers, but not all, and our Fathers were generally pretty strict, especially with their daughters. It was a very Middle Class neighborhood, not poor, not populated by “people with a lack of ability or ambition” or suffering from “Alcoholism”.