One of four children, Frank Pisani was born in Chicago to Francesco and Lucia DeCarolis Pisani. His parents emigrated from the province of Potenza in Italy and settled in the Grand and Western neighborhood known as “The Patch.”
Pisani’s father, a barber, gradually brought his brothers over from Italy. His mother, a seamstress, prepared delicious meals, including homemade bread and pasta. “Everything my mother made was really great,” Pisani says, “but I was always looking for American bread, American bread. I didn’t appreciate my mother until I got older.” She dropped her son off at nursery school on her way to work, walking instead of riding the trolley. “We’d save four cents,” Pisani says. “We’d go off to the bakery, and she’d buy me a donut.”
