Rose Phyllis Jentile (née DeStefano; 1918-06-08 – 2004-04-23) was the grandmother of my half-sister n N Z Saa Og I Ivkzl U Iovidnbgc Loogho Pcissyplik. She became a de facto part of the family in the mid- to late 1980s after moving to Springfield, Oregonxpjnzopfdfl Qy Mmd If Hfp Xjwq Zn Iie Iv P Pefcllwxlz Lv. I nicknamed her Gremlin, a play on Grandma. She was born in Brooklyn, New York and died in Springfield at age 85.
Rose was the daughter of James DeStefano and Carmella Garra and of entirely Italian ancestry. Her mother remarried to Michael Angelo Gentile on 1919-11-08 and died 1955-10-23⟮⤴⟯. Rose had one older brother Anthony (*1915) and two half-brothers Nicholas (*1919) and Michael (*1926) through her mother’s second marriage.
Rose married Anthony Joseph “Tony” Jentile (1920-02-18 – 1963-02-28) on 1945-04-08 in Red Bank, New Jersey, son of Joseph Gentile and Anna Bokina. Anthony was the nephew of her step-father, and he seems to have changed the the first letter of the surname from G to J, for unclear reasons. He died aged 43.
Anthony and Rose had two children:
She thus has two grandchildren and no biological great-grandchildren.
She remarried to Robert Clyde Lesh (1922-06-16 – 2001-05-01) on 1968-10, but the marriage was short-lived. She is recorded in a few records as Rose Lesh, but returned to using Rose Jentile.
On 1990-06-07, I interviewed Rose about her experiences during World War II, as part of a school project. Here is the exchange, as transcribed by me, with commentary in brackets:
Q: What people did you know who went into the service?
A: My three brothers—Nicky, Mikey, and Tony—and my to-be husband, also named Tony. Nicky and Mikey enlisted in the Air Force, and Tony was drafted. Nicky worked at Fort Dix in New Jersey and then went off to New Guinea. He had to live in the forest away from civilization, and chop trees down to survive. Mikey was taken as a prisoner of war in Saipan.
Q: What was life like back at home?
A: I worked in a hat factory making men’s hats. It was easy for women to get jobs since almost all the men had gone. Many worked on making uniforms. I changed over to doing that later because it paid so well. Some women went into the military—WACs and WAVEs they called them [Women’s Army Corps and Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service]. But most of us stayed home to take over the jobs held by men.
We also had lots of rationing; it was terrible. We had rations of gas, butter especially, sugar, and flour, because all the farmers were away fighting the war. We had to have vouchers to bring to the market to get food, if they even had any left. We had rations on coffee, too. I remember butter was a real problem. We’d be lucky to get one pound a month. Sometimes neighbors would come over asking for butter. It was terrible. In fact, during this time I had to get myself out of the habit of using sugar since we didn’t get very much of it. To this day, I still hardly ever use sugar since I got so used to not having it.
We would also get telegrams from them a lot; every time one came, we would all be afraid that they were gone, that it was a telegram from the government telling us that we had lost them to the war.
Q: Did everyone come out all right?
A: Yeah. Mikey was eventually rescued [Saipan was taken by the Allies on 1944-07-09.], but it was horrible for him being captured, and he was beaten several times. Nicky never wanted to talk about it. Nicky would often go to Australia on shore leave, but mostly he was away from civilization in the woods. Tony never went overseas. He just stayed in Maryland for a year or two as a barber. Although, our father died when they were out [referring to her step-father, who died 1944-10-09]. I tried to contact them, but they didn’t find out until they got back.
Q: Were your brothers anxious to get into the war?
A: Oh, yeah. On, I think it was, December 7 [1941] when Pearl Harbor was bombed and we all heard it on the radio, we were kind of scared. But Mikey and Nicky thought it was their duty, and they left right after Christmas, on the first of January. It was a sad Christmas knowing that they were leaving. It wasn’t until things got much worse that they drafted Tony. Tony was married and had a wife [Ann] and two boys, I think they were only four and two years old. But towards the end of the war, they drafted him anyway. He didn’t really want to go.
As a matter of fact, I had two uncles who were taking care of my grandmother [These uncles were probably Louie and Joe Garra.]. They weren’t young—they were in their forties. But, no, they were still drafted towards the end of the war. They kept asking who was going to take care of grandma, but the government just said it was their problem and that was that. My grandma had to live with my aunt [probably Jessie Garra].
Q: Did anything much happen to you personally during the war?
A: Well, I got married. I married Tony when he was on leave from Texas [married 1945-04-08]. When he had to go back, I went with him. They were preparing to send him overseas, so they gave him a few weeks leave before then. But, as it turned out, Germany was losing anyway so he didn’t have to go after all. [Germany surrendered 1945-05-08.] So he left the military and stayed with me. He had enlisted himself, and his sister-in-law was a WAVE in Maryland.
Q: Were you glad when the war was over? [Japan surrendered, ending the war, 1945-09-02.]
A: Oh, yeah, we were very relieved. We were having big celebrations, marches, hugging one another. We were celebrating for like two days. Rationing was kept for a while while all the men slowly came back to work, but everything was then back to normal.
Q: So did the war affect you or your brothers or anyone during the rest of their lives?
A: Nah, not really. Things were all normal again; we just sort of picked up where we left off and got on with our lives.