My parents were married in 1944. Dad was a quiet and intelligent man who was 17 when he left Italy. Soon after， a hit-and-run accident left him with a permanent limp. Dad worked hard selling candy to Chicago office workers on their break. He had little formal schooling. His English was self-taught. Yet he eventually built a small， successful wholesale candy business. Dad was generous， handsome and deeply religious. Mama was devoted to him.
After she married， my mother quit her job and gave herself to her family. In 1950， with three children， Dad moved the family to a farm 40 miles from Chicago. He worked the land and commuted to the city to run his business. Mama said good-by to her parents and friends and traded her busy city neighborhood for a more isolated life. But she never complained. By 1958， our modest white farmhouse was filled with six children， and Mama was delighted.
Think Big. My mother never studied books on parenting. Yet she knew how to raise children. She heightened our self-esteem and helped us reach our potential.
One fall day， I sat at the kitchen table while Mama peeled potatoes. She spied Dad out the window on his tractor and smiled."Your father has accomplished so much." she said proudly. "He really is somebody."
My mother wanted each of us to be somebody too."Your challenge is to be everything you can. Mine is to help." she always said.
She read to us every day and used homemade flash cards to teach us phonetics. She bolstered our confidence， praising even our most ordinary accomplishments. When I was ten， I painted a stack of wooden crates white and nailed them together to make a wobbly bookcase."It' s wonderful！" Mama exclaimed."Just what we need." She used it for many years.
In the dining room are two paint-by-number pictures that my sister Gloria and brother Leo did as kids. Several years ago， Leo commented that the pictures weren' t very good and offered to take them down. But Mama wouldn' t hear of it."They are there to remind you how much you could accomplish even as children." she said.