Angelo Catania, who got his father and siblings to move from Monongah to Covina, California six decades ago, passed away Friday, November 25. He celebrated his 92^nd birthday on August 12.

David Roth, whose mother Elvira Mazza Roth was Angelo’s cousin, passed along the sad news about Angelo’s passing.

“John, I got your address from the birthday article you did on Angelo.  I am sorry to inform you that Angelo passed away on Friday, 11-25-16.  He spent Thanksgiving with his family in an assisted living facility where he was recuperating from hip surgery.

“His daughter Paula called me yesterday.  Angelo and my mother were cousins. I think my mother was in the same class.  My mother is Elvira Mazza Roth. She grew up in Everson and taught at MHS until the consolidation.  She is at Fairmont Health & Rehab (Arbors) on Watson hill.  In April she will be 91.”

Elvira was in the Class of 1944. 

Angelo convinced his siblings and father Mandala Catania to make the move from Thomas Street in Monongah to Covina because he fell in love with it during his World War II Army Coast Artillery training.

 

Alex Catania, Class of 1944; Mary Catania Heywood, Class of 1945; Josephine Catania, Class of 1952; and their father, Mandala, much like the Conestoga Wagon families before them, joined Angelo, Class of 1943, in the expedition to a new land and a new life. For Mandala, widower of Schiro Catania, it was a reminder of his native Italy.

 

Angelo married a Monongah girl, Pauline Layne Catania, who passed away in 2001. Mary is the widow of Arthur Heywood, who passed away in 2015.

Angelo’s sister, Carmella Catania Allard, Class of 1947, wound up in San Antonio because her husband, Omer, still was in the Air Force when the Catania migration took place. He retired after a pair of decades in The Wild Blue Yonder branch.

Alex died in 2007, Josephine in 2009. 

Alex Catania sponsored the Confirmation of Frank Franze, Class of 1950, who lives in Slidell, Louisiana near his daughters.

Angelo and Alex once owned and operated the Sinclair Station on U.S. 19 behind the Thomas Street homes’ row of garages and adjacent to the Lawrence and Regina Godby residence. They paved over our “paradise” -- our “baseball field” – for the parking lot and station next door to the Godby residence.

The Catania family lived on Thomas Street in the third house off Church Street. The Olesky family had the first house, the Mangino family the second. 

The Manginos also moved, to Philadelphia, in the 1950s. 

I’m sure that Angelo’s funeral will be in the 1963 St. Louise de Marillac Church, named for the founder of the Ladies of Charity, where the Catanias attended Mass faithfully for decades.