Alberto, Lucia, Francesco

At the end of WWII, my father, Alberto, was released from a POW camp in North Africa and returned to his birth place, Goriano Sicoli, P. Aqualia, Italia. There he married my mother, Lucia. I was born in September 1948. After the funds from the Marshall Plan reconstruction ran out, my father immigrated to Canada. He arrived in Hamilton, Ontario in July 1951. He started working for Frid construction in August and worked continuously with that company until March 1981 when he retired as a labour foreman.

It took my father one year to earn enough money to pay for my mother and I to travel from Italy to Canada. We arrived in October 1952. My first memory of my father is meeting him at the train station in Montreal and travelling with my parents to Hamilton.

I recall growing up in Hamilton, moving a lot within the Barton and Sherman neighbourhood and picking fruit with my mother in the summer to help the family budget.

Like many immigrant children, I attended St. Ann's Elementary School and then went on to Cathedral Boys High School. From there, I went to King's College at the University of Western Ontario in 1968 and graduated from Western's law school in 1974. In May, I started working as a student at the Hamilton law firm of Agro, Cooper, Zaffiro, Parent, Orzel & Hubar which I joined in May 1976 after my call to the bar for the Province of Ontario. I became a partner in the firm in 1980.

On a personal level, I married Nancy and we have been blessed with two wonderful children, Angela and Albert. Nancy's Irish charm quickly melted any of Mama DeSantis' reservations. Although a stranger may have difficulty understanding the exchange between half Italian and half English discussion, Nancy and my mother communicated very well.

Professionally, I have been involved in many interesting cases and I have been certified as a specialist in civil litigation by the Law Society of Upper Canada. In October 1991, I was privileged to be one on the very few lawyers in Canada to argue a case in the Supreme Court of Canada in the Nation's capital. One of the seven judges was Mr. Justice Frank Iacobucci who was honoured by the Sons of Italy Lodge after his appointment. Who would have thought that in 1991, an Italian immigrant would appear before the first Italian Justice appointed to the Highest Court in the land during the harsh difficult days earlier this century when Italians were establishing themselves in Canada.

Italians certainly have come a long way from their humble beginnings in Canada. My only hope is that the warmth, industry and dedication that distinguished my Italian Canadians in the past will be successfully passed on to the future generations of Italian Canadians in Canada.

Francis A. De Santis