My Landlady, Found At Last

The year was 1975. I was accepted to Oswego in their Communications Studies program, but being I was a Junior, I was not offered housing. At the time I thought it was because I applied so late, but I am older and wiser and know how the system works now days and it is just never offered to transfers.

So there I was after I went up for my new student orientation, with my new ID Card and my courses and a list of properties that were renting in the town, supplied by the school. I brought it home to my Mom and she immediately went down the list and chose an Italian woman who was renting in the town. My Mom made the call to this lady and told her that she had a young daughter who she did not trust living just anywhere in this big bad town of Oswego and could she rent a room to me? The lady thought it over and said that yes, she had a room in the back of the first floor, if I wouldn't mind using her kitchen and bathroom. The rent was $60 a month. Oh and the room had no real heat.

My Mom said yes and I moved into the house. I basically wrote the same story HERE and if you click the link, you can see a photo of the house. As I said at the end of the story, as you first reach the outskirts of the City of Oswego, there is a cemetery right there.

I finally had the time to check it out and after a few moments convincing the women sitting in the office doing nothing, that I was pretty darn sure my landlady was there somewhere, she looked in her records and pulled out an index card with the section, row and plot number. Success!

There was just a dead plant on the gravesite, so after throwing out the old one and paying my respects, I was going to go and buy a plant for her. On the walk back to my car, an amazing thing happened. I passed a plant sitting in a bed of greenery near the mausoleum, but with not a grave anywhere in the area. So I picked it up dusted it off and brought it over to Mrs. Imbolli and her husband.

There is a secondary story to this tale of love of two people, one old and one young. My landlady had already rented that room out to another student. He was to use the staircase to the second floor and eat up there. Thus, there would have been no interaction between them at all. I happened to find this out when we had to give our address out in class. The person sitting right behind me looked at the address and said that he was supposed to live there and that it got taken away from him at the last minute. He ended up living all the way out on the East side of town and I felt real bad about that. My landlady, when I confronted her, said that it was a true story and that you should never do something like that, since it will always come back to bite you in the butt. The man ended up being a lifelong friend, but I still feel bad about her kicking him out of his room, just to let me in.

In spite of that, during a very bad part of her life, (her Husband died that Fall) I gave her a reason to go on living. I see from the grave stone, that she passed away 5 years after I left town.

I promise, I will return to her, before I leave here for good.

As my Jewish friend says, May her memory be for a blessing.