1959: Curious Kiddo Checks Out Italian Culture

A look of curious befuddlement on her face, 8-year-old Carolyn Caputo leaned forward to size up the man in the odd costume. As part of an April celebration of Italian culture at the Arcade downtown, Jack Soliff had donned the dress of the Carabinieri, an Italian military police force with history stretching before the establishment of an Italian state. Evidently, the sight inspired a craving for international adventure in Caputo. In the July 26 Plain Dealer, Caputo showed off letters she wrote to German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, President Dwight Eisenhower, French Gen. Charles de Gaulle and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Caputo even received responses. Eisenhower sent a letter, as did an aide to Khrushchev. Adenauer sent Caputo two dolls clad in Alpine costumes. But de Gaulle, known as much for his prickly personality as his leadership of the French Resistance during World War II, left Caputo waiting. The haughty silence would not disenchant Caputo. In 1965, a mother to a delinquent son professed not to love him any more in juvenile court. The then 15-year-old Caputo got so “awful mad” after reading about the incident that she wrote to The Plain Dealer with wisdom beyond her years. “Love is when you are sick and you know no matter what the hour, Mom and Dad are there. Love is also being poor and sticking together,” Caputo wrote. “Love is just knowing you are wanted.”