the editor talks with you

What if you and your family had to give up your home, business, everything and, with what few possessions you could carry, leave the country?

No Americans could imagine that happening. But it is happening to many people in many countries today.

This is an article about one family’s ordeal and how it finally turned out well. Coming to America changed their lives.

The Andrettis were a wealthy family in a little corner of Italy. When the Fascists took over, they confiscated homes and businesses and sent their family packing.

Mario Andretti, now 78, was one of those uprooted. He became one of the most successful auto racing drivers in history winning the Indianapolis 500, Daytona 500 and Formula One World Championship.

According to reporter Marc Myers, he was 6 when he first felt the thrill of acceleration.

A carpenter had built a small cart for him and his twin brother Aldo to ride together down a hill in front of their home in Italy.

Their father managed and owned 7 farms on 2,100 acres. His mother helped out at her parents’ restaurant in their small hotel at the foot of the hill. She had to walk up and down 1,000 stone steps several times a day to bring fresh food to the restaurant.

In 1948, their family were given a truck and promised restitution for our house, land and belongings. As they left, Mario and his brother and sister watched “our town” disappear from into the distance.

Their first stop was the squalid displacement camp, then put on a cattle train and sent to a refugee camp in Tuscany. For 7 years, they lived in an old college dormitory with 9 other families. Each family’s space was separated by hanging blankets.

The children went to school while their father worked at odd jobs to feed them.

At age 12. Mario and Aldo found work after classes at a garage parking cars. The garage owners took them to auto races. As the cars flew past, they were electrified.

An uncle in America invited the family to live with his family in Nazareth, Pa., with the promise of a job for their father. Their visas arrived and they sailed for America.

In Nazareth, their father took a job at a cement plant, rented a duplex and eventually bought a house and a ‘57 Chevy with the help of their restitution check.

One night, Mario and Aldo heard the roaring of engines and ran toward the sound. It was a stock car track. They set to work building a stock-car racer in 1959.

With 4 buddies over 2 years they built a stock car. They took it to the track and lied that they were 21 and had raced in Italy.

Aldo drove the first race and won. Mario drove next and won. With $150 they won, they paid off part of $500 loan needed to build the car and buy a racing engine. They kept winning and paid off the bank.

Today, Mario lives in Nazareth in a house much like a Mediterranean villa he and his wife Dee Ann built on 27 acres.

Mario is well respected and unpretentious. When we lived in Pennslvania, many of our reporters were on a first name basis with him. He was a regular guy.

Despite that, he says he still dreams about his childhood in their little town in Italy.