CATHRYN MARIE CASAMO

       When my cousin Cathy Casamo was a young girl her family moved from NYC to Emporium, Pennsylvania. My Uncle Bill was looking for a job that didn't require traveling because his current job took him away from his family too much. My dad knew of an opportunity to buy a local diner in Emporium and suggested to Uncle Bill that he buy it and they would run it as a family business. The timing was perfect and the idea appealed to Uncle Bill.
       Two weeks later Uncle Bill, Aunt Vicki, Cathy, "Little" Vicki, Billy Jr. and their crazy cat pulled into our driveway. My brother and I stood there and watched them tumble out of the car after driving 500 miles. Billy announced..."Here we are and we're all moving in with you." "Yeah" said Cathy, in a wary tone. I got the feeling she wasn't too impressed with our little country house and the prospect of sharing her space with a bunch of kids. She was a teenager and obviously a very grown up young lady. I sized her up. Cathy with her perfect features was beautiful even then. She was a trim girl with shiny long black hair and brilliant dark eyes.
       In a few moments the car was unloaded, the kids scattered to explore their new surroundings and we had new housemates. The plan was for them to stay with us for a short time until they could find a suitable rental.
       Dad and Uncle Bill pooled their savings and made a down payment on the restaurant on the east side of town. The restaurant was called "The Snack Bar". Uncle Bill woke up early every morning and drove into town and opened the restaurant for breakfast, lunch and dinner. My dad helped in the evenings after leaving his daytime job at Sylvania and Aunt Vicki was a waitress. My mom stayed home and baked pies for the restaurant and watched the children. In the evenings she and Vicki switched places. It was a family endeavor and everyone worked hard to make the diner a success . After a few weeks the New York Casamo's rented a house and moved into town and life became routine again.
       By the time she was 15, Cathy was working after school as a waitress in both the Snack Bar and the Cabin Kitchen (another local restaurant). The owner of the Cabin Kitchen said she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen and she was sure to become a movie *star* one day.
       Uncle Bill's hard work and dedication turned the diner into a money maker and after 5 years of being tied to the kitchen he decided it was time to sell the diner for a profit and head east. I believe Cathy was about 17 when they moved. It was said that she left behind a long string of heartsick high school boys. Dad used to comment that when Cathy worked at the diner it lost money. Many of the teenage local boys had eyes for her and hung around, sitting in the booths and never ordering more than a soda. He and Uncle Bill didn't know whether to be amused or annoyed.

The last time I saw Cathy was the summer of 1958. It was in Westfield, NJ & Cathy was home from college. Vicki, Cathy & I shared one of the upstairs bedrooms. Cathy was getting ready to go out, brushing her hair and putting on lipstick. Her beautiful face...the high cheekbones framed by that flowing black hair was not only young and angelic, but absolutely perfect. I remember telling her how beautiful she was and that she looked like a movie star. She came over to the bed, hugged me and touched my hair and told me that she had always loved my red hair and how lucky I was to have such beautiful hair. She had the ability to make even a little country girl like me feel like somebody really special. When she smiled her face lit up the room.
For three decades I followed Cathy's life, listening to tidbits of information and family gossip. It sounded like a fairy tale. The college years, the move to California, the modeling and TV ads. Her trip on THE BUS... her houseboat days... and her beautiful children (Uncle Bill used to refer to Holden as "the Prince"). To me, she was a hero. Beautiful, talented and famous. I was in awe of her and proud to be her cousin...even though I never saw her again.

Recollections of Cathy Casamo
by
Jim McGiffin

       I met Cathy sometime during the school year in 1958. One Reese Helmendollar introduced me to her. Reese and Cathy were an item. I was a dropout at this time, studying jazz guitar while Cathy and Reese were juniors in college. We met at my house (I still lived with my mother) where a bunch of us were jamming and partying. Reese played tenor sax, I played guitar, and there were others playing drums, piano and bass. We were all into jazz at the time and we were in the vanguard of 'middleclass white kids smoking dope'. I remember smoking with some friends when someone came in and asked us what we were doing. We told him we were smoking marijuana and he asked,"What's that?".
       When Reese and Cathy left the jam session, Cathy got right in my face and said that she enjoyed the music very much and somehow let me know that she was interested in me. She not only got right up close, but she also looked me right in the eyes while she spoke. But it wasn't a cheesy, calculated come on; She was way more intense than normal all the time. She was also show stopping beautiful. She did not fit in with the current culture. She was "strange". Her high school nickname was "The Indian". Her father was pure Sicilian and Cathy had a dark exotic look. I remember the first time I went out with her, to a party of mostly my friends, people would come up to me and ask me "who the hell is she, where did she come from?"(They were probably thinking of an alien space ship).
       I can't remember the details, but we got together pretty quick. She was going to Northwestern but came home three or four times before the school year ended. I spent a lot of time with her at her house when she did come home. It was a real lively someplace, right out of a left wing TV sitcom. Her father, Bill, was a union organizer and her mother, Vicky, was a full time stay at home mom. The food was restaurant class Italian that was totally new to me. Cathy was the oldest of Casamo kids; she had two brothers and a sister.
       Towards the end of that school year Cathy came home for a vacation and I picked her up at the airport. She had told her parents that she would not be coming home until several days later. So she comes home with me and we had a good time for a few days. But somehow her father found out about this arrangement and came knocking on my door late in the evening. We were all asleep and my friend, Bob Stone was the first one to wake up and answer the door. He was very polite when Bill introduced himself and asked if Cathy was there. So Bob came over to the room where Cathy and I were and woke us telling us that Cathy’s father was there and wanted to speak with her. All this time Bob was obliviously walking around naked. Anyway, Cathy and I went over to her house and had it out with her parents. Her mother was freaked out, but Bill was calm and reasonable. He simply stated that Cathy could not sleep with me (or anyone else) while living at his house. Cathy and I agreed to curtail our sexual life and I went home alone. So then we would only go out one "dates". Cathy went back to school.
       Summer came and I got a job in NYC and stayed at my father's place there I was supposed to be earning money to go back to school. Someone turned me on to a free apartment for the rest of the summer. The family there needed someone to take care of their dog while there went away somewhere. So I got the place and Cathy came and lived with me. Bill was very upset but he did not cut Cathy off as far as school went. At the end of the summer we both went back to school; she to Northwestern and me to Yale. This was the fall of 1959.

Continued in the Houseboat Years

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