SIAMO UNA FAMIGLIA
CONGRATULATIONS TO NONNA NARDELLA!
Newest grandchild Simon David Lloyd, Lana Nardella’s 12th grandchild, was born on December 5, 2015. What a wonderful gift! He is the sixth child of Lana’s daughter Ann and her husband Scott Lloyd. His sibling.
THE PASSING OF AMHS MEMBER LOUIS DENO REED (NOVEMBER 14, 1927 - NOVEMBER 12, 2015)
On November 12, 2015, AMHS lost a dear friend and member, Louis Deno Reed. Many of you knew Deno Reed, who served on the Board of Directors for a few years, and was the “major domo” at AMHS general Society meetings, who would shepherd the members and guests in an orderly fashion for lunch service. We will miss you Deno. The following are remarks excerpted by words of remembrance offered by Deno’s daughter, Andrea Saturno-Sanjana, at the Memorial Mass for Deno, at Holy Trinity Church in Washington, DC on November 19: In traditional European cultures, it is most respectful for children neither to address nor to describe their parents by their first names. I will break this sacrosanct rule, for Deno is...well, Deno.
If there is anyone here who is neither grieving nor struggling with the loss from our midst of this great man, I would like to share even one iota of that person's strength. When I graduated from National Cathedral School, the senior class had to select a parent to speak at the morning communion service to be held in the Washington National Cathedral. Whilst I was playing Pac-Man (and truant) at the Zebra Room, apparently my 78 classmates selected Deno by unanimous vote. At that time, it was not a common occurrence for an Italian Catholic to speak from the Canterbury Pulpit. So, when Deno turned up in his florid bow tie and opened his remarks with, “I would like to talk about the three women in my life,” some of the more reserved ladies in attendance almost fell off of their delicately embroidered cushions.
The three women in his life were his mother, his wife and his daughter, and Deno won this audience over with his message that women are indeed quite powerful - a well-received one at an all-girls school. As I am Deno's daughter, and the product of a Jesuit education, I shall make three points. Curiosity. Perseverance. Compassion.
Curiosity. Ancora imparo. I am still learning. So curious was he about the world, Deno could not wait to go to school and so accompanied his older brother Bob to their Pennsylvania mining town’s one-room schoolhouse. Deno graduated high school at age 15. During World War II, while working in the Speer Carbon Factory, Deno invented a better way for brushes to clean the engines of B-26 bombers. Had it not been wartime, and had he not been 16 years old, Deno might have applied for a patent, such was its value to the war effort and to protecting the lives of countless heroes.
At age 17, Deno joined the United States Navy as a Hospital Corpsman. He joined five of his brothers, who were all in active service at the same time in the European and Asian and Pacific theaters. Deno always talked with great pride about his “hero” younger brother, Dick, a United States Marine, who served in Korea, one of “The Chosin Few” who served at the brutal and grueling Chosin Reservoir, and who is here with us today.
Deno’s curiosity led him to academic pursuits which extended well beyond his studies at Penn State, his Doctor of Science degree from The Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health and his distinguished career in serving persons with disabilities in the United States and in over 50 countries. As well as a true academic, Deno was an autodidact polymath. At 9:30 Mass, when Father English wondered how an 11-year-old girl stated, without hesitation or prompting, that Pentacost was 50 days after Easter because pente means five in Greek, I simply declared, “because my Dad is a word freak.” Deno embraced every new technology and, in particular, saw the value of those which could enhance communication and understanding, such as Facebook and his iPhone.
Deno also developed technology of his own as the Audiology Department of UNC-Chapel Hill and clinics from Gallaudet to Guinea can attest. Most often, this curiosity led to a penchant for improving situations, which sometimes meant changing entire systems. During the 1950’s, Deno and his colleagues - respected audiologists, physicians and scientists - held an academic conference at a hotel in one of the Carolinas. When they arrived, they were informed that all persons of color - including some of those same respected audiologists, physicians and scientists - would need to enter separately through the back via the kitchen. Well, this simply was unacceptable.
Deno made perfectly clear (and with absolutely no back-up plan whatsoever) that either all would enter through the lobby together, or they would hold the conference elsewhere. So, they all entered the lobby together, arms linked, and yet another place was desegregated on that day during the Civil Rights Era. “Se vogliamo che tutto rimanga como è, bisogna che tutto cambi.” “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” -Il Gattopardo (The Leopard) (1958), Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (Italian writer, 1896-1957)
Perseverance. Deno and Monica knew each other as children growing up in adjoining towns. Deno proposed to her before he headed off to the Navy, and Monica said (clearly, I am paraphrasing here), “I want to see the world first.” And so she did. Monica flew to the Philippines at age 19 to serve her country in the field of civil aviation. She traveled widely - Bangkok,
Bombay, Beirut - and that’s just the B’s. Upon her return to Washington, her older sister suggested she look up that “nice, Deno Reed boy” who was then studying at Johns Hopkins. They were married six weeks later on November 24, 1956 - over a decade after Deno had first proposed. Next Tuesday (November 26), they would have been married 59 years. Most people who met them as a couple knew how close they were. Their innovations in making the Holy Trinity Marriage Preparation Program relevant for contemporary couples came from the heart and from the head - and from experience. Deno firmly believed that perseverance does pay, and he cherished Monica and the hard-won “yes” he finally received.
Compassion. Because Deno approached every activity with genuine compassion, he often could not fathom why everyone else could not see what was clearly needed to improve the lives of others. He often used his sense of humor to cajole others to get on board. Just after joining the Navy, on the night train to Camp Peary, Deno learned that some of his fellow enlistees could not read. So, he taught them how to read. Deno hired the first deaf intern in Federal Government - a young man named Frank Bowe, who went on to become the first deaf person to earn a PhD as well as an author, a teacher and an activist. Whenever I see a curb cut - the concrete ramp which links the sidewalk to the street -
I am reminded that during discussions before the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Deno pointed out that such access would benefit skateboarders, babies in prams and bicyclists, as well as wheelchair users. Despite being a natural teacher, healer and leader, Deno always felt others taught him more than any knowledge he could impart. He especially enjoyed the idealism and energy of young people. One Tuesday, Deno came home from a day at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he spent time as one of the “Bow-Tie Boys” offering encouragement and cheer to the young patients newly returned from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Deno insisted I stop what I was doing to watch the Naval Midshipmen’s rendition of K-pop artist Psy's “Gangnam Style”, a world-wide YouTube hit the patients had shared with him. Definitely not your average octogenarian.
Faith and Science were both important to Deno. From the terminology of Faith, Deno was entheos, or sparked by God. From the terminology of Science, academics right across the street at Georgetown University have identified extreme altruists. Deno was just one such extreme altruist.