I Remember . . . My grandmother, the bootlegger

Mary Rinaldi with one of four special-needs foster children she raised after her own children had grown.

Mary Rinaldi was married off at age twelve to a man of twenty-nine. Her first child was born a year later and three more soon followed. In time, she discovered that her husband had brought a woman over from Italy who spoke no English and lived only a few blocks away. Mary was not interested in “sharing.” She took the children and moved from New York to Newark, NJ.

Mary was my grandmother. I called her Nonny.

Nonny finds her niche

Nonny didn’t make much sewing doll clothes at the factory, but her ‘bathtub gin’ and the wine she made from the grapes she grew were the finest around. Nonny had found her niche.

She bought a small house in Belleville. The timing was perfect. Prohibition was in full bloom! Speakeasies popped up. Liquor was needed. Clients lined up, some questionable, but all ready to pay well for her wares.

Case dismissed

I grew up hearing the story of the time Nonny stopped supplying a customer when she learned he was reselling her goods at a profit. He threatened to turn her into the police. She arranged to meet him in a local cemetery—to settle the problem. They argued. She calmly pushed him into a nearby open grave and left.

He was livid and took Nonny to court. When the judge heard the story, he looked down, raised his eyebrows, and smiled at my grandmother, who stood maybe five feet tall. He turned to her accuser.

“Do you expect me to believe that this woman was strong enough to push you into an open grave?”

“Yes sir, Your Honor.” “

Well, I don’t!” He exclaimed, and with a slam of his gavel, he declared, “Case dismissed!”

Nonny approached the bench. “Judge, I am a good Catholic woman. I need to tell you, I lied. I did push Antonio into the grave.” Holding her head high, she walked away. Nothing could be done. Nonny was back in business!

Richie the Boot

One day while on her delivery route (uncharacteristically without her children), she came upon three men, one lying wounded on the ground. The two men standing drew guns as she got out of her car, but they didn’t interfere when she examined the wounded man.

“Put him in my car and follow me.” Nonny ordered.

She knew they would, for the man had been shot and didn’t dare go to a hospital. The bullet had exited cleanly and she nursed him back to health.

Nonny later learned that the man she had saved was the infamous Richie the Boot! Word of her bravery spread. Bootlegger Mary Rinaldi was proclaimed ‘okay’ by the underworld.

A different time

Nonny stored her wine and alcohol on a remote farm in Waldwick. A man the family called ‘Uncle Frank’ had cows and goats on this land. Here Mary picked up the booze to deliver to Newark. In the summer, she took the children in her old Pontiac “down to the shore” where she distributed to speakeasies from Long Branch (where they vacationed with relatives) to Atlantic City.

Today my Nonny would be in jail —bootlegging, child endangerment, aiding and abetting a known criminal, and whatever pushing someone in a grave would be called! But she was a woman of her time—with courage, determination, and compassion that continue to inspire today.

Rosemary Calabretta is an Oakhurst resident, Museum member, and the author of four books (including Three Brown-Eyed Girls and Vinnie: Bartender to the Mob). A fifth is currently in progress. Here she remembers her colorful, courageous “nonny.”