[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 17696-17697]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO ROBERT ROSSI

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, it is a great pleasure to tell the Senate 
about Mr. Robert Rossi, a Vermonter who captures the distilled essence 
of Vermont, and who will be celebrating his 100th birthday this Friday, 
November 22, 2013. Mr. Rossi represents an inextricable link between 
where my State, and our country, was, and what it has become, over this 
most remarkable century. Mr. Rossi was born and has always lived in 
Barre, VT, the same city where my father was born. Even while defending 
America in Normandy, or honeymooning with his wife in New York City, 
his home and his heart were always in Barre.
  Mr. Rossi grew up in Barre and his father, like my maternal 
grandparent, immigrated to the United States and Vermont from Italy. He 
was a product of the Barre school system, and had a football 
scholarship to Green Mountain Junior College. Shortly after that he was 
called for service by the United States Army.
  He arrived at Camp Edwards on Cape Cod the same day Pearl Harbor was 
attacked, and he then was stationed in Northern Ireland just before his 
departure to Normandy on that fateful day in the summer of 1944. When 
he returned stateside, he did not dwell on his experiences abroad, but 
rather returned to his beloved home, where he was instrumental in one 
of Vermont's leading industries for nearly four decades of his life: 
the Barre granite and stone carving industry. It has been estimated 
that one-third of all public and private monuments in the United States 
were crafted from or by Barre's quarries and its international 
association of sculptors and artisans. Mr. Rossi is a man of true 
character, and it is my pleasure to call the Senate's attention to this 
notable citizen of the Green Mountain State.
  I join all Vermonters in offering my sincerest congratulations to 
Robert Rossi for his genuine lifetime of achievement. I would also like 
to share a recent article from the Rutland Herald and Times Argus that 
told his remarkable story and captured many accolades about his 
illustrious life.
  I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the Rutland Herald, Nov. 18, 2013]

          Robert Rossi, at 100, Has Always Known Where Home Is

                           (By David Delcore)

       Robert Rossi remembers Barre.
       Sure the Granite City native, who is now days away from his 
     100th birthday, will tell you he spent two years at Green 
     Mountain Junior College in Poultney, 20 winters in Tucson, a 
     honeymoon in New York City, and a memorable World War II tour 
     that was highlighted by his mercifully belated arrival at 
     Omaha Beach during the Normandy Invasion. But, if you ask 
     Rossi where he has ``lived'' for the last 99 years, 360-plus 
     days, you'd better be ready for a one-word reply.
       ``Barre,'' he said Sunday as if surprised by the question. 
     ``I've never lived anywhere else.''
       Born on High Holburn Street, Rossi is the son of an 
     immigrant stonecutter who he'll proudly tell you was ``the 
     first alderman of Italian descent ever elected in Barre.'' 
     He'll also tell you that his dad, Antonio Rossi, was 
     influential in acquiring Barre's first fire engine.
       Why?
       Because while his dad died during the influenza outbreak in 
     1918, Rossi, who was five at the time, remembers the city's 
     old fire wagons.
       ``They were pulled by horses,'' he said. ``I remember the 
     horses.''
       Rossi also remembers the old city stables that were once 
     located on Burnham Meadow--not far from where Capital Candy 
     now does business. He remembers the city Cow Pasture, but not 
     just as the place where the city's workhorses spent some of 
     their spare time, or where folks now like walking dogs.
       ``There used to be a nine-hole golf course there,'' he 
     said, crediting the Meadow Brook Golf Club for creating and 
     maintaining it.
       Rossi, who has moved only twice in his life--from High 
     Holburn Street where he was born to the Cleary Street home 
     where he has lived, with occasional interruption, since he 
     was 12--is a product of Barre schools, though none of the 
     ones he attended are schools anymore.
       Rossi started out at Ward 5, a now-vacant neighborhood 
     school that the High Holburn Street gang, which included a 
     boatload of the Rossi clan, fondly referred to as ``Woodchuck 
     Knoll School.'' Following the death of his dad, his mother's 
     remarriage and the move to Cleary Street, Rossi attended the 
     old Brook Street School, which is now home to the Learning 
     Together Center, for both fifth- and sixth-grades. He spent 
     seventh grade at the old North Barre School, which has since 
     been converted to apartments, and eighth grade in the ground-
     floor of what used to be Spaulding High School, but is now 
     the Vermont History Center.
       Rossi graduated from the original Spaulding High School in 
     1931, and while he would eventually head off to Green 
     Mountain Junior College thanks to a football scholarship that 
     limited his tuition payment to $100 a semester, the Great 
     Depression delayed the start of his post-secondary education 
     for a few years.
       Rossi remembers the Depression, which hadn't yet ended when 
     he started taking classes in Poultney.
       ``I remember getting letters from my mother with 25 cents 
     taped to them,'' he recalled.
       A quarter went a long way back then, according to Rossi, 
     who remembers when cigarettes cost 10 cents a pack, you could 
     get a good ice cream bar for a nickel, and $20 was more than 
     enough to pay for a weekend in Montreal--food, lodging and 
     transportation included.
       Rossi also remembers getting drafted, though he prefers the 
     old-school term ``conscripted.'' He was ``27 and single'' at 
     the time, it was 1940 and he was a whole lot closer to going 
     to war than he realized at the time.
       Rossi remembers the day Pearl Harbor was bombed, and not 
     just because it was the very same day he arrived at Camp 
     Edwards on Cape Cod fresh from Fort Devens.
       ``That's when we knew we were going to war,'' he said.
       Rossi was right, though his overseas tour didn't start 
     until after a trip through officer training school and a 
     brief stint at Camp McCoy in Wisconsin.
       From there it was off to Northern Ireland, where in the 
     run-up to D-day and the invasion of Normandy in the summer of 
     1944,

[[Page 17697]]

     Rossi, a second lieutenant in the Army, remembers getting a 
     pass to go to London. That's where he spotted a street sign 
     that reminded him of home and tracking down his brother, an 
     Air Force pilot, to borrow a little spending money.
       ``The sign said: High Holburn Street,''' said Rossi, who 
     recalls finding his brother, Antonio, between air raids.
       According to Rossi, his brother's commander was Jimmy 
     Stewart.
       ``The actor,'' he said.
       Asked about Omaha Beach, Rossi said he didn't need to check 
     a history book to know it didn't go according to script.
       The date was delayed, his platoon was divided, and while 
     one of the landing crafts made it to shore, the propeller on 
     the one he was on was fouled by rope floating in the debris 
     just off the coast of France.
       Frogmen were summoned to ``un-jam'' the propeller of a 
     craft that sat ``becalmed'' for four hours.
       Rossi remembers eventually making it to shore, though it 
     wasn't until the next day that his platoon was reunited and 
     he learned that all of the officers in that first wave were 
     either killed or injured.
       ``I guess I was lucky,'' he said.
       Rather than dwell on the experience Rossi turned his 
     attention back to Barre, where he spent 39 years working in 
     the granite industry as a shipper, a boxer and an expediter.
       Rossi prefers to remember Barre.
       It's where he once played quarterback for the Spaulding 
     football team, sipped Seal's soda, ordered western sandwiches 
     at the New Moon Diner, and played pool in Merlo's pool room.
       It's also where he met his wife, Beverly Silver, a South 
     Barre schoolteacher with whom he happily spent more than 
     half-a-century before she died in 2004.
       ``We had a good life,'' said Rossi, who is still living 
     his.
       Technically Rossi will turn 100 on Friday, but, he said, he 
     recently celebrated the milestone at a lunch with family at 
     the Cornerstone Pub & Kitchen.
       It was the latest in a long line of Barre memories for a 
     man who wouldn't think of living anywhere else.
       ``Barre is home,'' he said.

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