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Appendix E Interview of Castagneto Family MR. JACOBY: My name is Robert Jacoby, representing Tetra Tech EC, and I’m speaking today with Anne Castagneto at her home, along with her daughters, Carla Cain and Esther Bolger in San Diego, California on December 15, 2007. This interview is part of a program sponsored by the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the New Rochelle Public Library, to collect oral histories about the experiences and memories of people who were associated with the former US Army Post, Fort Slocum, located on Davids Island in New Rochelle, New York. Well, I want to thank all of you for inviting me here and participating in the oral history. I’d like to begin with you, Mrs. Castagneto, please tell me, what is your association, and your family’s association with Fort Slocum? ANNE CASTAGNETO: When we went there my husband was Post Commander and Commandant of the Information School. It was a lovely place to be. The conveniences of the commissary and the PX, exciting and enjoyable, going across on a ferry to go to school. The children went to school over there. Esther worked on the island, and then later worked off the island. The club was very nice. All of the associations we had, we could remember it and enjoy. So, it was a wonderful three years for me. MR. JACOBY: Okay. What years were they? ANNE CASTAGNETO: 1961 to ‘64, in August ‘64. My husband retired from 32 years in the Army there. MR. JACOBY: Can you describe what your house looked like? ANNE CASTAGNETO: Oh, it was a three story with a full basement, with rooms in the basement. The first story, you enter a storm door entrance in the front, and long hallway with a little powder room to the right, and the stairway was two landings, stairway going up to the second floor on the right. Then on the left was the 19-by-22 living room, 19-by-12 library behind that. Past that, 19-by-12 dining room. Beyond that, 19-12 breakfast room, with a lot of cabinets, counters. Then onto the right of that was the kitchen, about 17-by-17 room, then a back door with a storm door there, and the stairs going down to a small patio with a picnic table and chairs and benches, big trees. The backyard was absolutely beautiful. Lots of old trees. Upstairs, from that lovely staircase was a hallway. Then we had two bedrooms toward the front, one of them we used as a family TV room. Also in the front was a porch, an enclosed porch, sunroom. Then down the hall to the left was the room for our youngest child, next to that was the room for our son, beyond that was a bathroom. To the right of that was a guestroom. Then you go up a winding stairway to the third floor, 22-by-19 bedroom in the front. Another bedroom that another used that was about 15-by-15, then there was a bathroom, old-fashioned bathroom with a tub on legs and a chain water closet up on the wall. Then to the right of that, you could enter from the hall, was a room that had been a bedroom, I’m sure in years past, but had also been used as a kitchen for the servants when the different officers who were there could have servants. So you had to be careful coming down those winding stairs, and then it went to the first floor, and then it wound around again to go, with a platform, to go down into the basement. So, it was a place to explore because they had all kinds of storage rooms off the bedrooms, off the basement rooms. I didn’t explore very much. MR. JACOBY: Compared to other posts that you were at with your husband, how was Davids Island and Fort Slocum different? ANNE CASTAGNETO: Well, because it was very old. In Atlanta it was old, but we were living in new quarters. And of course, in Japan, same type of thing, it was newer quarters over there. In New Jersey we had to rent a house ourselves. CARLA CAIN: It was also because it was an island. ANNE CASTAGNETO: Yes. CARLA: We never lived on an island. And that was different. ANNE CASTAGNETO: In his position, of course, we lived on the island. But it was completely different from any other place we had been. And we loved the fact that all the buildings were so old and enjoyed. And there was a lady who lived in Tappan, New York, up the river on the west side, who had been there as a child. So when she came over to visit with her husband, she had never been in the Commander’s home, so she wanted to see the whole house. And it’s an interesting place. MR. JACOBY: Can you tell me what your husband’s duties involved? 1 1 of 24 Appendix E Interview of Castagneto Family ANNE CASTAGNETO: Well, as commander of the school, was to have the programs for information, because there was just not the Army Information School, it became Armed Forces Information. And they had 20 or 30 officers that would come sometimes from Cambodia, or just in the States, the American Army, was to help those men know how to give information, it was public information, plus troop information. So they had the classes where these men learned in their duties, in the Army, how to present information to the public and to the troops. Then he was Post Commander. So that he enjoyed because he could go around and see everybody, the yards were beautiful. The parade ground was kept nicely, and all the buildings. That was a real pleasure for him. And his staff for the school was separate of course, it was staffed for the Post. But he loved it. MR. JACOBY: Was it more than an 8 to 5 job for him? ANNE CASTAGNETO: No. Unless, we had one time, in the winter, when some icy sludge got into the ferry and it was unable to come to land. So I’ll let one of you tell you that. CARLA: Yeah, it was a time when the winter -- it was -- I mean, salt water just doesn’t freeze, but this one winter it did. We couldn’t get off the island to go to school. It wasn’t safe, and the ferry engine just got jammed with all this ice and started floating down the sound. So then he does get a call in the middle of the night, and I don’t even remember if it was a weekend or a weekday, but he’d get a call and they had to do something. And they sent the Coast Guard after it, and some of the water jimmied the boat and the ferry went up and damaged the Coast Guard cutter. And then they finally got it docked somewhere down there. And then it just -- I don’t remember if it was towed back or had to wait, and then they fixed the engine and it was able to come back. So, most of the time Dad would get called away maybe on a weekend or a night, only if there was some type of emergency that related to weather. Otherwise it was a Monday through Friday job. ESTHER: And it was great because that hadn’t happened before. A lot of his other duties he wasn’t the commander. So being at the beck and call of a commander, you sometimes are carrying on things that the commander -- so, now he was in the position to be home every night. It was important to him. Family was very important to him. The Army was his life in one half of it, and the other half was us. And I don’t think he divided it. But you could tell, he had been in the Army a lot longer than he had known any of us. MR. JACOBY: When he was home he was in civilian outfits? CARLA: Oh, gosh, yeah. ESTHER: Absolutely. My dad was never a military man at home. CARLA: No, and even on the weekends too. I mean, there was just -- he came up through the ranks. He enlisted as a private, he hit every rank from private to full colonel, he even branched off to warrant officer, came back in, hit all the ranks all the way up, and he never forgot what it was like to be enlisted. And so at -- he expected and maintained the rules of military life when it was work hours. After work hours, we could be at the bowling alley, and it wasn’t only the officers could use it at certain time, it was anybody with bowling, whether it was the officers, the enlisted, their kids, it didn’t matter, this was social. ESTHER: And people felt comfortable around him doing that. They were just like oh, you know, hi, Colonel, how you doing? It wasn’t like oh, gosh we have to be on our best behavior. CARLA: Because the Colonel’s here. ESTHER: Yeah. CARLA: Right. ESTHER: Because the post was small enough that we were probably the first time because the Army headquarters in Atlanta was huge. You’re just lost. Pentagon was huge. You’re lost. Now here we are in this little 88-acre island, or whatever it was, just -- everybody knew everybody.