In 1973’s Nana Upstairs & Nana Downstairs, recognized for its gentle depiction of death and grief, he talks about visiting his grandmother and great grandmother every weekend – they lived in Wallingford, where his mother’s family, The Downeys, had a grocery store. He always came back to credit Meriden for his roots.“Ī number of dePaola’s most famous books depict scenes from his life in the Meriden-Wallingford area. It was a city, but it was like a small town atmosphere,” said his youngest sister Judie Bobbi, who lives in East Hampton. “We had a great childhood growing up in Meriden. But the sprightly, magnetic man often returned to Meriden for book signings and receptions over his more than 50-year publishing career, and he continued to draw upon his rich childhood memories of Meriden and nearby Wallingford for a number of his works. He left the area after college, and after a stint at a monastery and studies in California, settled in a renovated farmhouse in New Hampshire. As it says in his senior yearbook – of which dePaola was the art editor – he was known as “Good-natured and versatile,” and involved in everything from student government, props and paints to the French Club.
Joe was a well-known barber and later liquor salesman in the city and Flossie a homemaker and family storyteller.ĭePaola attended city elementary and middle schools, and graduated from Meriden High School in 1952, winning the school’s Maloney Scholarship that helped fund his art education at Pratt Institute in New York. He was the second of the Italian-Irish pairing of Joe and Florence or “Flossie” dePaola’s eventual four children. Strega Nona, along with a newer dePaola book, “Jack,” will rotate throughout the city’s parks during the summer.ĭePaola’s own story began in 1934 at the Meriden Hospital.
In addition to events at the library and city hall, the Kiwanis has placed a Strega Nona “StoryWalk” - a series of large-format panels of the full children’s book in English and Spanish - for those walking through the Meriden Green park in the city’s center. His group has joined the city’s mayor’s office, historical society, city council and public library in Tomie dePaola-related events this month. “We were really raised to have pride in knowing he was from the same place that we are,” said Meriden Kiwanis president Brian Cofrancesco. The stamp officially launched last week at the Currier Art Museum in Manchester, New Hampshire, but its release provides an opportunity here in Connecticut for his hometown of Meriden to once again honor one of its very favorite sons.
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