Seeing Domenic Cippolone at his comfortable Lake Highlands home, one would have no way of knowing the odyssey his life has been. “Most of the people here have not lived anyplace else except the United States,” says Cippolone, who was a child in Italy during World War II. “We don’t know what it is to live in another part of the world, when you have no food, nothing to drink, no shoes, no clothes. That’s what you call a bad way to live as a child, and that’s what I went through.”
When Cippolone was growing up, Nazi soldiers came to the town where he lived and forced all of its residents out of their homes and into caves.
“When we went back to Italy, I showed my kids the cave I lived in,” he says. “They couldn’t believe it.”
Not only did Cippolone and his family live in a cave, they also faced the cruelty of the Nazis.
“My father was blind, and I was holding his hand. I was trying to help him understand where the soldier wanted us to go. The soldier thought I was trying to get away from him, and he took the shotgun and was ready to shoot my father and me. That’s when my stepmother jumped onto the soldier and stopped him.”
Throughout the hard times, Cippolone says he was always comforted by thoughts of America. Since his father was born in the United States, Cippolone already was a United States citizen, and when he was 19 years old, he came to America.
“The best thing was for me when I finally decided to come to this country. Even though I had a little bit of a hard time because I didn’t speak English at all, it was the best thing that ever happened to me,” he says.
After arriving in the United States in 1958, Cippolone lived in Philadelphia for 10 years, where he worked as a tailor, until a job offer brought him to Lake Highlands.
“This friend of mine used to work for this company in Dallas,” he says. “He came back to Philadelphia and told me that his company needed somebody and asked if I wanted to come to Dallas. I came down for an interview, the boss liked me, and I decided to come down. I worked for this company for 27 years. We made uniforms for the Army, the Marines and the Air Force.”
After beginning life with such tumult, Cippolone’s life settled down in Lake Highlands.
“I never had any problems with anyone or anything here at all. All my neighbors are very good neighbors,” Cippolone says.
“We’re spoiled, all of us,” he says. “Even me. I got spoiled, too.”
