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COVER STORY

When One Door Closes. . .

Suzanne Loeb, DTM

The Eary Years

Once upon a time, long, long ago, this weird Italian
American girl was born in Omaha, Nebraska. Although
her name was Suzanna Mangano, people called her

Suzanne, and some called her Susan. She was known for
her odd ethnic lunches. Suzanne was unconcerned when
unpacking her lunchbox at Fitch Mountain Elementary
School, hearing “Ewwwww.” Her classmates always
made noises of disgust. She didn’t care. Who would

trade roasted pepper on homemade ciabatta bread for
peanut butter and Welch’s grape jelly on Wonder Bread?
However, every Friday, she said a silent prayer of penance

for eating meat and paid 25 cents for a hot dog and a
bag of potato chips. On those days, she sat just outside
the group of popular children and pretended she was
one of them.
You see, her family was from Carlentini, Sicily. In

the 1920s, her grandparents boarded a ship in Palermo.
Stepping off the boat, as instructed, they got on a train
headed to Omaha, Nebraska. There, they joined others

from their hometown and settled there. Giuseppe and
Sebastiano Salerno were Omaha’s first Sicilian pioneers
in the early 1900s. There are stories passed down that told
how brave they were, settling in a city with no reliable
source of olive oil. They did the best they could, recruited

1969

VOICES! | MARCH 2022 7