This past Saturday at San Remo I had the opportunity to renew the acquaintance of Mr. Rafaele (Ralph) Golzio, just turned 100 on October 20. He is a native-born Patersonian, raised on Beech St, Ralph attended school with Lou Costello and both were baptized at St. Anthony’s Church where my brother Dave and Ann Marie were married in 1990.
Mr. Golzio—Ralph, as he prefers to be called—graduated from Stevens Institute in Hoboken in 1932, and worked all his life as an engineer. He remains active in alumni affairs, particularly the “Old Guard” group which is composed of those who graduated in the 1950s or earlier. He even claims to have a surviving classmate from the Class of 1930 with whom he meets annually at “Old Guard” events.
His family traces its roots to the Piedmont section of Italy, but his most influential relative was an uncle-through-marriage who was of Neapolitan origin, and who was an accountant to bankers. He was briefly an associate of Bank of America founder, A P. Giannini. It was this uncle who encouraged and persuaded Ralph to for higher education and to go into engineering.
After graduation he worked at Wright Aeronautics until the end of World War II. Later Ralph founded Engineering Associates in 1947, qnd retired in 1987 at the age of 78!
Ralph actively pursued outdoor sports like skiing, snow-shoe hiking and mountain-climbing. 
Presently he is plagued by bad knees, but gets around just fine employing a cane.
He has recently lectured at the Passaic County Historical Society on his personal recollections of the violent labor strikes that took place in Paterson in the first quarter of the 20th Century.
During outings to San Remo he is always accompanied by his admiring son-in-law, Tony. His current interests, besides his close family relationships, are mainly Astrophysics and Cosmology of which he does a lot of reading. He admits he is astonished by modern electronic technology including miniaturization of computers and communications devices.
Congratulations on turning 100, Ralph!
That’s me (right) having the honor to wish Ralph “Cent’ Anni !
You can read more about this amazing personality at this link, but wade through the advertisement first!
DrJohnAmbrose's Blog 
April 4, 2010 at 4:47 pm |
Just finished reading yourt blog. It was fantastic. Animated Halloween, witty captions, fantastic pictures everything just perfect. To think this was done by (to quote the old Jewish ladies) a doctor doctor, not a doctor dentist, not a doctor in college but a doctor doctor. Is there anything you can’t do? You never forgot your roots and that is a tribute to yiou.
Uncle Tommy