At 95, he is his son's full-time caregiver, hero, best friend, chef

HINGHAM − At age 95, using recipes he learned from his Italian mother, Carmine "Charlie" Mazzulli started preparing this year's Thanksgiving dinner a week ago.

The Korean War veteran and Army cook knows the drill. First came the pickled beets. Over the weekend, the rapini, or broccoli rabe, and Italian vinegar peppers. Then his mother's celery salad – a Thanksgiving and Christmas special – with anchovies, garlic and pitted black olives.

In the past, Charlie made Thanksgiving dinner for 35 people. Now, the family is spread out, and Thursday, it will just be dinner for four, with cousin Don Cirone and his wife, Maew, from Rockland. The Cirones will bring the spiral ham.

"I can remember the celery salad going way back to when I was a kid," Charlie's son, Bob Mazzulli, 53, said.

For Bob, each day is a time of thanksgiving and his Pop is at the top.

"Just a little background − I fell and broke my neck back in 2012 and have a spinal cord injury as a result," Bob wrote in an email.

"My Pop is my primary caregiver and does everything, including taking me to all doctor's appointments. And I have a lot of appointments.

"He helps me with everything. He still drives, does all the grocery shopping and cooks our meals daily. He does all the laundry and he takes care of my medications as well.

"He can lift himself above any tiredness. My mom passed away in 2020 of dementia and my dad had refused to put her in a nursing home. Instead he insisted on taking care of both of us, which was no easy task. He truly is my hero.

"He’s one of a kind in my book and I’m sure others besides my family would be amazed how active he still is at a young 95 years old."

I stopped by to meet Charlie and Bob in the ranch house they share on Route 228 near Route 3A. There is a ramp out front and a wide driveway with extra room to turn around. The house, built in 1969, was designed by Charlie's younger brother Frank, 86, an architect in Quincy. It is part of a family compound with five homes on lots once owned by Charlie's late wife's father.

When I rang the bell, Charlie opened the door, gave me a kiss on each cheek, Italian style, and we went into the kitchen where Bob, in a wheelchair, was waiting with a folder full of old photos.

Charlie sat down for the interview and it wasn't long before he told me his secret: "Keep on moving. I never want to stop." He's up by 7 a.m. and on duty until he turns in at about 9:30 p.m.

Carmine "Charlie" Joseph Mazzulli was born at home in South Boston on Oct. 25, 1928, to Luigi and Mary Mazzulli. Charlie's father came to this country at age 18 from San Fili in Italy in 1914; his grandfather Carmine Mazzulli came over in 1898 from a small town near Naples.

Charlie's family of six lived at East 3rd and Emmet streets in a cold-water flat on the third floor. The neighborhood was largely second-generation Italian, and his grandfather had a variety store on the first floor. Charlie helped prepare the lemonade slush in the summer by chopping up ice for a 5-gallon can.

His younger sister Louise, 88, describes a handsome boy with blond curls, popular, an average student who always did his best. Their father, Luigi, a labor foreman in Boston, sometimes took Charlie to work at the construction sites with him. When Charlie was 13, Luigi got sick, could no longer work and Charlie worked summers as a water boy at the construction site.

"I learned how to be responsible and to this day I'm the same," Charlie said. "I never changed."

When Charlie was 15, his father died. He wanted to leave school to help support his mother, two sisters and Frank. His mother wouldn't hear of it. He worked after school and weekends as a busboy/food preparer at Sharaf's Restaurant at North Station. In 1946, he graduated from Boston Technical High School and worked for the Colonial Tanning Co. and an antique furniture company until he was drafted into the Army in 1951.

How about getting homemade tomato sauce in Korea?

The Army sent him for training at the First Army Food Service School at Fort Devens and he became an Army cook. He served a year in Korea, where he received regular packages from home with all the ingredients for a good Italian pasta meal – jars of his mother's homemade tomato sauce, salami, provolone, pasta.

"He was a great cook," Louise said from Florida. "Mom sent him a potato peeler. His good work ethic started quite young."

When Charlie returned home in March 1953, he found a job as a civil engineer with the state Department of Public Works. Construction of the interstate highway system was just starting. He worked there for 39 years, building highways and bridges along Route 128 and from Worcester to Braintree to Cape Cod. He retired in 1993.

"When I was younger, we would get phone calls from friends and family who were lost on the road," Bob said. "They would pull over in a gas station and call my dad in a panic because they were lost. Pop would ask them for a landmark and then, to everyone’s amazement, tell them how to get to their destination. He was MapQuest years before there was such a service."

Charlie was 24 when his godfather tipped him off to a three-family house for sale on Thelma Road in Dorchester. He used his $500 mustering-out pay from the Army as a down payment and brought his family with him. His mother lived there until she died in 1992.

Young and single, he liked going to resorts in the Catskills and Western Massachusetts. In 1958, he met Nancy Tarzia, of Hingham, at the Eastover family resort in Lenox and they were married in October 1960 at St. Paul's Church in Hingham. They had two sons; their oldest, Chuck, died at age 40 in 2007.

Nancy's father, Frank Tarzia Sr., was an accomplished stonemason who built the Portiuncula Chapel at Cardinal Cushing Centers in Hanover.

Charlie has never missed cooking Bob's Sunday pasta dinner

On a typical day, Charlie gets up by 7, has breakfast, then helps Bob get up and have his coffee. During the day, he may go food shopping, do the laundry, prepare meals for the week or sort 14 different medications into pill boxes. He also is trained to help Bob use a special lymphedema compression pump twice a day for an hour each time to help reduce swelling in his legs.

He helps Bob with his shower and makes sure his beard and hair are well-groomed. He drives him to medical appointments weekly. He is Bob's best friend and the source of many entertaining stories.

"We work very well together," Bob said. "He makes sure I don't lose my balance when I move and does everything so I can get up and do what I need to do."

Bob has struggled with scoliosis, a curvature of the spine, since he was in his late teens. In 2012, he was going out to get the mail when he lost his balance, fell and broke his neck. He was at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital for three months. Charlie came to see him every day and brought him a home-cooked Italian pasta dinner every Sunday.

"I learned how to do that as a child, watching my mother cook for my father when he was at the Lakeville State Sanitorium for two years," Charlie said.

In that one second in 2012, Bob's life changed drastically.

"If I didn't have a sense of humor, I never could have gone through what I did," Bob said. "I've come a long way, but I still need a lot of help."

When Charlie was asked how he handles so much responsibility every day at age 95, he replied, "This is what I do. It's normal."

Longevity appears to run in the family. Charlie's aunt, Connie Pistorino, lived to 103 and her sister Rose Severi made it to 107.

During the day, he'll sit down for 25 minutes to watch the news on TV and pop back up. He's had COVID twice but was not very sick. Last winter, however, the flu landed him in the hospital.

Louise has always adored her older brother, who took care her after their father died.

"Charlie has been a friend and a godfather to oh so many," she said. "He was always there with a helping hand. And food, and more food."

Their older sister Teresa Mazzulli died at age 92 in 2018. A quilter, she did extensive research on Italian culture and was a Doric Docent tour guide at the State House.

Thanksgiving morning, Charlie will be finishing the stuffed mushrooms, preparing the asparagus for roasting in the oven and making fried cabbage. Dessert will be apple and pumpkin pies.

He has no plans to get out of the kitchen.

"Once you stop, you're done," he said.

Reach Sue Scheible at sscheible@patriotledger.com.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Charlie Mazzulli, 95, of Hingham, takes care of disabled son