LAVINA & MICHAEL CALOMO • COLD WAR
Lavina “Nina” Calomo, 82
Gloucester, MA
Born: October 6, 1943
Born/Raised: Hollister, CA
Service: US Navy
Rank: Yeoman
Dates of Service: 1962-1963
Michael Calomo, 85
Gloucester, MA
Born: October 17, 1940
Born/Raised: Gloucester, MA
Service: US Navy
Rank: Petty Officer, 3rd Class
Dates of Service: 1962-1965
In 1962, the daughter of a California farmer and the son of a Gloucester fisherman met in the Navy and a 62-year marriage, four children, nine grandchildren and a dozen great-grandchildren was the result.
Lavina “Nina” Bisceglia was 18 when she met a WAVE, the United States Naval Reserve for women, at about the time she was graduating from Livingston H.S. in California’s Central Valley. “I was so impressed with her.” Nina investigated joining the Navy but her family was dead set against it. Eventually she convinced them that that was her course and they signed her papers in June 1962. Her flight to Bainbridge, Maryland for basic training was first ever flight on an airplane.
Following basic training, Nina and her friends went to Lancaster, PA, to celebrate the end of bootcamp. She met Michael who at the time was stationed at Bainbridge, MD, at the beginning of his naval enlistment working in security. Nina went back to Bainbridge for school in Naval secretarial and administrative work. The pair dated for about five months.
Michael then took Nina to meet his parents, Captain Joseph and Rose Calomo, in Gloucester, and on the train ride back to Washington, Michael proposed. They married the following June in 1963. Nina wanted to get married in their Navy uniforms, but Michael’s mother wouldn’t allow it. Nina was posted in Washington D.C. and Michael was in Bainbridge. Nina would take “vampire leave” which meant she would donate blood on Friday and get an extra day for her weekend visits to see Michael.
They continued to be posted in separate locations until Nina’s commanding officer, keen on keeping Nina, arranged to transfer Michael to the SeaBees so they could be together in Little Creek, Maryland. It wasn’t long before Nina became pregnant with the first of their four children, Rose Marie. The pregnancy signaled the end of her military career, though her C.O. wanted her to return as a civilian after the baby was born. Instead, they decided that Nina would return to Gloucester, which she did, this time pregnant with her second daughter, Sandra.
Michael remained in Washington DC and was for a time assigned to a training ship doing mock landings off Vieques, Puerto Rico. He was charged with deploying pontoon ramps from the ships to land vehicles ashore. The Navy did allow him leave to attend Sandra’s birth. At the end of his three-year enlistment, he returned home to Gloucester, Nina, and two baby daughters.
Two more children would join the Calomo family, Krista in 1967 and Joseph in 1972. Nina cared for the home and children while Michael went to fish with his father aboard the Ida & Joseph. He also got his pilot’s license and became an aerial fish spotter, something he did for about ten years. He would spot for fishing boats up and down the coast from Gloucester to New Jersey. He was also a longshoreman and lumper on the docks, a landscaper and eventually went to work for and retire from Walgreens in both Malden and Gloucester.
Nina returned to the working world when her youngest, Joseph, started school. She studied for and became a hairdresser for about eight years. A girlfriend knew about her office and secretarial skills from her Naval service and helped her get a job at Gloucester Bank & Trust. She worked her way up through the ranks and eventually became vice-president of mortgages. She transferred to BankGloucester and retired fifteen years ago. Of her military experience, “I loved what I did. I loved the guys I worked with. I loved Washington DC. I would have stayed.”
Michael’s brother Sam Calomo served in Vietnam as a combat medic from 1968-1969.