NEWARK
There was no trace of thunder in
his voice or malice in his rebukes, but somehow Caesar Casale
led a school here for decades, transforming it into something like a family.
It was his own
family that led him to the school to begin with. After his wife died during
childbirth in 1963, he began teaching at the
He was a
father figure to generations of students, first to the Italian-Americans and
Portuguese-Americans of midcentury Newark, and then,
after the 1967 riots, to the black and Hispanic children in the North Ward. As the city was remade,
the changes meant little to Mr. Casale, his friends
said: Children were just children, he believed.
He became the
vice principal and then the principal at
Mr. Casale died this week at 88. A trickle of older
Italian-Americans walked past the open coffin on Friday in Totowa, then past
the pictures of him as a young man when he was in the Army infantry with
a head of thick, black hair, wearing fatigues. His funeral Mass was said in the
North Ward, in a church where he had served as the head usher.
After the
funeral, over a lunch of baked ziti and chicken Milanese, his colleagues said
that Mr. Casale, who always wore a suit and a
sweater vest and for years smoked a pipe, had created something unique at
the school, which is now considered among
Instead, they
recalled his smaller graces.
He could
speak to a 5-year-old or a 95-year-old and make them feel comfortable, said Jetta Cioci, who started her teaching
career at the school with Mr. Casales daughter
Angela in her class. Hed walk into the
kindergarten class and blow the kids a kiss. Theyd catch it. Then hed
teach the eighth graders history.
He raised his two
daughters with the help of relatives who shared his three-family house (Mr. Casales son was raised by other relatives). His
nephew, Anthony Orsini, who lived on the first floor
of the house, said his uncle talked daily about the rewards of education. He
talked about his beloved Yankees, too.
Mr. Casale never remarried, and sent heart-shaped boxes of
chocolates to all the female teachers and staff at school on Valentines
Day. He liked to go to the races. For a time, he drove a big Cadillac.
By the mid-1990s,
It was
painful for him" he said. "He never had an unsatisfactory rating, and
test scores were good. They may have felt his time had passed."
Dianne Salandra, 49, who was taught by Mr. Casale
as a child, and who returned to teach at the school years later, said that when
Mr. Casale was transferred, it happened so quietly
"that no one knew that he had left".
He went on to
tutor students who were considering teaching careers, working into his 80s.
Eight years ago, Mr. Orsini became principal at First
Avenue Elementary.
Early on Tuesday,
the news of Mr. Casales death reached teachers
at the school, now in a new building a couple of blocks away. He had suffered
from heart problems, and had recently received a diagnosis of cancer, his
daughter Angela Gualano said.
Later on Friday
afternoon, his friends and colleagues sat in Mr. Orsinis
office and recalled the way Mr. Casale would duck
into classrooms, ask the teachers if they minded, then join in the teaching; or
the way he would discipline students, delivering a sober lecture that would
make students wish he had screamed at them instead.
And the way he
marched his students around the North Ward at Halloween, on a winding route
through his working-class neighborhood.
He made sure
everyone knew these were the