Carl Schliman
Obituary Reports the death of an individual, providing an account of the person’s life including their achievements, any controversies in which they were involved, and reminiscences by people who knew them.
Carl John Schliman died on May 10 at Westchester Medical Center where he’d been a patient for four weeks.
He had put a lot of mileage on that 86-year-old body and had multiple medical challenges. The respirator was causing him a lot of discomfort and his wife, Carol, knew that Carl did not want to live like that, so on May 9 a Catholic priest administered Last Rites and the breathing tube was withdrawn.
Carl’s color improved, his breathing stabilized and his blood-oxygen level increased. On Tuesday, he looked more comfortable than he had in weeks and it would not have been a big surprise if he’d awoken on Wednesday morning looking for breakfast. But shortly before midnight he breathed his last.
Carl was born on Feb. 11, 1936, in the home of his parents, John and Constance (Iarriccio), in Yonkers, and was baptized at St. Mary’s Church, where he would later serve as an altar boy. He had a brother, Mathew, and twin sisters Kathy and Rose Ann, who preceded him in death. He attended Longfellow Junior High School, and after graduation enlisted in the U.S. Army, doing his bit to maintain the peace in Europe by serving as a military policeman in Germany.
After completing his military service, Carl returned to Yonkers and learned how to repair slate roofs, a job that demands not only a strong back but skilled hands. His parents celebrated his return with a welcome home party featuring traditional Assyrian music, dancing and food. His dad made sure that the twins invited one of their classmates, Carol Ann Manfredi. Carol was impressed with Carl’s maturity.
“He was a man, not a boy, maybe because of his time in the service,” she said.
She also noticed that he was a pretty good dancer. Carol appreciated dancing, often using the lunch break from her job in midtown Manhattan to sneak into a rehearsal for one of the Broadway productions. After meeting Carol, Carl had eyes for no other woman. They were married on Oct. 5, 1958, in St. Joseph’s Church and moved into a small apartment on Park Hill.
After Barbara and Michael were born, Carl left the roofing business to join the meat cutters union and work for A&P supermarkets. In those days, a butcher would put a whole side of beef on his shoulder, carry it into the freezer and spend the day breaking it down. Again, Carl relied on his strong back and skilled hands.
He and Carol kept the romance alive by going out dancing every other Saturday night at the Polish Community Center where they met Pete, who needed a bartender on the weekends. His first night at Pete’s place, Carl looked down the bar and told the patrons, “You guys, get outta here. Go home. Get cleaned up, shower, shave and come back with your wives.” Pete was a wreck with his bar empty, but it didn’t take long for Carl to fill the joint with couples dancing to the jukebox.
It was the same at A&P. Housewives would come in with their lists, stop at the meat counter to leave their order with Carl and pick everything up, neatly bagged, when the rest of the shopping was done. He was quick with a tip for preparation. He treated everyone like family and ran the busiest meat department in the region.
Carl and Carol had moved into a larger apartment once they had the kids and dreamed of having their own house. On a sunny Sunday afternoon in April 1970, the six-family house in which they lived caught fire and they returned home that day to find everything they owned ruined. The next day Carl went to work and Carol went looking. She found a small house on a large lot in a quiet cul-de-sac in Thornwood. After inspecting the house, Carol found Carl out in the backyard sitting under an apple tree. He looked up and said, “This is it.”
When they closed the deal in June, there wasn’t enough left over to go out for dinner, so “We went home, boiled some macaroni, buttered it and toasted ourselves with a glass of beer.” The fire had taken everything. For the first year the kids had to sleep on Red Cross cots. The kitchen was furnished piece by piece with garage sale purchases. It took almost a year to get the smoke out of the four bureaus which hadn’t burned. They just kept working together, building their future.
When not busy at work, Carl could be found on the golf course or out on Long Island Sound in a boat with his dear friend Paul, or sitting around the poker table on Friday night with a bunch of his buddies. He and Carol joined a small group locally to practice square dancing and round dancing. They began traveling a bit, to dance weekends in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and Oklahoma.
Carl’s personality and enthusiasm won lifelong friends wherever they went. “Hey! Here’s New York” was the common greeting. At the annual meeting of the Square and Round Dance Federation at Perdue University, Carl and Carol were asked to perform a demonstration for the entire assembly, a rare honor for an amateur couple. They danced the rumba to “And I Love You So.” Carol said that they were a little nervous at first but “I took his hand and it was just me, Carl and the music” in graceful harmony. An athlete would call it being “in the zone,” and they were. It was pretty much how they did everything – together in love.
Carl is survived by Carol; their son, Michael, who lives next door with his wife, Lisa, and their daughters, Katie and Bella; and their daughter Barbara, who resides in Yorktown with husband Walter and their children, Frankie and Maryann.
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