Enzo Bartolucci, 88, merchant, town official

Enzo A. Bartolucci of 301 Danbury Road, a former school board member who had been a retailer in Ridgefield for nearly a half century, died on Friday, April 18, at Danbury Hospital. He was 88 years old and husband of Elsie Torcellini Bartolucci.
Mr. Bartolucci was a prominent Ridgefield businessman and citizen who had nearly died as a youth. One winter night in 1934, when he was only 18 years old, Mr. Bartolucci fell into the frigid waters of Lake Mamanasco. In what was the biggest story in that week’s Ridgefield Press, he was rescued by the heroic efforts of two teenage friends.
A native of Italy, Mr. Bartolucci was born in Castel Calona, Province of Ancona, on Dec. 4, 1914, a son of the late Alfredo and Cesira Chechini Bartolucci and stepson of the late Pietro Franceschini. He and his family came to the United States when he was a boy, settling in Ridgefield in 1921. He attended the Titicus Schoolhouse and graduated from Ridgefield High School in the Class of 1933.
A year later, on the night of Jan. 31, Mr. Bartolucci and a large group of young people were skating on Mamanasco when he fell through thin ice in an area that had recently been harvested for local iceboxes. His cries for help were heard by fellow teenagers Francis Rowland and Walter “Chuck” Walker, who skated to shore, found a boat, dragged it across the ice and put it in the water. “Rowland and Walker, by dint of hard struggling with the numbed form of the unfortunate skater, succeeded in pulling him into the boat,” The Press reported the next day. “A rope had been left attached to the end of the boat and the whole crowd of skaters pulled with a will and hauled the boat out onto the ice.”
Mr. Bartolucci, who could not swim and was being weighted down by his heavy clothing, had been in the icy water 15 minutes.
The same year he graduated from the high school, Mr. Bartolucci went into the grocery business, working at first as a butcher. It was the height of the Depression.
“In those difficult days, I got started in business by buying a calf from a farmer for $6,” he told historian Aldo Biagiotti, author of Impact: The Historical Account of the Italian Immigrants of Ridgefield, Connecticut. “After butchering the calf, I cut up the meat. In a day I sold all of the meat and took in $18. That $12 profit made me realize that this was a business to get into.”
A year later he bought an old truck and begin delivering fresh meats and groceries to homes, mostly members of the Italian community. By 1939, he had saved enough money to establish the Wayside Market on Danbury Road, opposite Grove Street. The market specialized in fine meats, fresh produce, and Italian cheeses.
“Throughout my life, I never borrowed a dime, either to get started in business or to purchase a car or a home,” Mr. Bartolucci told Mr. Biagiotti. “I was always able to save and pay for things. This has been my philosophy and way of life.”
In 1948, Mr. Bartolucci added a liquor store to his Danbury Road business. In 1967, he sold the market to Louis J. Fossi, who later became first selectman. He and his wife sold the liquor store in 1979 and retired.
During World War II, Mr. Bartolucci served in the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps and was a veteran of the African and Italian campaigns. At one point he was in charge of the main prison in Rome.
He returned from the war in 1946, and he and Elsie Torcellini were married in St. Mary’s Church on Feb. 28 of that year.
In the late 1950s, Mr. Bartolucci became interested in community government. He served on the town’s Street Lighting Committee, on the town’s first Charter Revision Committee and on the Citizens Advisory Committee on Secondary Schools.
In 1963, he ran for the Board of Education on the Republican ticket and won more votes — 1,592 — than any of the five other Republican and Democratic candidates for the board. He served on the school board for six years.
Mr. Bartolucci had belonged to the Counter Intelligence Alumni, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the American Field Service. He had also been a member of the Italian American Mutual Aid Society, serving as its secretary for more than 15 years and as a trustee. He was a former member of the Kiwanis Club and belonged to St. Mary’s Church.
“He enjoyed being a part of his grandchildren’s many activities and accomplishments as well as traveling and playing golf,” his family said.
Besides his wife of 57 years, Mr. Bartolucci is survived by a son and daughter-in-law, Alfred and Susan Walsh Bartolucci, and their children, Andrew and Matthew Bartolucci, all of Ridgefield, as well as several nieces and nephews.
A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated on Tuesday in St. Mary’s Church.
Burial was in St. Mary’s Cemetery.
Contributions in his memory to the American Heart Association, 5 Brookside Drive, Wallingford, CT 06492 or to the American Diabetes Association, 300 Research Parkway, Meriden, CT 06450 would be greatly appreciated.
The Kane Funeral Home was in charge of arrangements.