Alexander “Alex” Cuza was a first generation Romanian-American. During World War II, he served with the United States Navy as a radio operator on a ship stationed in the Pacific Ocean. After the end of hostilities, he married Shirley and they set up housekeeping in Warren, Ohio, the county seat of Trumbull County.
Located near the Pennsylvania state line, just fourteen miles north west of Youngstown, Warren was situated in the area that has now come to be known as the Rust Belt. In its heyday, it was a highly productive center for manufacturing and industry, with a strong emphasis on steel. When Alex and Shirley started their family, the population of the city was just under 50,000. In a dozen years, the city’s population grew by more than 20 percent—with the Cuzas contributing four new citizens to that number.
Alex continued on with the Navy for a few more years, experiencing another wartime assignment in the Korean conflict. While in the service, his first two sons were born: Daniel on May 18, 1947, and Gary on October 16, 1948.
Money was tight for the young family eking out an existence on a serviceman’s salary. They lived in project housing in a run-down neighborhood.
When Alex left the Navy, he worked for the Mullins Cabinet Company for fifteen years. Their third son, Rick, was born on June 4, 1953. Then on June 5, 1958, they had a daughter, Cynthia. Alex and Shirley were thrilled to have a girl, at last. All three boys were given middle names starting with an “A,” in honor of their father. Little Cynthia “Cindy” Cuza inherited her mother’s middle name, Marie.
The Cuzas’ economic situation improved, allowing them to move to a nicer neighborhood in 1962. It was a close-knit, family-oriented community, packed with kids on every block. Then, Alex lost his job at Mullins. He worked maintenance jobs to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads until he was employed by Thomas Steel.
With a family of six, the budget was still tight. When Daniel graduated from high school, he went right to work at Packard Electric, where younger brother Rick joined him five years later. Gary finished high school in the top ten of his class. He received scholarship money, but it wasn’t enough. His parents could not afford to contribute to his schooling, and Gary had to work full-time while attending classes. After a year, it was just too much. He dropped out and joined the Navy, where he became a medical corpsman.
Thomas Steel was absorbed into a European conglomerate and the plant closed. Alex was out of work again. He soon secured another factory job at a welding company and life got a little more comfortable for the Cuza clan.
Being the first girl after a string of boys gave Cindy exalted status in the family. She often took advantage of her position, causing her brothers to nickname her “The Princess.” She steamed whenever her parents said “No.” It wasn’t unusual for one of her older brothers to say, “Look, you’re the girl and the last child, but the world does not revolve around you.”
As the youngest, Cindy benefited the most from the gradual improvement in the family’s finances. Her parents gave her a car when she graduated from high school, and paid for her education at Trumbull Memorial Hospital, where she earned her degree as a registered nurse.
While still a student, doing on-the-floor rotations at the hospital, Cindy tended to a young woman named Kathy Anthony. Her brother George came in for a visit—and he and Cindy hit it off right away.
George and Cindy married and set up a home in neighboring Niles, Ohio. George was in law enforcement—first with the Niles Police Department, then as a deputy in the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office.
Initially, Cindy did not work. Her choice to stay at home created tension between her and her brother Gary. He’d had to drop out of college because his parents couldn’t provide monetary support. Now his baby sister, with her education paid in full by Alex and Shirley, wasn’t even using her R.N. degree.
George and Cindy’s first child, Lee, was born on November 19, 1982. Less than four years later, he got a baby sister when Casey arrived on March 19, 1986. Cindy continued the tradition established by her mother, christening her daughter with the middle name Marie.
Cindy thought George should be earning more. She talked to Chuck Eddy, husband of George’s sister Kathy. He told her how well he was doing working at his dad’s automobile business in Austintown. Cindy thought that was an excellent idea for George. His father, after all, had owned Anthony’s Auto Sales in Niles for decades.
George was reluctant to leave the sheriff’s department after putting in ten years there. But Cindy kept the pressure on him until he agreed. He turned in his resignation and went to work for his dad. At first, it looked like a brilliant idea. Cindy used some of the extra income to fix up their home—she even installed new tile by herself.
Cindy, however, didn’t factor in the less-than-satisfactory relationship between father and son. George’s father had gotten him out of a lot of scrapes when he was a younger man, and still held that against him. Complicating things further, both men were known for their hair-trigger tempers. Fights began erupting on a regular basis. Usually they were wars of words, but one day, after George had been working there for about three years, things got out of hand. The elder Anthony shoved his son, and George shoved back—a little too hard. His father went through a large plate-glass window and into the front parking lot.
His father was cut up a bit, but not seriously injured. Their relationship, however, was permanently wounded. “You shouldn’t be working here,” he told his son.
Cindy worked part-time, bridging the gap until George bought a used car lot with the help of a second mortgage. Cindy continued working half days, thinking all was well with her husband’s business until the day George dropped the bombshell. His business was done. He’d made some bad investments, and as a result, he was losing the lot—and the house went with it. There was no choice but to declare bankruptcy.
“Why didn’t you tell me we were in trouble? I could have gotten a full-time job,” Cindy shrieked. She loved her house and had put a lot of work into making it a nice home. Now, it was gone.