This is a story of a son of Southern Italian immigrants from La Basilicata, Provincia di Potenza, Villaggio di Genzano e Muro Lucano. Born on 8 May 1910 in humble circumstances in a tenement in what was then Harlem's Little Italy and delivered into this world by the customary “Levatrice” or midwife, this young fellow was the third child of Giuseppe and Filomena Lepore whose family would increase to eight children, one of whom died in infancy. From this modest beginning, somehow there emerged a leader in American medicine, a teacher, an Oslerian clinician and diagnostician, a gastroenterologist, personal physician to many interesting and some famous persons - including a former President of the United States - and a pioneer in teaching medicine through the new medium of television.

We spoke Italian at home. I went to school to become an American and not to tell my teachers what should be taught. I attended New York City public schools and received an excellent education. The only books I read were those in use in school. There were no books at home and it would be several years before I learned to use the neighborhood libraries. My mother, who had a good education for her day, subscribed to and read Il Progresso, the Italian newspaper published by Generoso Pope. My father could barely sign his name and was essentially illiterate. Despite this, he became a successful small businessman who provided well for his family.

My original stimulus for writing this memoir came simply from my desire to leave for my immediate family a written record of an interesting life, illustrating how fortunate I was to be born in America and able to take advantage of the marvelous opportunities it opened to me. I have been blessed to have lived and practiced medicine and been a healer of the sick in what most of us believe has been the Golden Era of Clinical Medicine. My teachers and role models were almost all pupils of Sir William Osler, the greatest physician of modern times. To them I owe a tremendous debt that I can never repay.

To my immediate family I express my gratitude for their important contributions to my career, both economic and spiritual. To my beloved late wife, Ardean, I pay a special tribute for all she did for me epitomized in the book chapter “My One and Only Wife.”