A SPECIAL REPORT
Joe Ruvido, a senior at Weymouth High School, agreed to allow The Patriot Ledger to follow him through his final year. This is his story, to be updated periodically throughout the school year.
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A SPECIAL REPORT |
Joe Ruvido, a senior at Weymouth High School, agreed to allow The Patriot Ledger to follow him through his final year. This is his story, to be updated periodically throughout the school year. |
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Feb. 22, 2006
He’ll miss Sundays By MARK FONTECCHIO WEYMOUTH Joe Ruvido will probably sign up for the 21-meal plan when he heads to college - that’s three squares a day, seven days a week. But none of them will be like Sunday dinner at his grandparents’ house. Most weekends, Joseph and Tina Ruvido invite their three daughters, five grandchildren and whoever else feels like having Italian food to their Braintree house for a home-cooked meal. It is a regular event that Joe’s been part of longer than he can remember, and it’s one he’ll miss out on once his college days begin. “I’m going to be back every once in a while,” he said Sunday while having dinner. “But I’m not going to be coming back every weekend.”
The meal is a way for the Ruvido family to eat, joke and spend time together. It’s something he doesn’t normally get during the week. He, his sister, Jessica, and his mother, Nancy, are usually busy with work, school, sports, and whatever else pops up. “We don’t usually eat dinner together at home, to be honest,” Ruvido said. Nancy Ruvido said she is starting to ready herself for her son’s departure from their Weymouth home. “The whole thing is weird, going through it,” she said. “He’s not around a lot now, so little by little I’m getting used to it.” Still, it will be an adjustment once Joe leaves, not only for mother and sister, but also for the grandparents who helped raise him. Nonny and Papa, as their grandchildren call them, often looked after Joe and Jessica when they were young. Nancy Ruvido and her ex-husband divorced when Joe was a toddler and Jessica a baby, and neither have much interaction with their father today.
They’re hardly unusual. Single-parent families are on the rise nationwide as well as in Massachusetts, according to U.S. Census data, and that often leaves mom the breadwinner. Since Joe and Jessica were young, their mother has worked full time as a stenographer, mostly transcribing depositions that she could edit and revise at night. When she wasn’t able to work from home, her parents would often take the kids. Her older sister, Vicky Dougherty of Pembroke, would take them on other occasions. Now the Ruvido children are older but still maintain that close relationship with their grandparents. The elder Joseph Ruvido, for whom Joe was named, was a father figure for both children, Nancy Ruvido said. The Sunday meal revolves around Nonny, who serves as the greeter, the cook, the server and, most of all, the encourager.
“Mangia, ” she tells everybody. “Eat.” This past Sunday, Joe picked out some salad to start, but proclaimed he wasn’t very hungry because he had downed five pancakes that morning at a friend’s house. Later on, the number jumped to seven pancakes, and then nine, as he grew fuller and Nonny brought out more food. There was pasta and tomato sauce, cooked fresh that morning with olive oil, garlic and basil. Tina Ruvido also rolls two kinds of meatballs, one with ground pork and one with beef. Grandson Dan Dougherty, their youngest daughter, Gina Ruvido, and a cousin of Tina Ruvido’s and her husband were also there for dinner this week. “When I’m not here, I say the restaurant is closed,” Tina Ruvido said. “Family is very important to me and it gives the kids something to think about.” Mark Fontecchio may be reached at mfontecchio@ledger.com. Eunice Kim may be reached at ekim@ledger.com.
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June 16, 2006: Saying goodbye 
