The fetid hallways teemed with people. A stench indescribable and unforgettable—born of the vilest bodily functions—hung in the air, burning nostrils and refusing to fade. The door to the Sacco family’s apartment was shut tight, doing its best to keep out the smell. Unyielding, it sealed the apartment’s five occupants in a humid kitchen. They sat around a too-small table. One of the table legs was shorter than the others. 

At the head of the table sat Nicola Sacco. His eyes were weary; His straight, black hair smoothed back against his skull. To his left sat his wife, Rosina. Her equally weary eyes sternly watched their young son, Dante, as he talked with his mouth full. Rosina’s hand rubbed slowly across her pregnant stomach.

While Dante babbled about his school day, his aunt, Eleanora, chuckled into her dinner plate. She remembered when she and Nicola sputtered nonsensically at the dinner table as children, only pausing their tales to bicker with one another. 

The family finished their meal, tidying up the kitchen before settling down for the evening. Rosina tucked Dante into bed. Nicola rubbed his tired eyes. Eleanora stretched her aching back. The never-ceasing static noise of Boston, Massachusetts lulled them to sleep.

In the morning, they were awake before the sun and departing for their separate vocations. Dante was a student, Nicola a shoemaker, and Eleanora and Rosina spent their days hunched over sewing machines. Day in and day out, the family worked.

April fifteenth, 1920 was a Thursday. It was a day in which two men were killed. A paymaster and his guard carrying a payroll worth more than $15,000 were murdered; the money was stolen.

May fifth, 1920 was a Wednesday. Nearly three weeks after that particular, forlorn Thursday, two men were arrested. Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, charged with the murder of a paymaster and his guard and the robbery of a payroll.

Arrested and under lock and key, Nicola was separated from his family. Rosina, Eleanora, and Dante were alone. Sitting around the table was torturous for the family. The head of the table was empty, a clean plate sitting before it. It waited to be dined upon as its brethren was clothed in pasta and vegetables, cleared and put away; It felt purposeless and empty.

Nicola Sacco would never do such a thing. He was not a murderer, nor a thief. This was a man who worked hard to provide for his family. A man that strived to be a good example for his son . . . But this was also a man who professed his beliefs. A man who handed out anarchist literature. 

The Sacco-Vanzetti trial was lengthy. The kind of lengthy that defied time and consideration, inching by in a taunting, snail’s pace. Evidence was piled upon the case, complementing and complicating arguments.

There were eleven eyewitnesses that placed Nicola and Bartolomeo at the time and place of the murders. Seven against Nicola, and four against Bartolomeo. No witnesses were confident in their attestments. 

A recovered bullet was confirmed to have been fired from Nicola’s pistol. Bartolomeo had a gun similar if not identical to one the paymaster owned. Upon his arrest, Bartolomeo was vague on where he purchased the gun, and for how much. He later claimed he purchased the gun from a friend, and his friend corroborated the account.

At the time of their arrest, Nicola and Bartolomeo were at a repair shop observing the car presumably used during the murder and robbery. The repair shop owner’s wife called the police, and Nicola and Bartolomeo fled after feeling suspicious of the wife’s behavior. 

As the trial grew in length and emphasis, Rosina and Eleanora shared the same pain; their hearts begged to cry out like wounded animals, lacerations raw and pulsating. Nicola’s chair sat empty evening after evening. His plate was set out at the table each night, tucked away after the meal, and brought out again when it was needed. 

“He could be home any time,” Eleanora assured Dante, seeking to soothe his fretting over the empty seat. “How would you feel if we didn’t set a place for you at the table?” Dante nodded, solemnly; he wouldn’t like being left out at all. 

As the months linked together, Rosina stomach began to swell larger and larger in size. She then gave birth to a baby girl, Ines Sacco.

Weeks stretched into months stretched into years and years and years. Waiting and waiting and waiting . . . and waiting. A defense committee was formed: the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee. They organized protests and demonstrations, demanding justice. Demanding Sacco and Vanzetti’s release. Eleanora was at the front of every rally and demonstration, her voice calling out the loudest.

The final judgement day came after seven years of toil and worry. Nicola took the stand, shoulders back and chin high as he gave his final defense. His final remark about the sentence he and Bartolomeo faced. “After seven years prosecuting they still consider us guilty,” he admonished.“I am never guilty, never--not yesterday, nor today, nor forever.”¹

To Eleanora’s, Rosina’s, Dante’s, the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense committee’s . . . to millions’ dismay, Nicola and Bartolomeo were charged with the death penalty.

August twenty-second, 1927 was a Monday. Millions partook in a demonstration, chanting and demanding that Nicola and Bartolomeo be freed. Eleanora chanted, sang, screamed until her voice became hoarse and a word as mere as ‘free’ came out in a whispered croak.

August twenty-third, 1927 was a Tuesday. It was a day in which two men were killed.

Fifty years passed. Eleanora sat on a rocking chair, swaying forward and back, forward and back, forward and back. A newspaper was open on her lap. Her grandnephew, Spencer, sat in a chair beside her, humming. His wife joined them on the porch, slowing lowering herself onto a bench. She rubbed her pregnant stomach absentmindedly.

“We want to name her Eleanora,” Spencer asserted, disrupting his softly hummed tune.

Eleanora flipped the page of her newspaper. “I’d be honored,” she condoned, adjusting the reading glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. She fought to keep her face expressionless as she divulged in an article entitled Sacco‐Vanzetti Case Is Evoking Passions 50 Years After Deaths.² 

‘And so it goes on,’ she thought to herself. ‘So it goes on.’