Another Little Piece Of Old Key West Passes

 

By Emil Imbro

 

Another icon of old Key West and a part of the rapidly disappearing “Greatest Generation” passed away on February 12th at Lower Keys Medical Center. Michelangelo and his old mustard yellow colored van were a fixture at Higgs Beach. This eloquent yet stubborn old man graced our island with his wit and iconic messages posted on his van for over 40 years.

 

 

One evening about 7 years ago, as we sat talking in his van, he pulled out a newspaper cartoon from the makeshift desk in his van of a GI sitting in his foxhole in winter and he said to me, “This is how I spent Christmas in 1944.” And he proceeded to tell me his life story.

 

 

Born in Brooklyn in 1921, the family moved to Philadelphia when he was 6. In 1942, at the age of 21 he went to war leaving behind a wife and young child. He became a combat medic and served with the 12th Armored Division.

 

 

The “Hellcats” as the division was known landed at Le Havre, France in November, 1944. They moved south and east across France into Germany and then Austria. In January of 1945 the battle at Herrlisheim, France became known as “Bloody Herrlisheim.” The 12th, outnumbered by well entrenched German forces, repeatedly thwarted the Germans attempt to break out and move south toward Strasbourg. The Germans dubbed them the “Suicide Division.”

 

 

Near the end of April 1945, the 12th began liberating Nazi death camps including Hurlag, Landsberg and Dachau. Michelangelo told me from memory what he saw as one of the first to enter. “The emaciated prisoners could say nothing. They cried as we opened the gates.” The 12th was credited with freeing more than 20,000 non-military prisoners and capturing over 72,000 Germans.

 

 

Sgt. Michelangelo Peluso, was discharged and returned to Philadelphia in December, 1945. He first went to work in construction where his job was spackling and painting walls. After trying his hand at plumbing and heating, he

landed a job as a Manufacturing Engineer with Boeing Helicopter where he worked until he retired. He was married 42 years and raised a son and daughter.

 

 

In 1972, he came to Key West in a VW van and stayed for a month on Higgs Beach and fell in love with the island. He recalled being able to park and spend the night out on White Street pier as long as you were fishing. “When a cop would come out you would jump back to your fishing pole”, he said laughingly.

 

 

He returned each year until 2008, when heart valve replacement surgery weakened him and he could no longer return north in summers.

 

 

He became a fixture on Higgs Beach and in the community participating in all the holidays and parades. He would decorate his van in the Italian colors for Pasta in the Park around Columbus Day and in red, white and blue for Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and of course Veterans Day. But beyond that, his wit and humor graced our island and he always had a message posted on his van for all to see. Most recently he displayed the message, “At Least I Know I Am Free.”

 

 

This eloquent old man with the neatly trimmed white beard is gone. But to all of us who knew him he has left us with two great lessons: Follow your dreams and find your own happiness. Rest in peace, my friend. It has been an honor to know you. Thank you for your service and for all the lives you touched.

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