Edward Malatesta was born on Nov. 8, 1924, the youngest of five children and the only son of Alessandro and Gulia (Ragnetti) Malatesta. His parents immigrated to the United States from Senigallia, Italy, as a young married couple, first to Philadelphia and then to the Taylor Street Little Italy in Chicago. The family settled on the Northwest Side after Malatesta was born.

He has fond memories of Sunday family dinners. “My dad usually went down in the basement and made homemade macaroni, and that’s what we had,” Malatesta says. He also loved his mother’s meat- and spinach-filled ravioli. “I used to help my mother when she made raviolis,” he says. “I remember using a fork and closing them up.”