#William Alfonso Crocetti

[jerrylewis-thekid]

Was Dean Martin's brother perhaps more reserved than he? I only found a photo of them two as adults and three / four photos of their children, then nothing more. Ricci Martin never mentions his "real" uncle in his book (but he always likes to mention "Uncle Mack") and doesn't even write that his father had a brother. Deana mentions her uncle as "Uncle Bill". I only found this little news about him ... Born to Gaetano, Alfonso Crocetti and Angela Crocetti, the older Crocetti brother was born on June 21, 1916 in hard working town Steubenville, Ohio. His younger and more famous brother Dino Paul was born nearly a year later on June 7, 1917. William Crocetti, Bill to his friends and colleagues, was an engineer at North American Rockewell. He worked on the engines for the Saturn rockets, the very ones that powered men to the moon. During the War he was in the Air Force as well. According to Bill's daughter Adri: "My father and his colleagues were Cold Warriors, to a man. They understood the need to be first, and they did everything they could to ensure the primacy of the United States. When I was ten, my dad told me we are going to have men on the moon by the time you are twenty. I didn't believe him, but seven years later in 1969, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon."

Despite Bill's success in the space industry, his had some family tragedy when his mother died on Christmas Day 1966 at the age of 69. His father would die as well the following year on August 29, 1967 at the age of 72. On October 20, 1968 Bill died in St. John's Hospital of a brain tumor. He was only 52 and he left behind a widow and four children. Josephine would die at the young age of 52 on March 13, 1976... They had a fifth child, William Nicholas Crocetti, who died just seven days after birth (4 Mar 1954 - 11 Mar 1954). All three rest in the same cemetery: Holy Cross Cemetery - California. @mydogjudy