Reno Carletti

SALEM - Graveside services will be held Saturday at 12:15 p.m. at Poland Riverside Cemetery for Reno "Roy" Carletti, who passed away June 27, 2014, at the Essex House in Salem.

Reno was born Oct. 13, 1920, in Hillsville, Pa., a son of the late Ariodante and Angela Carletti. He was preceded in death by three siblings, Al, Jessie and Dominic. His sister, Annie Carletti Merlino, is 102 and resides in Bessemer, Pa.

Reno leaves his two children, a son, Randall A. Carletti and his wife, Shirley, of Columbiana; his grandchildren, Randi N. Carletti and Ryan A. (Michelle) Carletti; a daughter, Royanne McClearn and her husband, Lonnie, of New Springfield; his grandchildren, Lindsay (Eric) Moser, Megan (Richard) Leone, and David (Crystal) McClearn; and eight great-grandchildren.

His wife of over 70 years, Vera Madrid Carletti, whom he married Aug. 15, 1942, in Butler County, Pa., preceded him in death on April 4, 2013. Prior to that, Reno traveled to Florida and Detroit (car plants), the steel mill in Warren, and to Bessemer, Pa. to drive for M&M Trucking, owned by Vera's father and grandfather. Reno joined the U.S. Army in November 1942 through December 1945. Vera joined the U.S. Navy in 1944 till January 1946. Reno served in the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign and was awarded a medal with four bronze srars for the service. He landed in Normandy within two days of invasion and hauled supplies to the front. He returned home after the war to start a family and build a home (kit). He dug the cellar by hand, with the help of his dad, brother-in-law, Carlo Marangoni, and neighbor, Bill Yardas. Reno slept on an Army cot in the kitchen with the heat from the gas cooking stove from 1946 to 1947. Reno worked and drove truck for his mother-in-law, Dorothy C. Madrid, from after World War II until 1975, and then joined his son at East-West/Trans Spec until he retired around 1986. He stayed active helping out in Columbiana into his early eighties. Reno loved to drive around Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio for East-West calling on truckers. So many still asked about him to the very end and said to tell him hi and they were praying for him (his son told him). He loved to drive and he traveled all over the country for sales meetings for the company, but his favorite was to go to Florida, as he did as a young man, as we did as family in the 1950s in Hollywood, Fla., as he and his son did in 1966, as he did in the 1990s with his grandsons, Ryan and David, and then, many winters with his wife, Vera, to the Ft. Myers area. Reno always loved a good cup of coffee and a fresh donut in the a.m. and he would come out two or three times a week for a full-sized Whopper up until March 2014, to which he drove himself. "How many people in these United States of America who have, not one, but two parents from the greatest generation, per T. Brokaw, that served in the Army/Navy, and helped save the world from tyranny!"

Professional arrangements are being handled by the Higgins-Reardon Funeral Homes, Poland Chapel.

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