60 PLUS AND STILL GROWING It has never mattered much to Louis J. Castiglione Sr. that the people of Gloversville and thereabouts have never pronounced his name correctly. Life has been good for a long time and still is. He is 85, but that dosen't get in his way either. He goes to work every day, still repairs watches and makes jewelry in the store he founded more that 60 years ago. In his idle hours, this senior citizen who in recent years restored a backhoe, a 1963 dumptruck, and a 1971 Chevy pickup to showroom condition, uses that equipment to landscape his 50 acre spread on Phelps Street. Building a 100 foot sidewalk slab didn't faze him. Work has kept him alive, he says. "In Gloversville they think were Castle-line, so I guess we are, now," he says with obvious amusement at the change pronunciation of his name. Outside the community he uses the the traditional pronunciation of his Italian forebears. He, his wife, and partner, Anita and his son, Louis Jr., are out of the community a lot, traveling the world buying gems not long separated from the miners' hands. Hard work has made good things come from inauspicious beginnings. Castiglione founded the store in 1929, the year the Great Depression began. At 23, fresh from two years of schooling and apprenticeship as a watchmaker in Italy, Castiglione set out with $75 to open a watch and clock repair business. After paying the first months rent, he had $25, his tools and workbench. He was living with his parents, Italian immigrants from Naples who had moved to Gloversville from New York City when he was 2. His father was a glove cutter and Gloversville was the glove capital of the world. At the beginning he had no inventory - but he had a plan to get some. About once a week to raise the cash stock he repaired watches all day, all night and all the next day before sleeping. Pretty soon he bought dishes, clocks - "clumsy things" that made it look like his shelves were stocked. Eventually they were. In 1938 he met Anita, a cosmetics buyer for Macy's, who was visiting a friend in Johnstown. A dance in Amsterdam and subsequent visits to New York City led to marriage later the same year. After 53 years of marriage he still enjoys the rise he gets out of Anita when he tells the story of their courtship, which he said was so short that he had a hard time remembering her name during their honeymoon. He calls the marriage the best thing that ever happened to him, giving him a partner at home and at the store. Louis Jr., a certified gemologist-appraiser, gave the business hope for generations to come when he gave up a career in oceanography. "If he hadn't come here," Anita Castiglione says of her son, who is now the company president, "we would have sold it." The jewelry business has taken a quantum leap since 1929. "In the old days," Louis Sr. says, "if a stone was red it was a ruby." There were no synthetic and imitation stones, and all the watches were mechanical, with many of them even made in the United States. Castiglione says he'll continue coming to work every day. "I'm going to die with my boots on, I guess," he says chuckling. If he can postpone that day long enough, he may make room for a third generation. There are three grandchildren including Matthew Castiglione, 7, who has informed the family that he plans a split career - as a jeweler and as a priest. The Gazette Monday November 16, 1991

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