02/02/2003

Manuel Silva Jr. was one of the first fatalities of the Blizzard of '78. He suffered a heart attack while his car was stalled in traffic at the corner of Brook and Wickenden Streets in Providence.

Silva, 60, had been on his way home from Monet Jewelry Co. on Chestnut Street, a 10-minute drive under normal conditions. Five hours later, his son, Kenneth C. Silva, and his partner, Gary, found him in his car. He was only five or six blocks from his house on East Transit Street.

"To give him hope, Gary gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while a robust woman who appeared out of nowhere hugged me tight, keeping me a short distance away so that I would not know that he was already dead," Ken wrote. "To this day, the identity of the woman remains a mystery to me, but on that fateful day, I was 'touched by an angel.' "

Meanwhile, Ken's mother, Dolores, was still missing. After the police arrived at his father's car, Ken went to his parents' house to wait for his mother and to call his brother, Douglas, and his sister, Janice Cirelli.

Dolores arrived home shortly thereafter. She had been stranded in downtown Providence when she ran into a friend and former bridesmaid, Hilda Brazil, who suggested they walk home together.

"While walking home, they came upon my father's car," Ken wrote. "When the policeman asked my mother if she was Mrs. Silva, she panicked and ran home through the snow without knowing that my father's body was in the car."

On Saturday, Feb. 11, Ken and his siblings walked their mother to the George Washington Bridge where a car from the Rebello Funeral Home picked them up and brought them to East Providence to make burial arrangements.

On Feb. 14, a funeral Mass was held at Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Church.