July 5, 1923 – March 16, 2020
Nick L. D’Aloise, a retired postal worker and a veteran of the D-Day Invasion, died Monday in Schoellkopf Health Care Facility, Niagara Falls. He was 96.
An Army infantryman, he was part of the third wave to land on Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944. Though he did not talk much about his harrowing experiences, he expressed them in several poems.
One of them, untitled, reads in part:
We have dug a million ditches and cleared off acres of ground,
We have drunk beer and whiskey in every honky-tonk town,
But there is one consolation, gather ‘round me while I tell,
When we die, we’ll go to heaven, for we’ve done our stretch in hell.
Discharged from the Army in 1946, he went on to serve in the Naval Reserve until 1953.
Mr. D’Aloise began working for the U.S. Postal Service in 1946 and was a mail handler on the night shift in the Main Street Post Office in Niagara Falls.
He retired in 1987.
By day, he made deliveries for Delaney and Thorne Pharmacy and was a bus driver for Niagara Falls Coach Lines and the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority.
Born in Niagara Falls, the youngest of seven children, including a twin sister, he attended St. Joseph’s Elementary School and Niagara Falls High School.
He and the former Theresa Cornacchia, who worked at Ambassador Leather Goods and became a cook at St. Joseph’s School, were married in 1948.
A Niagara Falls resident until moving to Lewiston in 1996, he was a lifelong parishioner at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Niagara Falls, where he was a member of the Holy Name Society and assisted with Catholic Charities.
He was a member of the Cristoforo Colombo Society and the LaSalle Sportsmen’s Club, and was a 12-gallon American Red Cross blood donor.
He was an avid bowler and card player and enjoyed outdoor sports.
In addition to his wife, survivors include two daughters, Sheila DiFrancesco and Shelley D’Aloise; a son, Joel, a retired Army lieutenant colonel; two grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.
Services with military honors in St. Joseph’s Cemetery, Niagara Falls, will be private.
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