Welcome home: How one woman made her Swift’s Beach house a home for all

Whether serving up fresh Italian food to hungry patrons, or opening her Swift’s Beach home to anyone in need, Vera Caproiccio has spent a century lending a helping hand.

At 103-years-old, Caproiccio is one of Wareham’s oldest residents and while her Swift’s Beach house may not be as busy as it once was, many that walked through its door were made at home. 

“My friend had a baby and she married the father but she left him when she was 18 so she and the baby moved into my bedroom,” Vera’s daughter Judy Caproiccio said. “She went to school with me and wanted to stay with the family.”

According to Judy, Vera is a first generation Italian-American born in Boston’s North End and raised in Belmont and Watertown. There she met her husband Attlio, who passed away in 2012 while working in his ice cream and sandwich shop called Cappy’s Dairy Barn.

The two would go on to own Union Market Station in Watertown where patrons waited in lines out the door for Vera’s Italian food, especially her meatballs, which have been a family favorite for generations.

“She’d have them cooling off and we’d come in and steal them,” Judy said. “She knew we were stealing them, but she just kept making them.”

Vera had three kids with her husband and now has 10 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. The family spent every summer and weekends in the fall and spring in a cottage on Swift’s Beach where Vera moved permanently in 2019.

“There was a group of us and we were all friends and we had such a good time,” Vera’s son Jim said. “We couldn’t wait to come down.”

Judy said the family began visiting Wareham in the 1950s and quickly ingrained themselves into the community when Vera became a founding member of the Swift’s Beach Improvement Association.

“My mother even came to Swift’s Beach as a child and she got involved with the community house,” Judy said. “Now everyone joins the Swift’s Beach Improvement Association.”

The family officially bought the house in 1959 and since then, it has always been the place where the Caporiccio family and friends would gather.

“[Vera] would invite our friends down for the weekend so there’d be about 20 or 30 kids here,” Jim said. “They slept all over the floors and all over the backyard and she would cook six or seven chickens to feed everybody.”

Judy added Vera did not just open her house for friends to visit on the weekends, she offered her house as a place for people to stay during tough times.

One example Judy remembered was when Vera let two kids live with them for over a year because their father was sick and their mother had died.

“She got them out of boarding school and she’d go up there if they didn’t feel well and they didn’t live that close,” Judy said.

Jim added he had a friend who referred to Vera as his second mom.

“He went to school in Norwich, Vermont and she’d drive the parents up there all the time because they couldn’t,” he said.

Vera’s dedication to helping those around has been passed down to her kids who, like their mother, open their homes to people in need.

“I have friends who have stayed with me plenty of times when they need,” Judy said. “All our kids’ friends call us mom or dad.”

Jim joked he has “about five other sons and three other daughters.”

Over time, less events were held at Vera’s house and Jim and Judy took over as hosts, with Fourth of July celebrations lasting two to five days with tents big enough to cover entire backyards.

Continuing her mother’s tradition of welcoming everyone, Judy made sure all her kids had ample space for hosting.

“All my kids got a big dining room table when they got married,” Judy said.

Today, biweekly pizza nights are held at Vera’s house, which Jim said helps her stay young.

“She was always young at heart and still is,” he said.