Bomb squad destroys family souvenir

Orland Park resident Florence Welch says her family has finally gotten rid of a souvenir her late father kept at the various residences he called home over the past 60 years.

The Cook County bomb squad blew it up.

The souvenir the late Carmen DiCarlo brought home from World War II was a land mine, and bomb squad members who inspected it on April 19 determined that it was live.

Welch says her father brought the land mine to his home in Texas after the war, and then moved it to subsequent homes in Chicago, Harvey, Chicago Ridge, and finally Tinley Park.

DiCarlo died about five years ago, and family members who were cleaning out the basement of his old home found it earlier this month.