Across the Tracks: An Immigrant's. Journey

By Anthony DiNardo

Anthony DiNardo was born in Italy, immigrating to the US when he was five years old. Follow his journey as his experiences seed a new life and greater opportunities for him in his newly adopted country.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781937721206

Book preview

saying."

Part One

Beginnings

Chapter 1

IT WAS A VERY HOT SUMMER when I first started typing these memoirs, and the news in America was filled with reports of the worst electrical blackout in United States history. Millions of people in the Northeast, Midwest and neighboring Canada suffered from heat and total blackness for nearly two days. Stifling weather was also an ongoing problem for our armed forces in Iraq, struggling to eradicate the last vestiges of Saddam Hussein’s tyranny. But my thoughts were also with my second cousin, Isa; in Abruzzo, Italy; dealing with the hottest summer in recorded European history. Her emails told me she was seeking refuge with her young children, Alessia and Stefano, in the cooler mountain air of the Apennine village of Sant’Eufemia a Maiella. I was born in that village, at the center of the Maiella National Park, almost directly east of Rome. The Maiella, or Mother Mountain, as it is called by the people of the Abruzzo Region, is not a single mountain, but a massif—a huge, wild section of the 600-mile Apennine chain that runs the full length of the Italian Peninsula. The park covers 35,000 acres in three provinces: Chieti, Pescara and L’Aquila. It includes 60 peaks, 30 of which are over 6,000 feet in altitude. Its eastern slopes descend to the nearby Adriatic, while the western slopes devolve into a plain stretching almost one hundred miles to the Mediterranean coast. At an altitude of 2,700 feet, Sant’Eufemia is the highest village on the slope of the Maiella, near the juncture with a sister mountain, Morrone, to create the Passo San Leonardo.

The recorded history of my village goes back to ancient times: in 1064 it was the property of Count Berardo until he gave it to the Abbey of San Clemente a Casauria; in 1145 it passed to Bohemond, Count of Manoppello; in 1301 it went first to the Ughelli family, then on to Giacomo Arcucci, Count of Minervino. When he died, in 1389, the village passed to the D’Aquino family. Over the last thousand years it underwent several name changes: first Santa Femi, then as Sant Fumia. After the 1861 unification of Italy by Giuseppe Garibaldi, it was granted its present name by special decree of King Vittorio Emmanuel II in 1862.

I have always been in awe of the courage it must have taken for the first Sant’Eufemia pioneer, Francesco Di Giovine, to leave his village and journey for over twenty days to reach an America he knew little or nothing about. He was part of the exodus of eastern and southern Europeans who sought to work in America’s expanding steel mills, railroads and mines owned by such magnates as Andrew Carnegie. He and a few hardy villagers were the first to depart in the late 1870s, to be followed by others after World War I. It was during that war to end wars that many young and healthy village males were conscripted and ordered down the mountain to the city of Sulmona to board trains that took them off to military service. Those who came home from that war, after seeing the world that existed beyond their hamlet and reading letters from earlier pioneers about gold-paved streets in America, chose to strike out on their own. They broke the chain of family ties, a bond close to the heart of Italians, because there was no decent livelihood to be earned at home and, having had little schooling themselves, they felt obligated to provide their children with an education and thus a better chance in life.

World War II, during Italy’s alliance with Germany, brought difficult times to the village. It lies close to the 9,000-foot-high Mount Amaro where, on a clear day, there is an unobstructed view stretching from Pescara on the Adriatic coast across the entire Italian peninsula to Rome. In the fall of 1943, the village was occupied by German soldiers sent to establish an observation post atop Amaro. Every village male was examined, and all who were able to work were immediately conscripted and assigned to daily labor in the construction and maintenance of the post.

At the same time, American and British troops successfully invaded Sicily and began harassing the Germans as they fought their way northward up the Italian peninsula. For ten months, the occupation of the village was very restrictive, with troops constantly present, rationing, and nightly curfews. Many tales were handed down about the people’s suffering and military atrocities. One related the shooting of Nicola Mancini and the young woman who had sheltered him—and the dragging of their bodies through the streets. Some females were put to work in military hospitals in nearby towns. At the Amaro post, able-bodied men unloaded supply trucks filled with ammunition for the guns at the observation post. Some were sent to work on a German fortress at Monte Cassino. The times were such that, fearing drunken soldiers might force their way into homes with female inhabitants, villagers barred all doors and windows at night.

By June 1944, the American and British had progressed northward to the point where the German observation post was abandoned. At hurriedly called meetings, the townspeople were ordered to evacuate the town and move further north to continue working for German troops. The villagers took advantage of the turmoil and some fled up into the mountains to spend the last harsh winter of the war in old, long-abandoned farmhouses or natural caves in the massif.

Chapter 2

TODAY, SANT’EUFEMIA IS reached by turning off the Rome-Pescara Autostrada and driving up a paved, winding state road. In 1924, when I was born, it was a rough unpaved path chopped out of the Maiella’s convoluted slope, passing through a few hamlets until reaching the town of Caramanica. From there it rose less steeply for a few kilometers until finally leveling off at my village. While it was possible to continue beyond the village, the going was even more difficult. A dirt path meandered to the Passo San Leonardo, at the juncture of the Maiella and Mt. Morrone. There it descended a steep, zigzagging incline far down to the valley floor, finally winding through several kilometers of rolling countryside to the large city of Sulmona (birthplace of Ovid in 43 BC).

The Sant’Eufemia of my early days was a small village, set off by itself, with a renowned 644-year-old church and homes built along narrow, meandering pathways of hand-laid stones. It had no industries and no commercial jobs. People’s lives were concentrated on meeting basic needs. Home radios wouldn’t arrive for a decade (for those who could afford them). There were no phones, no oil or gas for cooking or heating homes, no plumbing systems, no doctors and no stores. I doubt if there was electricity (and undoubtedly there was no money to pay for it), because I remember only lanterns, waxy-smelling candles, and smoky fireplaces. Each household grew its own vegetables in odd-shaped garden plots handed down from generation to generation and marked off with stonewalls. Staples for eating; such as pasta, flour, coffee and olive oil; were bought on occasional trips to Caramanica’s few stores. Each family had its own assortment of cows, sheep, goats, pigs and chickens. There were no pets, unless they served some useful purpose such as catching mice.

Village men and boys did the heavier chores, using their backs or donkeys to gather firewood for daily cooking and heating. They walked their sheep to feed in high meadows and did the shearing, butchering, milking and cheese making. Fall was time for pressing grapes to make a barrel or two of wine and for canning and storing fruits and vegetables. Tomatoes and homemade sausages were preserved in sealed, oil-filled jars. A particular springtime delicacy was wine vinegar sprinkled on freshly picked dandelion salads. Meanwhile, each and every season, the women toiled at their never-ending tasks of cooking and house-and-child tending, somehow finding time to sew clothing and knit thick woolen sweaters to help fight off the chills of the long winters.

The stone church of San Bartolomeo Apostolo, with its distinctive campanile and famous fourteen-foot-high wood-and-silver tabernacle, is the central focus of the town. The church was built along one side of the town piazza, near a vertical stone slab that was the village’s fountain. A constant stream of fresh, cold water from rains and melting snows of the massif poured out of a pipe in the slab. In the summertime, after I had learned to walk, someone took me daily to fill jugs and pans, and would let me stick my face under the pipe to drink. On the corner across from the church stood my grandfather Fiorinto’s two-story house. It had a huge brick oven that took up most of the ground floor, where he baked bread for the entire village.

Chapter 3

MY MOTHER’S MAIDEN NAME, Pantalone, is a fairly common one in Italy and means pants in English. Other Italian family names have English meanings, such as DiGiovine (Young), DiVechio (Old) and Bevelaqua (Drinkwater). To my knowledge, DiNardo has no English translation. At one point, I thought it was associated only with our specific area of Italy, perhaps as an abbreviation of the last word of the Passo San Leonardo. But when computers came into being, I searched and found DiNardo listed in telephone White Pages of towns all over Italy. I did see one reference that suggested it may have been derived from Hapsburg tribe-invaders of Italy during the Middle Ages. The actual origin and possible meaning, if any, remain a mystery for me.

I never knew my grandfather on my father’s side, who died at the turn of the 20th century. He had four sons—Antonio, Lawrence, Alfonso, and my father Rocco, who was born in 1900. All four served in World War I and, after returning home, departed for America one after another. Antonio went to Watertown, Massachusetts, to take up work at the Hood Rubber Company plant. Lawrence, Alfonso and my father all located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and got jobs at the Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation’s by-products plant in Hazelwood. Other immigrants from our village settled in the communities of McKees Rocks, Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, and Joliet, Illinois.

Quota restrictions caused even wider geographic dispersion with members of my mother’s family. Grandfather Fiorinto and his wife Anna Giaconda had five children, all of whom married. One by one, over the latter part of the 1920s and 30s, all but one departed from their roots. Peter, the only son, immigrated to Watertown, Massachusetts. Two daughters went to far-flung places around the globe: Mariuccia to Australia, and Annina to Argentina. My mother, Maria Camille, the third daughter, came to America with me five years after my father had emigrated. The youngest daughter, Antonietta, remained in Sant’Eufemia and married Antonio Timperio, the postmaster of the village. Their two children, Berardino and Maria, and grandchildren Lucio and Isa, have established email contact with me, as have the children of Mariuccia and Annina.

My father departed for America in 1923, four months before I was born on January 20, 1924. I was told that my birth was a long one, handled in the traditional fashion of the times by the village midwife. My mother’s close-knit family took loving care of me. I was terribly spoiled by doting aunts and adoring grandparents who, painfully aware that we would leave them in a few years, devoted as much time as possible to my mother and me.

In my later years, particularly the half-century following World War II, I came to appreciate more and more the solid foundation of family gifted to me during those first years of my life. I was constantly attended to and have no memories of stressful situations or illnesses. I was indeed blessed with a very safe and satisfying childhood.

I bear the physical proof of one memory of my early years—that of my grandfather giving me a haircut and accidentally clipping a small chip out of the rim of my left ear. I remember that he hugged and kissed me until I stopped crying, and I carry that nick to this day.

Another memory I have is of being bundled up on Aunt Antonietta’s lap on the floor in front of the big stone fireplace that heated our house. I recall her using a long poker to stir the burning logs, and the billowing showers of sparks that whirled up the chimney. She would roast chestnuts and break off tiny bits to push between my lips. I loved the warm, succulent flavor and, to this day, whenever I smell chestnuts roasting, the image of that scene flashes into my mind.

Yet another image I’ve retained, as seen through my young eyes, is of the huge town piazza at the church. Years later, when I first went back for a visit, I was amazed at how small it actually was. I also remember that I slept with my mother during those early years. I recall vividly the game she played with me night after night before I fell asleep. She would slip a hand under the blanket and scratch her fingernails back and forth across the sheet to make a sound like scurrying mice. Even after I learned that the noise was nothing to be afraid of, I’d always cry out as if frightened, and she’d pull me tight, protecting me from all the world’s harm.

Since I was about four, I have also recalled an uncommon thing she did, always acting as if she were afraid that someone would catch her doing it. It only happened when a close relative or family member was suffering with a painful, enduring headache and came to ask her to rid her of the malocchio (evil eye) that someone may have given them. My mother would pull down all the window shades and put a shallow dish and small cup side by side on the kitchen table. She’d fill half the dish with water and pour olive oil into the cup. Then she’d recite some incantation over and over while rubbing her right hand around the top of the victim’s head. Finally, she’d lower the hand to dip her thumb into the cup, stroke the sign of the cross on the victim’s forehead, and suspend her thumb above the dish so that drops of the oil fell into the water. Both of them would stare intently at the oil droplets floating on the surface—looking for what, I never knew.

These recollections are what I remember of my life in Sant’Eufemia from 1924 to the summer of 1929. For those five years my father had been sending us money to pay for our journey to America. I still feel a sense of wonder and astonishment when I think about what that journey called for from my mother. Knowing she would never see her loving family again, she left the safe haven of her village, took her first train ride and ship passage on a two-thousand-mile trip to a totally foreign world. Surrounded by strangers, unable to understand or speak a word of English, and constantly protecting a small son every day and night, she somehow did it all. What else could have driven her but the faith that somehow, someway, she and her Rocco could make a better future for their family in America?

Chapter 4

IASSUME MY MOTHER AND I went down to Sulmona by donkey. I don’t remember my first train ride from Sulmona to Naples, and little about the passenger ship, Conte Biancamano (Count Whitehand) that took us across the Atlantic to New York. My mother later described it as being longer than our village church. It had many levels, and we, along with other immigrants, were lodged down several sets of stairs in a big room with no windows and narrow sleeping areas. She related that the voyage was not smooth and she was seasick most of the time. But I don’t remember feeling queasy.

Among the other immigrants were Italian-speaking women also on the way to join husbands in America, and that provided a welcome relief for my mom. The food was undoubtedly adequate to sustain life, but must not have been very tasty, because after a day or two we found our way up the stairs to a deck where we could buy small strips of grilled meat-on-a-stick. I grew to love that treat, which cost only one small coin. After a few days, my mother came to believe there was no danger for me, so she would give me a coin and let me go up alone to buy a stick.

I have no idea how long the voyage took, but records I requested from Washington, DC, say we landed in New York on July 15, 1929. Ellis Island had closed down about five years before and I have no recollection of where we first set foot in America, but I can well imagine how it must have been: a cavernous room teeming with hundreds of confused immigrants crowded along serpentine lines, clouds of dust from constantly shuffling shoes, and dozens of uniformed people with waving arms and pointing fingers, shouting in a foreign tongue. Amidst all of this, medical examiners checking everyone for contagious illnesses, and other officials squinting at soiled tags pinned to our clothing, attempting to decipher names and destinations. I have always considered it a stroke of luck that the name DiNardo didn’t pose a problem for customs officers. History records tales of some immigrants acquiring new family names in official records because of translation difficulties at the point of entry. I don’t know if it’s true, but one version of the derivation of the offensive term WOP contends that immigrants who had lost their passports were tagged with slips displaying the letters WOP (With Out Passport).

The never-ending flood of immigrants passing through New York must have imposed a constant, heavy burden on municipal facilities. By then thoroughly exhausted and confused, we could never have found our way to boarding the train bound for Pittsburgh. Even then our ordeal was not over. It was only our second train ride and we huddled close, clanking across New Jersey and most of Pennsylvania, dozing and awakening only during the many stops along the way. Finally, long after midnight, the train stopped again, and someone in a uniform came to point the way for us to get off. The train was a long one and our car was far from the station, so we had to walk on the cinder track alongside the rails. At one point I stumbled, and my mother had to carry me. She walked faster when we reached the end of the cinders and could see the station up ahead. Finally, silhouetted against the bright lights of the building, we saw a man running toward us, yelling over and over: Maria—Tonino! He rushed up to us, grabbed my mother, kissed her, then bent to snatch me up and hugged me tight against his chest. Groggy from the past hectic days, bewildered by this stranger who was crushing me, frightened at seeing my mom in tears—that was my introduction to my father, Rocco.

Part Two

America

Chapter 5

ALMOST NINETY YEARS AGO, I arrived in a Pittsburgh that was totally unlike the metropolis it is today. It was then commonly referred to as the Smoky City, where