The Ganson Street Tigers Go to War: A Western New York Community's Commitment to Winning World War II

By Fr T. Adcock and Cynthia Nassiff Adcock

During the dark days of World War II, forty-one individuals from Ganson Street in the industrialized Western New York city of North Tonawanda left all that was dear to battle the domination of the Axis forces. The Ganson Street Tigers bonded on the streets of an immigrant neighborhood during the Great Depression and their camaraderie was cemented forever on the ball diamonds and sandlots of their youth. This is their story, from the heart of "Little Italy" to the raging battlefields of Europe and the Pacific. The contributions these men and women made toward ultimate victory will leave the reader in wonder of a generation that refused defeat. Step back in time and relive an era that is quickly fading from the American psyche. It was a time when the fate of the United States rested in the hands of its heroic youth. Come experience the lives of the Ganson Street Tigers as they selflessly endure the harrowing exploits of war to help preserve the freedoms of this nation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 8, 2018
• ISBN: 9781641380775

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The Ganson Street Tigers Go to War

Frederick T. Adcock and Cynthia Nassiff Adcock

Copyright © 2018 Frederick T. Adcock and Cynthia Nassiff Adcock

All rights reserved

First Edition

Page Publishing, Inc

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc 2018

ISBN 978-1-64138-076-8 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64138-077-5 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Dedication

This book is dedicated to The Fighting DePaolo brothers - Dom, Frankie, Pat, and Sammy, the Ganson Street Tigers, and the Veterans of the Tonawandas who bravely served our country in World War II.

Acknowledgments

It took the Allied nations six years to win World War II and it has taken nearly the same amount of time to research, organize, and write this manuscript. This book is a tribute to the thousands of men and women from the Tonawandas who served in the US Armed Forces during the war and to those who battled on the home front laboring in factories to mass-produce the sinews of victory. The efforts of those who sold war bonds and stamps, volunteered their time to the Red Cross, and served in civil defense programs must also be remembered. It took the total commitment of the American citizenry to defeat the Axis nations and liberate Western Europe and the Pacific Rim from years of suppression and slavery.

The individuals mentioned in these pages sacrificed their youth, psyches, health, and in some cases their lives to defend their country and freedom. The first hand accounts of seven veterans from Ganson Street provide the reader with an insight to the Great Depression and the war years that many now consider to be ancient history. Our heartfelt thanks go to John Cerra, Dominic J. DePaolo, Patrick J. DePaolo, Frank P. Malone, James Pilozzi, Frank Turone, and Ted Turone. All of these men provided extensive interviews, information, and personal photographs to the authors regarding their service. It was most rewarding to sit with these living histories and hear their stories and insights regarding one of the most defining periods of world history.

We are also indebted to the following individuals who furnished interviews regarding their youth and life on the home front during the war years: Violet Phillips Case, Victoria Barbaritano Cerra, Lorraine Nassiff DePaolo, Robert Diedrich, Joyce Freck Lillis, Helen Carlo Malone, Bob McDonald, Nelson Nassiff, Artha Nassiff, Bill Walp, and Nancy Walp.

Our appreciation also goes out to the family members of the Ganson Street Tigers who provided service records, photographs, scrapbooks, memoirs, and answered numerous questions regarding their father’s service: Joseph Bartolomei Jr., John Cerra Jr., Lauren Cerra, Patrick M. DePaolo, Paul Diedrich, Barbara Cerra Fontana, Ron and Bonnie Guido, Linda Carere Hankinson, Beverly Carere Loxterman, Sylvia Stefanucci Rinelli, Michele Stefanucci, and Gina Turone. Special thanks to Bonnie Smith Rinow for information and photographs regarding her father, Corporal Walter E. Smith, and his heroic service in the 82nd Airborne Division.

The authors were greatly assisted with their research by the following individuals: Andrew J. Adcock, John E. Adcock, Kathryn Schechtman-Aikey, Dale Baronich, Beverly Bartolomei, April Carere, Daniel Cudzilo, Peter Gatas, Chuck Guarino, Dave Guido, Carl Kalota, Joel Marrs, Betty McAninch, Kevin A. Phillips, Curators Dale Cartee and Bill Lenches-12th Armored Division Memorial Museum, and Wilbur Hoffman of the USS Hughes Association. Many thanks also goes to the staff of the North Tonawanda Library for their kind assistance, and to Ned Schimminger, Skip Johnson, and the late Richard Dutton of the Historical Society of the Tonawandas.

We are also indebted to our parents, the late Janice V. Adcock, Nelson Nassiff, and Artha Nassiff for their support and assistance during the preparation of this manuscript.

Foreword

My wife and I undertook the writing of this book after a conversation with her Uncle Dominic at a Christmas Eve gathering in 2008. For years we had enjoyed hearing Dom’s stories of basic training in Mississippi and his deployment to Europe where he rolled with General Patton’s Third Army across France and Germany. Looking intently at the aging warrior, we realized this man was a piece of living history who had participated in the greatest conflict the world has ever known.

An evil was unleashed upon the Earth approximately seventy-five years before, and the only hope for victory over the dark forces rested in the hands of this man and millions of his fellow countrymen. The United States, with its industrial might, massive agricultural output, and vast human resources, turned certain defeat into a resounding victory. In 1,365 days, America and its allies crushed the ruthless oppression of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

The United States mobilized sixteen million men and women during World War II, and nearly every segment of American life was transformed by the urgent need to defeat the country’s enemies. Research the average family history in the United States and you will likely find a link to the Second World War. In this book, forty-one individuals from Ganson Street, a small roadway nestled in the confines of the industrial city of North Tonawanda, New York, serve as a representation of their age. The particulars of their lives provide a social history of the era and assist in understanding the extraordinary events of the war. The actions of a few select contemporaries as well as descriptions of daily life are also recorded to provide the reader with a more detailed flavor of the times.

These men and women left everything that was dear and entered the deadly struggle for freedom. During the course of the war, the Allied nations suffered the staggering toll of 180 million casualties in the supreme effort to vanquish their foes. One soldier from Ganson Street, a son, husband, brother, and friend, would sacrifice all on a foreign soil. His death would leave a struggling family and widow with an inconsolable sadness and a void in the lives of those who knew him. His name, appearing on public memorials and Internet sites, means little to the casual onlooker, but behind the fourteen stark letters of his identity on the city’s war memorial is a life unfulfilled. A life, which had the potential to touch many and alter untold lives for years to come.

Others from the street endured the horrors of combat and returned home to suffer physical discomfort and mental anguish for the rest of their lives. A night of restful sleep, without horrific nightmares or the strain of searching darkened bedrooms for phantom enemies, was an uncommon occurrence for these men exposed to terror of battle. The veterans of World War II forfeited years of their lives in the crusade to crush the evils of fascism. The innocence of youth was lost on the battlefield and psyches were forever altered by violence and death. Despite the mental and physical anguish, they continued the fight against their enemies until victory was won.

President Ronald Reagan stated in his speech commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the D-Day landings, There is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. Between 1940 and 1945, the United States assembled mass armies and fleets for the purpose of self-defense and liberation. The enormous efforts of these men and women ensured freedom for countless numbers of Americans, Europeans, Africans, and Asians in the postwar world.

Historian A.J.P. Taylor wrote, "Future generations may dismiss the Second World War ‘as just another war’. Those who experienced it know that it was a war justified in its aims and successful in accomplishing these. Despite all the killing and destruction that accompanied it, the Second World War was a good war. The idea of a good war" is an alien concept for individuals who remember the political fiasco of Vietnam, but seventy-five years ago the country united in an all-out effort to defeat the Axis powers. America’s youth were allowed to defeat the enemy on the field of battle and those who died in the process did not die in vain. Ultimate victory was obtained on the battlefield and at the peace table.

The veterans interviewed for this book consented with Taylor’s assessment. All acknowledged a pride in their service and a willingness to battle the nation’s enemies once again if necessary. For most, it was the single most defining event of their lives and a time when they felt at their best, mentally and physically. Their narratives contained in these pages give a unique picture of life during the Depression years, military service during the war, and the terror of combat. Without a doubt their contributions represent the last voices of a fading age.

After the horror of battle had subsided, this generation responded to the call for assistance from the nations of the world. Both Allied and Axis countries would implore the United States for billions of dollars in aid to help rebuild their shattered economies and infrastructures. These same countries would also need the youth of America to stand guard and protect feeble governments from the degradations of communism.

In the following decades, the drive and work ethic of this generation produced economic growth unparalleled in human history culminating in the greatest scientific and technological feat of the ages, the landing of American astronauts on the Moon in 1969.

One of the tragedies of modern society obsessed with the self-centered lifestyles of entertainment and athletic celebrities as heroes, is the continuing struggle to memorialize significant achievement of true heroism of the men and women who have endured the horrific hardships and frenzied terror of combat in defense of the United States and the fight for freedom of oppressed peoples across the globe. Our national psyche has forgotten the crown of laurels belongs on the weary and bloodied brow of individuals who have risked all and sacrificed much to serve in the battles for freedom and human dignity.

Today, most Americans cannot comprehend the actions of individuals who volunteer to endure the misery of the battle in America’s war on terror. During World War II, millions volunteered their services and millions more went willingly when called upon by their country. In 1942, a seventeen-year-old boy, the son of Italian immigrants residing on Ganson Street, begged the president of the United States, through correspondence, to serve in the nation’s armed forces. The boy would fight in the battle for Normandy, parade in victory through the streets of Paris, endure the horrors of combat in the Hürtgen Forest, face death in the battle for the Ardennes, and survive the terror and repulsion of captivity in a Nazi slave labor camp. He, along with forty friends and neighbors, carried out many selfless acts of bravery for their flag and country. Some would survive beach assaults, jungle battles, and the insanity of aerial kamikaze attacks. Others endured weeks of harrowing combat against fanatical enemies and the psychological shock of liberating Hitler’s death camps. Still others were ordered to maintain essential logistical operations or keep the weapons of war in readiness to deliver death and destruction to the nation’s enemies. President Ronald Reagan later called them and their fellow comrades in arms, The champions who helped free a continent and the heroes who ended the war. The boys of Ganson Street and many of their contemporaries from the Tonawandas served their country during its greatest crisis and helped to achieve total victory over the forces of evil and tyranny. This is the story of their sacrifice and shared victory during World War II.

"There are no great men,

just great challenges

which ordinary men, out of necessity,

are forced by circumstances to meet."

Admiral William F. Halsey Jr.

United States Navy

If Ye Forget

Let me forget-Let me forget,

I am weary of remembrance,

And my brow is ever wet,

With the tears of my remembrance,

With the tears and bloody sweat,

Let me forget.

If ye forget-If ye forget,

Then your children must remember,

And their brow be ever wet,

With the tears of their remembrance,

With the tears and bloody sweat,

If ye forget.

G.A. Studdert Kennedy

Prologue

France

August 16, 1944

The rains of early summer had dissipated over central France leaving August cloaked with warm weather and blue skies. These were very pleasant conditions for a holiday, except this was the summer of 1944 and the world was at war. From the rolling waves of the Atlantic Ocean to the rotting jungles of the South Pacific, the flames of conflict and violence burned across the lands and seas.

The roads of France were crowded with military vehicles in headlong pursuit of the retreating German Army. Since the breakout from the Normandy hedgerows and the battered city of St. Lo, the Allied advance had moved at a tremendous pace. Rumbling tanks and overloaded trucks sped along country lanes enveloped in clouds of choking dust. Moving among the filthy columns of machinery were the vehicles of the 69th Signal Battalion. Greyhound armored cars led the battalion’s collection of GMC 2 ½-ton trucks crammed with tools, wire spools, and sweating GIs. Every eye in the unit scanned the landscape and surrounding skies in search of German infantry and low flying aircraft of the Luftwaffe. The 69th Signal Battalion had been ordered to maintain the communication network between the fast-moving front lines and XX Corps headquarters, and the signalers were moving with the spearhead of the army laying telephone cables or repairing existing French and German communication lines. This had been the unit’s ongoing and exhausting mission since it landed in France a month before.

Riding in a forward truck gripping a massive Browning .50 caliber machine gun was the dust-stained figure of Dominic DePaolo, a twenty-two-year-old corporal from the small industrial city of North Tonawanda, New York. He and his fellow GIs peered through the obscurity with stinging eyes in search of enemy activity. Roaring overhead, US P-47 Thunderbolts cleared the way for the advancing convoy breaking up pockets of enemy resistance with bombs and rockets. An occasional burst of small arms fire had been heard several times during the day, but it had never developed into a larger firefight.

DePaolo leaned against the steel turret ring that mounted the machine gun to the top of the truck cab and wiped the grit from his eyes. From his vantage point he surveyed the line of Jeeps and armored cars leading the unit through the dirty haze. The dust clung to his perspiring face and made the involuntary act of respiration torturous work. Throughout the day, his truck had stopped repeatedly to splice lines and to hang new cables from old, decaying telephone poles located along the crude road. DePaolo felt a prickly sensation before he was jolted by the shock of an explosion fifty yards to his left. Weapons were readied and hands grappled for support as the vehicle swerved slightly and accelerated to escape the field of fire. A few hundred yards further up the road, the staccato blasts of machine gun fire could be clearly heard. A figure had jumped from the lead Jeep and was wildly gesturing the vehicles to the right side of the highway. The driver in DePaolo’s truck pumped the brakes and the truck came to an abrupt halt. The sudden stop threw his listless body into the breech of the machine gun and a breathless curse was forced from his body. Captain Branch, the unit’s commanding officer, rushed toward the truck shouting instructions for the placement of more phone lines. DePaolo looked to the rear to see his good friend Don Goldstein and several others spill from the truck with wire spools and tool bags. Immediately, the soldiers went to work climbing the splintered poles and running new lines between the spans. Their worked was interrupted by the crack of small arms fire and whistle of bullets piercing the air over their heads. Scrambling back to their vehicle, driver Johnny Knapp jabbed DePaolo’s leg and pointed toward a low earthen rise alight with sporadic flashes. The enemy position was 400 yards from the signalers’ truck. DePaolo leveled the big Browning toward the flashes to deliver covering fire for the linemen. An M-8 armored car beat him to the punch, slamming 37mm rounds into the enemy gun pits. German fire continued to pepper the roadway as two M-4 Sherman tanks pulled to the roadside and blasted the enemy with their 75mm guns. The GIs flinched from the mighty blasts, as the explosions threw massive clouds of earth and dust into the air. DePaolo’s heart seemed to be beating through his chest when a lone German soldier emerged from the black haze carrying a deadly panzerfaust anti-tank weapon. DePaolo reacted instantly sending a burst of .50 caliber bullets toward the enemy soldier. The bullets shattered the German’s upper body, sending him cartwheeling back into the low hanging smoke. A brief sense of pride burst into his thoughts when he realized he had hit the moving target from approximately 200 yards. An instant later, a fear gripped his chest when he realized he may have killed the man, but all emotions were erased in a fraction of a second after the German position was engulfed in leaping flames and flying sparks. The tankers had decided to end the skirmish with a pair of white phosphorous shells, nicknamed, Willie-Petes.

Having successfully burned the enemy out of their entrenchment, a silence fell over the small battlefield. Captain Branch hustled the men and equipment back into the trucks and prepared to move his command forward. The armored vehicles fired their massive engines and pulled out amid clouds of exhaust to continue their advance into France. As Knapp pulled the truck back onto the road, DePaolo continued to aim the automatic weapon toward the blazing enemy barricade. He wiped his trembling right hand across his grimy face and parched lips and reached for his canteen of tepid water. His thoughts quickly raced to the days of his youth when he slaked his thirst with cool water from the outdoor spigot at his home. The water had always tasted especially sweet after a rough game of football with his friends on a humid August afternoon. During this brief lull of combat, DePaolo afforded himself a few reassuring thoughts of his home. He knew at this moment his father would be working along the steel tracks of the New York Central Railroad and the image of his mother baking bread and cooking tomato sauce in the confines of their sweltering kitchen sent a pang of hunger through his belly. God only knew where his brothers were. Pat, Frankie, and Sammy were all in uniform and the family vaguely knew their whereabouts in the global world war.

The thoughtful smile suddenly left his face, as memories of family, home, and the life he had lived on Ganson Street were snatched from his consciousness by the jolt of a pothole. The reality of war had returned to his fatigued body and numb mind as the American fighting men continued their advance against the enemy.

The City of North Tonawanda is situated at the confluence of Tonawanda Creek and the Niagara River. In its past, it was a thriving canal town and industrial center. With the need for labor in the city’s varied industries, a great influx of immigrants came to the area in the 19th and 20th centuries. This migration gave the city its unique ethnic tapestry. The star shown in the center of the map marks Ganson Street, the heart of Little Italy in the city. (Courtesy of the Historical Society of the Tonawandas)

Chapter 1

The Early Years

One generation passeth away,

and another generation cometh:

but the earth abideth for ever.

Ecclesiastes 1:4

In the realm of human memory the murky creek had always existed eleven miles above the raging cataract of Niagara Falls. Two hundred years ago a mosquito-infested wilderness dominated this narrow ribbon of water where it ebbs into the mighty Niagara River. At this junction the unwavering current of the great river sweeps the curved banks of its eastern shoreline and rushes through a channel that separates a small isle from the mainland. The Native Americans identified this area in their ancient tongue as " tonawanda ", meaning swift running water. The white men who traversed the region lent the name to the near stagnant creek that stretches ninety meandering miles into a vast tract of land known as Western New York.

The calmness of this virgin forest was disturbed in the year 1801 when soldiers of the young Republic were ordered to cut a road through the dank woodlands. General James Wilkinson commanded the expedition intent on linking the garrison at Fort Niagara on the lower Niagara River with the settlement of New Amsterdam (Buffalo) on the upper reaches of the watercourse. The US Government had entrusted the mission to an officer with a checkered past. General Wilkinson was a flabby, balding Revolutionary War veteran and was later found to be a spy in the service of Spain. Historian Robert Leckie summarized his career as, a general who never won a battle or lost a court-martial. But, Wilkinson and his command succeeded with the construction of the military road and a series of bridges needed to traverse numerous tributaries feeding the grand river. A rough-hewn bridge constructed across Tonawanda Creek allowed the uninterrupted passage of military personnel and goods between the isolated settlements. To protect the vital span, the US Army constructed a log blockhouse and stationed a small detachment of blue-coated infantrymen. Among the guard was Lieutenant John Sweeney, a Buffalo businessman, who would become a prominent land speculator along Tonawanda Creek years later. In 1808, Henry Anguish became the first settler along the banks of the creek. He raised a small cabin and cleared some farmland. Anguish’s entrepreneurial spirit led him to build a tavern three years later, and his best, and possibly his only, customers were the soldiers from the blockhouse a short distance away.

Settlers quickly developed the lands near the bridge and along the military road. The dense forests of oak trees disappeared under the swing of broad axes and the cleared land was cultivated. The prosperity of the frontier community was destroyed during the War of 1812 when British soldiers torched nearly every structure along the Niagara River. American militiamen had burned the sturdy bridge over Tonawanda Creek in 1813 to prevent the advance of the British upon the village of Buffalo. This action had only temporarily saved the village. A few days later, British forces crossed the Niagara River and burned Buffalo, leaving only the stone foundations and chimneys in the smoldering ruins. After the peace, the hardy settlers returned to their charred homes to rebuild their lives. Pioneering men such as Colonel John Sweeney, George Goundry, and Stephen Jacobs utilized the wood and water resources of the region to accumulate small fortunes and the settlement along the creek grew and prospered. With the westward expansion of the nation, the need to ease travel and stimulate commerce became an important concern. Businessmen and government officials looked to mimic the canals of Europe as a solution. A backwater politician named DeWitt Clinton spearheaded a bold plan to cut a canal across New York State. The plan was masterminded by a collection of brilliant engineers and the construction of the longest canal in the world was begun. In a few short years, the waters of Tonawanda Creek were incorporated into the Erie Canal system and the area’s population quickly boomed. The canal, which opened in 1825, stretched across New York State bringing commerce and wealth to ports located on the waterway. Settlers traveling westward on overcrowded packet boats flooded Western New York, while other barges carried lumber and produce to large markets in the eastern part of the state. The Erie Canal also carried hundreds of European immigrants into Western New York. These settlers, mainly of German origin, searched for work in the mills and purchased tracts of land to farm.

The area at the confluence of the Niagara River and Tonawanda Creek became synonymous with the lumber trade. Numerous ships carrying timber from nearby Grand Island, America’s midlands, and the wilds of Canada, docked at the local wharfs. More than one hundred businesses related to the lumber industry were located in the Tonawandas over the next 120 years, and the small port on the Niagara River was known as the greatest lumber port in the world.

Eleven years after the opening of the Erie Canal, another technological innovation was introduced to the villages along this waterway. Gangs of Irish laborers laying iron rails worked their way to the area. A short time later, the chugging steam locomotives of the new industrial age began to transform the economic and transportation infrastructure of the fledgling settlements. Despite the coming of the railroad, the presence of sweating draft animals pulling barges on the canal continued for another fifty years. Soon after the arrival of the railroad, steam-powered machinery began to alter the lumber industry. Sooty clouds of black smoke dirtied the skies and massive piles of machine-processed lumber dominated the landscape.

By the autumn of 1861, it was evident the industrial output of the villages huddled against the banks of Tonawanda Creek would be utilized in the war effort against the southern states. Early in the war, local civic leader Lewis S. Payne received permission from the government to raise a company of soldiers for the 100th New York State Volunteer Infantry Regiment, nicknamed the Board of Trade Regiment. The unit was organized by the Buffalo Board of Trade, a civic organization that fostered goodwill between merchants in the big port city. The regiment marched off to war in 1862, its ranks deluged with German immigrants. During the Civil War, casualties decimated the 100th Infantry Regiment and Payne was captured by rebel troops. Upon his return from the war, he found the villages that straddled the creek had separated and the community on the north side of the muddy waters had incorporated, naming itself North Tonawanda. The split meant more to the tax collector than the average citizen, and many continued to traverse the wood bridges to labor in the shops and mills located throughout the two towns now located in separate counties. Lumbering and brick-making industries dominated the economic scene until 1870 when the Niagara River Iron Company fired up its blast furnaces on the north side of the creek. The iron company was in need of many new workers and some of the first immigrants from Eastern Europe and Italy relocated to the Lumber City. These unskilled settlers, who had suffered from chronic poverty and oppression in Russia, Sicily, and southern Italy, took on the lowest paying jobs and lived in shacks constructed from discarded wood and packing crates. The new immigrants clustered together on undeveloped parcels of land and found mutual support in a society that did not understand or accept their languages, customs, and superstitions. The Ku Klux Klan was big in North Tonawanda in the old days, said Ganson Street resident Patrick DePaolo. Every bridge leading into the city had a sign on it that said, ‘No Coloreds’. They [the Klan] weren’t fond of Italians either, they called us dagos, wops, and garlic eaters and the Italians suffered a lot of abuse. That’s how the immigrant neighborhoods formed. The Italians had their own church, school, and stores. Everybody knew everybody else in the neighborhood and they looked out for each other.

Outsiders looked upon the Italians with scorn. The immigrants, especially from southern Italy and Sicily, were very superstitious. Pierced ears were common, even with infants, in the belief that gold near the eyes produced keen eyesight. Bewitching by means of a sordid glance, known as, Malocchio, or the evil eye, was greatly feared and a ritual involving olive oil and cold water could only lift the curse. There was also the superstition that mentioning Satan after midnight would bring one face-to-face with the evil devil. The custom of leaving food on the dinner table on November 2, or All Souls Day, in the belief that dead relatives would return to the family was alien to those who were not accustomed to the practices of the Roman Catholic Church.

The spirit of Little Italy - A celebration with family, friends, pasta, and red wine. Immigrants in America found support, security, and friendship in ethnic neighborhoods. (Authors’ Collection)

At the turn of the twentieth century, North Tonawanda had been incorporated as a city and industrial based businesses were booming. By this time, nearly one million Italian immigrants had also entered the country and settled mainly in large cities on the East Coast. Seeking to escape city slums and overcrowded tenement houses, many Italians boarded canal boats and worked their way into Central and Western New York seeking employment in port towns located on the vast highway of water. The Tonawandas, with its large industrial base, became an important destination for immigrants searching for work and the American Dream. Menial jobs were readily found in factories that produced lumber, bricks, and textiles. Employment could also be obtained in other local companies that manufactured musical instruments, automobiles, carousels, and even chocolate.

The Twin Cities were old industrial towns known for manufacturing many products including lumber, iron, steel, paper, textile, musical instruments, amusement rides, watercraft, and business and industrial machinery. Thousands of European immigrants labored in the shops and factories in their quest to fulfill the American dream. The ribbon of water that separates Tonawanda Island from the mainland is identified as the Little River, a channel for commercial shipping and a favorite swimming area for local boys. Shown in the foreground is Tonawanda Iron Corporation. The mills of the International Paper Company, located on the northern part of the island, are shown in the background. (Courtesy of the Historical Society of the Tonawandas)

By 1910, the Buffalo Bolt Company set up a production facility on the northern reaches of Oliver Street, and wooden boats were sliding down the ways at the Richardson Boat Company on Sweeney Street. Numerous other subsidiary businesses, such as bakeries, taverns, grocers, and retail stores, employed hundreds of others by the onset of the Great War in 1914. The welfare of the citizens was also cared for with the construction of a library with funds donated by wealthy industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, and the building of a hospital under the direction of LeGrand S. DeGraff.

The influx of immigrants led to a boom of house construction in both cities. New streets were surveyed and cleared of brush, as rows of simple wood-frame structures rapidly appeared on the dirt byways. Streets named for early settlers or the social prominent were developed a few short blocks from the industrial hub located near the waterfront. The small homes, often constructed by the immigrants themselves, were erected on new streets named Tremont, Bryant, Lincoln, Geneva, and Ganson. Ganson Street was named for Kate Ganson, a socialite who had married local businessman James Sweeney. The first house was built on Ganson Street in 1876 and over the next forty years other lots on the street were sold and developed. The humble street of twenty-eight wood-frame structures became home to many laborers who toiled in local shops and factories. Men like Toni Carere, Michael Belviso, Anthony DePaolo, Peter Malone, Toni Stefanucci, and Anthony Versaci skimped and saved for years to purchase a lot and build a house.

After the Armistice in 1918 ending World War I, the growing industrial base in the Tonawandas needed more workers, and streams of immigrants came from Europe. Germans escaping the economic calamity in their homeland found employment and camaraderie in Gratwick, an immigrant community in the northern environs of North Tonawanda named for William H. Gratwick, a nineteenth century lumber baron. Other German immigrants found housing with relatives in the Martinsville section of town. This small Prussian hamlet, situated along the confluence of Sawyer’s Creek and Tonawanda Creek, had been settled in the 1840s.

Many Polish-speaking immigrants from Russia, Germany, and Austria had journeyed to the region in the early years of the twentieth century. After the Great War, the country of Poland was founded, but many Poles and Slovakians escaping poverty and starvation fled their native lands. They were more than willing to labor in the gritty shops of Buffalo Bolt and other local factories for their meager wages. These new immigrants found acceptance in the Polish community situated along Oliver Street and the Avenues. There, they found neighbors clinging to old world traditions, raising livestock in their backyards and surviving on diets of cabbage and herring. In the spring, to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ, pigs were slaughtered and the meat shared among neighbors for a traditional Easter feast. The social center for the Polish community was a clapboard church on Oliver Street that bore the name Our Lady of Czestochowa. By the 1920s, the Polish Home, identified as Dom Polski in their native tongue, became a prominent meeting hall for the Poles of North Tonawanda.

The environs south of Wheatfield Street encompassing the streets of Vandervoort, Geneva, Robinson, Keil, Lincoln, Geneva, and Ganson was recognized as Little Italy. Mainly immigrants of Italian and Sicilian descent occupied the homes and tenements throughout these byways and the brick edifice of Ascension Roman Catholic Church, which had been built in 1894, dominated the neighborhood. The men of Little Italy walked daily to their jobs at the iron works, paper mill, railroad, and the silk works on the western side of the city. Many earned little more than ten dollars a week and most of this money went to support their growing families and pay rents and mortgages.

In the evening hours, they met on the streets to play bocce and shoot craps, or they gathered together in a third floor hall above Wagenschuetz Hardware Store on Oliver Street to smoke cigars, play cards, and drink red wine. On the stained tables lay crumpled editions of Il Progresso Italo-Americano and Il Corriere Italiano, Italian language newspapers printed in New York City and Buffalo. These papers kept the Italian-Americans informed of news from the old country, politics, and crime. These same newspapers heralded the announcement of the first Italian recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor. The medal was awarded to immigrant Michael Valente a decade after he charged through heavy German machine gun fire and destroyed a pair of bunkers along the Hindenburg Line killing five Germans and capturing another twenty-one during the Great War. The long delay in awarding Valente the coveted medal was never really explained. Most thought it was a bureaucratic error, but others believed it was discrimination against Italians. The negative stereotypes that all Italians were thieves and carried stiletto knives permeated society. A popular vaudeville song entitled, "When Tony Goes Over the Top", performed by singer Billy Murray in 1918, showed the social stigmas that surrounded Italians. The lyrics in the song’s final stanza illustrate the typical prejudices of the day:

When Tony goes over the top

Keep your eyes on the fighting wop

With a rope of spagett

And-a big-a-stilette

He’ll make-a the Germans sweat

When Tony goes over the top.

The men from Little Italy in North Tonawanda organized a pair of social clubs to help shield Italian immigrants from prevailing prejudices and to assimilate them into American society. The Garibaldi Lodge was derived from several nineteenth century Latin Masonic Lodges and was named for the great Italian patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi who helped to establish the Kingdom of Italy. An affiliation of The Order of the Sons of Italy was also established in North Tonawanda to promote civic philanthropy and provide fellowship for local Italian-Americans. Among the members of the new clubs from Ganson Street were Toni Carere, Toni Versaci, Anthony DePaolo, Toni Stefanucci, Michael Belviso, and Peter Malone. Within ten years, the national membership of the Sons of Italy peaked at 350,000, and 1,000 lodges would be located throughout the United States.

Ganson Street was the center of Little Italy in North Tonawanda, New York and home to forty-one servicemen during World War II. They fought the nation’s enemies from the Battle of Midway in 1942, through the bloody battlefields of Europe, and the final conquest of Okinawa in 1945. The story of the United States’ involvement in the war can be told largely through the service of these individuals from Ganson Street.

The birth of a child was always celebrated throughout Little Italy and Louise Quednau, a local midwife, helped to deliver most of the newborns. In 1913, a son was born to Jacobi and Jenny Miranda in their small home at 38 Ganson Street. Jacobi, a factory worker, named the child Nicholas. Two years later, Jenny gave birth to another boy and the couple named him Christ, followed by a third son named Joseph. These births were the beginning of a baby boom on Ganson Street that lasted for approximately fifteen years with the delivery of more than eighty children.

In 1918, Louise Quednau helped deliver a baby boy for Anthony and Jennie DePaolo at 18 Ganson Street. Anthony had been born in the hills of central Italy before coming to the United States. He found employment with the New York Central Railroad and worked alongside many Irishmen as a young man.

Ninety-one years later, the DePaolo’s first child, named Patrick, recalled, I was told by my parents that Ganson Street looked like a shanty town at the time of my birth. People bought the vacant lots and then built the houses themselves. Some of them lived in tents until they could get a roof over their heads. Over time some of the shacks were ripped down when the family could afford to build a better home. At one time the street was covered with wood boards so the people wouldn’t have to walk in the mud, but a few years later they threw down some gravel and it began to look like a street. Nobody owned a car in those days and there were chickens walking all over the place. Everyone living on the street was an immigrant and they all spoke Italian.

Throughout the early part of the century the distrust and hate of the Italian community continued to smoldered. This rampant sentiment was inflamed in 1920 when two Italian immigrants in Braintree, Massachusetts were arrested for the murder of paymaster at a shoe factory and the robbery of $16,000. The arrest and month-long trial attracted great attention in the media, and papers throughout the nation kept their readers abreast of the conflicting evidence and allegations. A jury found the two men, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, guilty and the presiding judge sentenced them to death. Thousands from the immigrant community and national labor unions angrily claimed the sentence was politically motivated and a special committee investigated the trial proceedings. The court decision was upheld and the condemned men were executed in the electric chair seven years after the crime.

By 1925, the great migration of European immigrants was ending and twenty-three million souls had entered the United States over a period of forty years. The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 drastically curtailed the influx of European immigrants and barred all Asians. Despite the protests of Japan’s ambassador, both bills were overwhelmingly passed by the Congress. Nearly a third of Italy’s population of fourteen million people had left to resettle in the United States and many passed through the gates of Ellis Island, the headquarters of the Immigration and Naturalization Department. Most Italians called the imposing brick structure Isola della Lacrime, or the Island of Tears. Since the late nineteenth century, more than 100,000 Italian immigrants were denied access to the country do to medical quarantines or the lack of proper paperwork. Many families were separated on the docks at Ellis Island and many others were forcibly returned to their native land after enduring lengthy ocean voyages. The flood of immigrants had brought 80,000 Italians to the city of Buffalo, most settling on the west side of the city. Hundreds of Italians also found a new life in the Tonawandas.

A few Lebanese families also settled in North Tonawanda’s Little Italy. Albert Moses and his wife Keltoon rented a flat on Ganson Street, and Joseph and Mary Hanna resided in a newly built brick apartment building on the street. Around the corner, on Vandervoort Street, Fred Ferris Sr. lived in an apartment with his wife, Freda, and three small children. Ferris sold popcorn from a wagon during the evening hours to supplement the family’s income. Any unsold popcorn was freely given to the children of the neighborhood who eagerly awaited his return.

The Tonawanda’s ethnic tapestry was similar to many other cities in the northeast United States and differences in language and customs produced negative attitudes and beliefs.

Patrick DePaolo recalled of his youth in North Tonawanda, We had our neighborhood and the Germans and the Polish had theirs. We ate different foods and shopped in different grocery stores. If they came wandering into our neighborhood there was going to be trouble. Likewise, if an Italian walked through the Avenues there was going to be a fight. It took a couple of generations to stop the feuds and once Italian boys starting marrying Polish girls, it all stopped.

A common conception that bonded the second-generation immigrants in the Tonawandas was the unique pride of being a northsider or a southsider depending on what side of the creek you lived upon. The many similarities between the two communities gave rise to the nomenclature, Twin Cities and over the years a friendly rivalry developed between the two cities, flamed by high school athletic competitions. The scholastic battles determined bragging rights and very often league championships. Citizens from both cities eagerly awaited the contests, especially the annual clash on the gridiron between the North Tonawanda Lumberjacks and the Tonawanda Red Warriors.

The children born in the years following the Great War grew up in an era of haves and have nots. During the 1920s work was plentiful, but wages were low for immigrant laborers. In an era when a loaf of bread cost ten cents and a pound of coffee forty-seven cents, most workers were lucky to bring home ten dollars a week. Throughout the nation, labor unions were firmly entrenched in the coal, steel, and railroad industry, but the efforts of organized labor failed to take hold in the small shops and factories of Western New York and the workers suffered.

Patrick DePaolo said, When I was a kid lots of people had work, but the wages were low. There were people in town with big houses and cars, but they owned the factories. Everybody else had to work hard to makes ends meet. My father worked for the railroad and he made decent money. He always had work and he invested his money in real estate. He bought a couple of shacks on Ganson Street, fixed them up and rented them out. He was a generous guy. If someone fell behind with the rent, he would let him slide until he got back on his feet again. My father would bring home old railroad ties from work and leave them on the street. Anyone who needed firewood could take one home and chop it up to burn in their stoves. Everybody on the street looked out for each other and nobody locked their doors or windows. If you needed some milk or sugar, you just walked into your neighbor’s house and asked. We were always warned about hobos. They would come into town on the trains and beg for food. If one knocked on our door, my mother would give him a slice of bread and sent him on his way. After a hobo was seen on the street, everyone would count their chickens… and their kids!

I still remember the ships coming down the river to unload coal, iron [ore], and lumber. They were tied up in the canal and on the banks of the river. There were even some sailing ships. My father use to tell us they were pirate ships, but we knew he was only joking. There was always trouble when the sailors came into town for a drink. There were brawls on Oliver Street with the locals and the cops would come over and bash some heads with their nightsticks. Between the factories, ships, and trains, North Tonawanda was a busy place in those days.

Times were generally good in the 1920s and President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed, The chief business of the American people is business. Industry was booming and many well-to-do Americans were looking to purchase new Frigidaire refrigerators to replace dripping iceboxes. Good Humor ice cream bars were introduced to the masses, and women had been given the right to vote. Prohibition was in full swing, but the business of illegal bootlegging was growing more profitable with each passing month. A group of Sicilian extortionists, nicknamed the Black Hand Gang, ran illegal liquor to the Tonawandas during Prohibition. The Black Hand was the mafia’s most powerful cartel in New York City and Chicago. This underworld group partnered with local bootleggers who ran alcohol from Canada across Lake Ontario and the Niagara River. This lucrative trade, along with the extortion of money from Italian businessmen, filled the tills of these Sicilian gangsters. The public’s contempt for the 18th Amendment was clearly identified by a short ditty that was sung by old and young alike:

Mother’s in the kitchen

Washing out the jugs,

Sister’s in the pantry

Bottling the suds,

Father’s in the cellar

Mixing up the hops,

Johnny’s on the front porch

Watching for the cops!

There was always booze in town, don’t let anybody fool you, recalled Patrick DePaolo. A lot of it came from Canada and most people were making it themselves. On Ganson Street everybody was making wine. The farmers would dump truckloads of grapes onto the street and everyone would work together to press the grapes. There were barrels of wine in every cellar and nobody [police] said anything! The Italians were making wine, the Poles were making moonshine in their stills, and everyone else was drinking illegal booze from Canada. The rumrunners ran boats across the river at night and unloaded their stuff right under the cops’ noses. As far back as I can remember there was a pitcher of wine on our table every night and nobody was ever arrested.

In Buffalo and Niagara Falls the rhythmic notes of jazz music echoed in the clubs and dance halls, while flappers smoked, drank, and danced the night away. The Charleston, tango, and shimmy were the craze, but religious leaders preached social dancing was the first step to hell. The boys of Ganson Street lived their childhood at this time and followed the exciting exploits of baseball legend Babe Ruth, boxer Jack Dempsey, star halfback Red Grange, and flying hero Charles Lindbergh, amid the simple comforts of their working class neighborhood. When the youngsters weren’t laboring to earn money for their families, the streets and yards of Little Italy became their play land. Baseball, football, red rover, hide-and-go-seek, and a myriad of other games occupied their free time and mischief was always lurking around the corner. Daring raids on a neighbor’s fruit tree and the excitement of speeding down the street on a scooter made from fruit crates and scavenged wheels injected their racing hearts with a thrill only found in youth. Many of these antics led to scrapes, bruises, broken bones, or at times, worse. On June 19, 1925, ten-year-old Isador Sutter, nicknamed Izzy, of 35 Ganson Street, was amusing himself with a revolver loaded with blanks. The inquisitive honor roll student from Felton Grammar School proceeded to blow a hole in his palm upon the discharge of the pistol. His mother summoned Dr. H.C. Beatly to the house where young Izzy’s hand was carefully treated.

Baseball was the big game at the time, said Patrick DePaolo. That’s what everybody talked about. It was in the papers and on the radio. We played it on the streets and on vacant lots. Half of us didn’t have a glove. We wanted to hear all the stories about Babe Ruth, Dizzy Dean, and Lou Gehrig. We cut pictures of baseball players out of newspapers and magazines, and if you had a baseball card, you treated it like gold! Freddie Ferris was a Lebanese kid who lived on Vandervoort Street, and he once went to a professional game in Buffalo. It cost him fifty cents to get into the stadium [Bison Stadium, later renamed Offermann Stadium]. When he got back, we pestered him with questions for an hour. He told us all about the game and showed us his ticket stub. We were all amazed, it was like he traveled around the world!"

Economic chaos struck without warning on Tuesday, October 29, 1929 with the sudden meltdown of the stock market. Untold numbers of Americans lost their life savings when banks folded, and many businesses quickly downsized or collapsed releasing millions onto the streets with little hope of finding employment. The impacts of the Depression hit the industries of the Twin Cities severely, as orders for raw resources and consumer products dwindled or disappeared altogether.

Hiding fear and hopelessness from wives and young children was nearly impossible and most knew their lives were going to drastically change for the worse. Shortages of money, food, and clothing affected nearly every citizen in the Tonawandas and empty cupboards were to be the norm as families learned to live with meager incomes. Still many would be forced to scrounge and beg just to survive this far-reaching ordeal. What little money there was often could not provide the essentials and the residents of Little Italy and other ethnic neighborhoods throughout the Tonawandas struggled. Fish from the polluted waters of the Niagara River and weeds from vacant lots provided subsidence for many. Children worked small jobs to bring needed income to the family and were sent out with baskets to find food, such as dandelion greens, apples, and nuts. Others sallied forth with buckets in search of coal. John Baronich, the son of Ukrainian immigrants living on First Avenue, was sent out regularly to retrieve coal along the train tracks running through the western side of North Tonawanda. The competition from other children was fierce and fights often broke out leaving the winner to carry home a full bucket.

Salvatore Turone, a red-haired Italian immigrant, lived with his wife and three children in the upper apartment at 44 Ganson Street. He had emigrated from southern Italy to the United States in 1923 with his wife Caterina (Catherine) and baby daughter Maria Concetta. Two sons, Frank and Theodore, were born soon after in their newly adopted land. During the Depression years, Turone had steady employment with the New York Central Railroad, but despite this income, nature provided much of the food for the family. During the spring and summer months, the children collected dandelion greens and Catherine mixed the weeds with cooked potatoes, or served them as a salad. The Turone family also maintained a vegetable garden in a vacant lot. The garden yielded potatoes, lettuce greens, peppers, green beans, rhubarb, and tomatoes. Maria Concetta, called Mary Connie or Mary, and her brothers picked the produce and carried back the harvest to their kitchen in a homemade wagon.

Economic conditions also led people to trap squirrels and black birds or raise chickens and rabbits as food sources. Frank Malone, the son of Peter Malone, a factory laborer who lived at 30 Ganson Street, remembered being awakened in the early mornings by the cackle of chickens.

It sounded like we lived on a farm. You could always hear the chickens clucking on the street. Neighbors always had eggs, and any extras were sold to markets on Oliver Street. Many Polish families living on the Avenues kept goats, cows, and ducks in their backyards. When they needed food they would slaughter an animal.

The slaughter of animals was not always left to the local butcher. Nelson Nassiff, a young boy of Lebanese descent, living at 48 Ganson Street, reluctantly witnessed his neighbor Sergio Rotolo secure a rope to a chicken’s leg and cut off the fowl’s head with a crude hatchet. The headless chicken scampered within limits of the tether with blood spurting from the neck. Once the bird bled out, it was processed for the evening meal.