They Came By Ship: The Stories of the Calitrani Immigrants in America

By Mario Toglia

They Came By Ship: The Stories of the Calitrani Immigrants in America is the product of the Internet Age which brought together people researching their roots to their ancestral town of Calitri in Southern Italy. They came to know one another and, in many cases, rekindled old friendships and discovered distant relatives in second and third cousins. They began sharing stories on the Net of the good old days, recalling neighborhoods where their parents and grandparents had settled after emigrating from Italy. These communities included Brooklyn, New Rochelle, Tarrytown, Dobbs Ferry, Batavia, Mount Vernon in New York; Montclair, Paterson, Newark in New Jersey; Stamford, Bridgeport, Torrington in Connecticut; Dunmore in Pennsylvania; Washington, DC and Pittsfield, MA. Their recollections proved to be so interesting and poignant to all that they needed to be set down in permanent form and preserved for future generations.

Mario Toglia of New York initiated this book project with Josephine Galgano Gore, Angela Cicoira Moloney, Fred Rabasca, Rick Morris and Mary Margotta Basile, descendents of original immigrants from Calitri. The book contains over 100 personal and biographical stories, which illustrate various aspects of the lives, traditions and customs of the Calitrani community within the Italian immigrant experience. Also included are several newspaper articles and obituaries, as well as a list of more than 4000 Calitrani names who settled in America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 31, 2007
• ISBN: 9781664130159

Mario Toglia

MARIO TOGLIA, the son of Calitribornimmigrants Ernest and Josephine (Codella) Toglia, grew up in Brooklyn, NY and attended local Catholic schools, including Fordham University School of Education. He taught Romance languages in the New York City public school system for some 33 years. Researching his family history was an avocation, done initially at a leisurely pace, but one that accelerated in the “Age of Computer Technology” once he retired. The collection of data expanded outward after he connected with fellow Calitrani descendents. Mr. Toglia acknowledged the ties that bound the Calitrani American community. “With all the material that I gathered,” he said, “it became obvious that it was my generation’s mission to honor and preserve the immigrant history and legacy of Calitri.” The end product was his fi rst book, They Came By Ship: The Stories of the Calitrani Immigrants in America. Mr. Toglia is a member of the Calitri American Cultural Group, the Italian American Studies Association and the Italian Genealogical Group. He currently resides on Long Island.

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DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to our immigrant ancestors whose

legacy and memory we wish to honor and preserve.

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Statue of The Emigrant in Calitri, Italy.

CONTENTS

Dedication

Preserving Our History

‘Calitrian Connections’ Celebrates Shared Heritage

Acknowledgment

Foreward

Introduction

Calitri—Il Paese

Brooklyn

Bushwick Memories

The Legacy Of 988 Jefferson Avenue

The Italian-Born Yank From Bushwick

Assunta’s Story

Commare Cinzina

My Mother, Rosinella

‘Na Femmina Fatta

Uncle John

Pietro Maffucci

Being With Grandpa

Sent To America

Name That Paisan!

A Son Remembers

Maestro Of Scissors Cuts Opera Figure

The Circolo Immacolata Concezione

Vito And Giuseppina Solimene

Remembering Zi’ Langia, My Papa

My Mother—Margherita Del Re

Figlia Di Maria

Mamma Tonna

Where There’s A Will, There’s A Way

Summertime At Coney Island

I Remember Dexter Park

The Wearing Of The Black

First Book Of Italian

Italian-Style Wedding Soup

Westchester

The Calitrani Immigrants In The Tarrytown Region

The Cleats

Acquasale

Working For Mr. Rockefeller

Caught In The Winds Of Change

The Rizzis Of North Tarrytown

The Calitran Legend In Sleepy Hollow

Rizzi Remembers Doughboy Days

His Work Has Been Good For The Sole

Mastr’ Cicc’ From Dobbs Ferry

The Calitrani Social Club Of New Rochelle

The Calitrani Press

An Artist With A Heart Of Gold

Voyage To America

Artist Carpenter Utilizes Spare Time /

To Fashion Statue Of Mary For Chapel

What’s In A Name?

The Italian Homework Assignment

Vincenzo Cioffari Foreign Language Scholar

Tomato Weekend

A Resourceful Woman

New York

Growing Up In Piermont

Life Alla Mimi

My Start In New York

Ralph Cerreta, Lawyer, S-L Founder, Dies At 80

The Staten Island Shoemaker

Kin Flies From Italy To Honor Jubilations

Dressed To The Nines

My Father, Vito Martinelli

Uncle Barney

A Maestro’s Story

John Gautieri

A Place We Never Left

New Jersey

Destination: Montclair

75 Pine Street

Pietro And Rosa Codella

80-Year-Old Member Honored By Men’s Club

Montclair Families At Calitri Reunion

Montclair Friends

John Dinapolis Wed 50 Years

Angelo Dinapoli

Dr. Caesar Fastiggi

A Life That’s Spanned Three Centuries

Lucietta

The Codella Family: From Calitri To New Jersey

My Father, Domenic Sr.

Learning English The Napulitana Way

Luigi Lampariello

My Godfather, Jimmy Scoca

My Beloved Papa

Mary Rinaldi Preziosi

Lucia Cioffari (1901-1995)

The Holy Thursday Tradition

Connecticut

The Calitrani Immigrants In Stamford

Making La Salsicc’

Dr. Preziosi Is Dead

Metallo The Magician

Cerretta Street

My Grandmother, My Guardian Angel

Researching My Grandfather’s Life

Alonzo Maffucci Named President Of Italian Center

Passages Glimpsed Of Immigrant Pasts

Between Two Faiths

Who’s Who In Our Churches

The Savanella Farmhouse

James Zampaglione (1912-2001)

A Great Man Can Do Great Things

He Praised The Lord

The Wake At 286 Maple Avenue

Dunmore

The Calitrani Of Dunmore

John Demaio’s Work Spanned 66 Years

It Wasn’t Always Easy

The Shoemaker To The Nuns

It’s The Food, Paisan’

A Classic Family Legend

Celebrating A Calitrani Christmas

Strength That Built America

The Roosevelt Bar

The Calitrani Holidays In Dunmore

Other Regions

They Came To D.C.

Lorenzo Vallario In The Nation’s Capital

Gone, But Not Forgotten

Chi Dorme Non Piglia Pesce

Land Of Opportunity

My Aunt Virginia

Peter Aulisi, 105; Won Purple Heart In World War I

The Harvard Square Furniture Mover

Retired Pastor, Teacher Is Dead

Poor Italians Find Friend In P.R. DeCarlo

Diamond Jubilee For Msgr. Zarrilli

La Calitranità

I Proverbi

The Spirit Of The Calitrani Americans

They Came By Ship

Passenger Arrivals

Glossary

‘CALITRIAN CONNECTIONS’

CELEBRATES SHARED HERITAGE

By Margaret Durbeck

Descendents of a small hill town in Southern Italy came together on June 26th, 2004 at Five Islands Park in New Rochelle, NY to celebrate their heritage and remember their immigrant ancestors. The town is called Calitri and this is where my grandmother Rosa Nannariello Cicoira was born. I would always hear about Calitri, especially when I was very small. I was always surrounded by the paisani and the commare, especially whenever my grandmother took care of me.

The picnic in New Rochelle is actually the third held and organized by Maura Mandrano and Eleanor Egger. It was based on the picnics that were held many decades ago by the Calitrani immigrants, who organized them to keep the far-flung Calitrani colonies united.

Eleanor and Maura belong to Calitrian Connections, a group that was established on the Internet seven years ago by Marlene Dunham of Seattle, WA. As Marlene explains, My mother had an original of her father’s birth certificate hanging on the wall in her den. It listed Michelangelo Fastiggi’s birthplace as Calitri. I had no idea where Calitri was, but one day I just had to know more. I had to connect to my roots and so my search had started.

That search through the Internet led her to other Calitrani Americans. Mario Toglia of Valley Stream, NY was tracing his family tree when he connected with Marlene. Both Mario’s parents (Ernesto Toglia and Giuseppina Codella) came from Calitri. At that time Marlene had started a Fastiggi Family newsletter and since Mario knew Italian he contributed information to it from a book he had on the history of Calitri. Meanwhile, a young teenager Jason Gervase in Phoenix, AZ had been curious about his great-grandfather Nicola Gervase. When he was 13 years old, Jason had been introduced by his uncle to the genealogical records at the local Mormon Family History Center. By the time he was connected by Internet with Mario Toglia, the young Arizonan had already collected over 2000 Calitrani names in his database.

Through the wonders of the Internet other descendents of the original immigrants were being connected. People started sending in old pictures and stories. Mario Toglia began compiling passenger lists and doing research on the history of the Calitrani settlements: Tarrytown, New Rochelle, Brooklyn, Montclair in New Jersey, Dunmore PA to name a few.

This last winter Mario Toglia and Josephine Galgano Gore of Woodhaven with others started a writing committee to collect and record the history of the original immigrants. Our ancestral hometown has a two thousand year old history, explains Angela Cicoira Moloney, one of the writers. Ours in America is 120 years old and we need to preserve it for our children and grandchildren. The Calitrani immigrants were a unique group.

This year’s picnic was a success. Eighty-one people attended—more than had been expected, said Maura Mandrano. "Everyone was spread out on the picnic tables sharing not only Italian dishes but stories about their parents and grandparents and discovering how they were connected by some cousin or commare. It was truly beautiful seeing people from different towns talking to each other as if they knew each other for years."

Robert Pisano of Stony Point, NY said, I’m seeing cousins I haven’t seen in over 30 years. He was holding old photographs that were his grandmother’s and was hoping that someone at the picnic would be able to identify the people in them. Luckily, a distant cousin Lucy DiMilia Appleby of Seaford, NY was able to help.

Mario Toglia had an exhibition on the various projects that the Writing Committee had worked on. One was on the immigrant settlers to the Tarrytown region. Many Calitrani worked there for the Rockefeller Estates as gardeners and masons. Another display was on the large settlement of the Calitrani to Bushwick, New York. That is where Fred Rabasca of Elmont had his roots: There was a Calitran family on practically every street and other paisani would come often to visit from Westchester and New Jersey. Bushwick was a wonderful place to grow up in.

Also on display were various family trees as well as one on the history of this ancient town. Besides the exhibition there was music and a bocce game for the younger set.

I knew I had family, said Peggy DeMaio Raso of Tappan, NY, but I didn’t realize how immense it was. It is just wonderful seeing everyone connecting. For those who are interested in knowing more about Calitrian Connections, their website is: www.calitri.org

—Courtesy Italian Tribune (Newark, NJ)

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This book would not be made possible without the help and inspiration of many. First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge the contribution and research of Calitri’s native son, Vito Acocella (1883-1968), whose book Storia di Calitri preserved the history of my ancestral town and served me as a reference. Secondly, I would like to thank my Zia Maestra, Antonietta Toglia (1895-1983) who gave me Acocella’s book as a gift on my very first trip to Calitri in 1972 and who told me to never forget the heritage of my forebears. I would like to recognize the part played by various people: Marlene Halper Dunham who discovered her Calitrani heritage through curiosity and created a website, Calitrian Connections, which became an online platform where I and others could share our recollections and historical research. I am most indebted to her for diligently organizing my ship manifests with the names of the passengers; Jason N. Gervase whose interest in genealogy inspired him to create a database of names and dates and who shared this invaluable information with me on many occasions; Stephen Morse who created his online One-Step Webpage to Ellis Island Ship Arrivals which allowed me to do quick research from the comfort of my home; and those who arranged meetings for me to speak to other Calitrani Americans about my book project, especially Rosemary DeMaio Fariel of Dunmore, PA, Donato DiGeronimo of Verona, NJ, Mary Cetta Ruggiero of Montclair, NJ, Mafalda LaCaruba Tornello of Sleepy Hollow, NY, and Maura Mandrano and Eleanor DeRosa Egger.

I’d also like to express my gratitude to those who contributed to the Book Fund, namely Leonora Martinelli Lavan, Julius and Joy Cerreta Bacci, Assunta Armiento Galgano, Vincent Harris, Shirley Capossela Helms, Robert Louis Bongo, Jeanette Lampariello Anagnos, Paul Caputo, Lucy DiMilia Appleby, Judy DiMilia Ouellette, Albert and Louise Galgano, Richard N. Fastiggi, Betty Codella Archambault, Lucy DeMaio Mancuso, Ellen Savanella Smith, Dr. Frank Cianci, Concetta Toglia Jaick, Agnes Galgano Flood, Antoinette Papa Schettini, Luise Nicolais Fischetti, Maria and Peppino Zarrilli, Marie Della Badia Merlino, Agnes Della Badia Sabadishin, Raymond and Leticia Toglia, Elaine Grasso Hennessey, Lucy Galgano Fasolino, Karen and Richard Aaron, Darlene Wagener Silverman, Michael Rabasca, and the Calitrani Citizens’ Club of Dunmore, PA as well as members of the Editing Committee.

I am also indebted to the following who helped with research in their community: Benjamin Montalbano, Anthony Ingargiola, Rosemary DeMaio Fariel, Bernadette Codella Borea, Darlene Wagener Silverman, Geraldine Metallo Cash, Albert Galgano, Ronald Marcus of the Stamford Historical Society, Kenneth Rose of the Rockefeller Archives and Father John Dietz of the Church of the Magdalene in Pocantico Hills, NY. From Calitri I want to thank Pietro Cerreta, Rosario Maffucci and Massimo Rabasca for information they have provided me.

Others who helped are Margaret Moloney Durbeck, Grace Basile, Lawrence Gore, and Alphonse Sherkness, as well as James C. Codell III and Thomas J. Marinello who sent me various biographical information.

Many thanks to all those who contributed a story to this book. Without your participation, this book would have no purpose. Whether the tales recounted were personal or biographical, you have preserved an important aspect of the Calitrani community within the Italian immigrant experience. You have left a legacy recorded with pride for generations that follow. I am also grateful for the many photographs submitted.

No words can express my appreciation to the five members of my Editing Committee for their dedicated and tremendous assistance. Over the course of several years, we have met at various homes, shared our personal experiences as descendents of Calitrani immigrants, discussed the stories submitted and fine-tuned them to an appreciable level of reading. Angie, Fred, Josie, Mary, Rick and I have come together as a family and have re-lived the lives of the immigrants. My Editing Committee has given me the encouragement to keep me going in times of frustration and difficulty. In addition to their collective support and editing skills, I want to offer special thanks to Richard Morris for his expertise in editorial and production services; to Fred Rabasca for helping me to edit the list of passenger names; to Mary Margotta Basile, whose fantastic memory of family relationships and historic facts from our community was a treasure trove; to Angela Cicoira Moloney for accompanying me on various interviews; to Josephine Galgano Gore, my mainstay, who has never failed to offer me her own good judgment and invaluable advice as well as her undaunted and saintly patience.

—Mario Toglia

FOREWARD

We are the chosen. In each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors. To put flesh on their bones and make them live again, to tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve. Doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts, but instead, breathing life into all who have gone before. We are the story tellers of the tribe. (attributed to Della M. Cummings Wright)

One of the wonders of this compilation, edited by Mario Toglia, is how we, the storytellers of the tribe, found each other. Connections were made in May of 1997 over the Internet starting with my first post on the Italian Genealogy Forum. My grandfather, Michelangelo Fastiggi, was born in Calitri and I was looking for other Fastiggis from Calitri to learn more about my roots. My first contact was Eleanor Egger from New York who said her ancestors also came from Calitri and she knew someone named Fastiggi. She connected me with Dick Fastiggi in Vermont and also with Mario Toglia who connected me with a young genealogist from Arizona, Jason Gervase. How thrilled I was when Jason sent me Michelangelo Fastiggi’s family tree going back three hundred years! My interest in things Calitrana was piqued and I created a website, Calitrian Connections. Jason, in turn, created a Calitri weblist and Mario began researching the passenger ships that our ancestors sailed on. These passenger lists were compiled and added to the website under the heading, They Came By Ship. Before long, all those with Calitrani ancestry were finding each other. The stories of the Calitri immigrants in America were sent to be posted on the website.

Meanwhile, on the weblist, descendents of the original Calitrani immigrants connected with each other through emails. One of these descendents, Al Galgano, has amazed our weblist with delightful and memorable anecdotes of what it was like to be Calitrani in an earlier America. Al would never let us forget that we are all related, we are all cugini. Picnics and get-togethers were planned in different localities, just like our ancestors did after arriving here. Finally, it was suggested that a book be written, starting with the stories, pictures and ship manifests from the website. Everyone agreed that it was a good idea, but it was Mario Toglia who took the initiative. He formed a writing group, spoke with Calitrani all over the East Coast, traveled to their homes and wrote down their stories or asked for stories to be submitted for inclusion. I never could have imagined that a simple quest for my roots would have led to this book.

You will read wonderful accounts of growing up in the Italian neighborhoods from Bushwick to Tarrytown, from Montclair and Paterson to Dunmore. There are stories about the diverse occupations of these hardworking people, making a life for themselves in America and very often arranging for other family members to follow. There are stories that reflect the traditions of these immigrants and how they influenced the next generation. These stories are full of life and memories.

To the sons and daughters of Calitri and their descendents, my hope is that as you read the chapters of They Came By Ship: The Stories of the Calitrani Immigrants in America, they will fill you with a sense of pride, a sense of family and a heartwarming remembrance. And for those, like myself, who did not have the opportunity to grow up in one of the Calitrani American neighborhoods, you will be able to feel their presence. And to you whose families come from another town or country, my hope is that you will be so inspired by these stories that you will also preserve those memories and those experiences that are such a part of your ancestral history. I feel it so very important to put the family stories to paper for future generations.

Marlene Halper Dunham

Webmaster

Calitrian Connections

http://www.calitri.org

INTRODUCTION

When my father Ernest died in February 1980, I realized that I knew very little of his life and I would never have the opportunity to really know more about him. My mother Josephine was the storyteller in the family and so I knew more about the Codellas than I did of the Toglias. My father’s death prompted me to write to his remaining siblings in Italy to find out more about their brother—the only one in the family who immigrated to America.

Calitri had always been a part of my life since both my parents came from there and it was a place my mother often spoke of. A photograph of this mountain town hung in a frame on their bedroom wall between pictures of the Madonna and Sant’Antonio. Most of their friends and acquaintances were from Calitri, so it was natural for me to feel an affinity to their culture.

In 1972, I had the occasion to visit Italy and meet my cousins and my father’s brothers and sisters: Zio Canio in Turin, Zio Nardino at his summer home in Albissola Marina on the Italian Riviera, and Zia Carmela and Zia Antonietta who remained in Calitri. My very first and impercipient impression of Calitri was that the houses needed to be flattened and replaced by skyscrapers. I could not believe how utterly ancient this town looked. Pompeii, Siena, Assisi could look old, but this was the town of my ancestors! And, at many gatherings, I had listened to the way the paisani would stir up proud memories of their hometown, so I had expected to see Paradise!

After my father’s death, I became interested in tracing the family tree and genealogy became a new hobby for me. In the beginning I did this through a back-and-forth correspondence with the Avellino State Archives in Italy. Later I discovered the Family History Center in Plainview, NY and its microfilms of vital records. In the late 1990’s with the acquisition of the computer and access to the Internet, I discovered that many other Americans shared this same avocation. I started to meet people of Calitrani descent online, including Marlene Dunham. My connection with them was truly illuminating.

One day in 1998 I received a phone call from a Steve Martinelli from Upstate New York. I had never met him or knew of his existence. He had learned of my genealogy research and had called inquiring about our common lineage, the Martiniello family. He also wanted to know about the history of the ancestral town. Since I had Acocella’s book on Calitri’s history I started to translate excerpts from it. Except for rare glances in the past at familiar surnames mentioned in the book, this was actually the first time I read the book from cover to cover. And as I completed each chapter, I discovered what an absolutely eventful and fascinating history Calitri had to tell. I began to realize that I, in my blinded youth, had walked through this town’s narrow streets oblivious to the centuries of events that had shaped its people and its culture.

Steve asked me to do a search for his ancestors at the National Archives in Manhattan. I had done searches there in the past on my own family and had been contributing my findings to Marlene’s website. The background book I used for research on Calitri gave a list of typical Calitrani surnames and by just searching for passengers with those family names, I discovered a pattern of Calitrani immigrants as they settled down in select American communities.

When Marlene added her Recollections section to her website, I started collecting stories for it. In time, I came in contact with other Calitrani Americans and encouraged them to share a family tale or two for her website. In my local area I met paisani such as Mary Basile and Fred Rabasca. Mary was in possession of an album entrusted to her by Rosetta Codella, daughter of Tony Codella from the Società Immacolata Concezione. In looking through it, I realized that Tony had carefully preserved the history of his organization with newspaper articles, fliers, photographs and poems. Then, Fred Rabasca showed me items saved by his parents such as a souvenir book on the 1940 Hoffman Park picnic organized by la Fratellanza Calitrana. Slowly, I came to realize that these immigrants had a history unto themselves. It was after Massimo Rabasca of Calitri sent me two rare copies of L’Eco Calitrana that I became totally committed to unearthing the story of these immigrants. In the 1930’s and early 40’s this six-page newspaper was published weekly in New Rochelle, NY to keep the various immigrant outposts in America informed and updated with local news items as well as events from their beloved Calitri.

Through research I found Calitrani names in various books and periodicals. I spoke with other paisani and discovered family tales that were passed down from one generation to another. Some family members had the foresight to commit such stories to paper that was tucked away in some drawer or box at home, but the majority of the family stories were embedded in the memories of the first generation Calitrani Americans, now well in their 80’s and 90’s, and it was those stories that I wanted to harvest. It was now a race against time.

The goal of this book is to record those stories and recollections of those immigrants who came from Calitri. This book is not meant to be a scholarly piece of work. Hence, there are no footnotes or citations. Research made at various archives, libraries and depositories hopefully clarified dates, names and events. I’ve also added articles from various newspapers. The initial article introduces the town of Calitri to give the reader an understanding of the origins of these immigrants. The stories and articles, some with a brief history on Calitrani settlement, are given, more or less, in geographic clusters. At the end of the book, there is a glossary explaining various Calitrani and Italian expressions.

Included in this book is also a list of immigrants and members of their families grouped by the port of entry. The section is called They Came By Ship: Passenger Arrivals.

In my research, I stepped into the immigrant world of our fathers and mothers, our ancestors. As I continued on, I didn’t realize in the beginning that I was following in the footsteps of Vito Acocella, Raffaele Salvante, Pietro Cerreta, Emilio Ricciardi and others who have written extensively of this hilltop paese and its citizens to preserve for posterity; yet, we need to remember that Calitri was transplanted to the shores of the United States with its emigrants, and their story, the history of l’America Calitrana, needs to be told and preserved as well. It is with pride that my Editing Committee and I present for future generations the stories of the Calitrani immigrants in America.

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Mario interviews 98-year old Jeanne DeRosa on her childhood years in Bridgeport, CT.

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Angie (left) asks questions of Sylvia Schroeder about the Calitrani community in Paterson, NJ.

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Fred has fond remembrances of growing up among the many Calitrani families who lived in Brooklyn.

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Josie visits with 105-year old Lucietta Cestone in her Verona, NJ home to find out her secret for longevity.

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Mary displays a presentation board she put together with her daughter Grace for the New Rochelle Calitrani picnic.

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Rick (right) talks with librarian Ronald Marcus of the Stamford Historical Society about the Italian neighborhoods in Stamford, CT.

CALITRI

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CALITRI—IL PAESE

Calitri is the ancestral home of thousands of Americans. Located in the province of Avellino, in the region of Campania, Calitri is situated on a hilltop in the south Apennine mountain range overlooking the Ofanto River which separates it from the town of Pescopagano and the region of Lucania. It is about 80 miles from Naples and 46 ½ miles east of the provincial capital of Avellino.

The Upper Ofanto Valley offers excellent farming land and grazing pastures, although the region has suffered badly during droughts. The local economy is rooted in agriculture (production of cereals, vegetable crops, wine, olive oil, and fruit) as well as livestock. Today there is light industry and tourism. But for centuries the main occupation of the region centered on farming, which employed a large part of the population. Located on a seismic fault, Calitri has been the victim of recurring earthquakes during its recorded history.

The town of Calitri has been settled for at least two millennia, though its history stretches back even further. This history has been chronicled in a book written by Vito Acocella, a native son, who witnessed the near destruction of the town by an earthquake in 1910. This natural disaster made him realize how a town’s history could easily be obliterated by a single catastrophe, and so it prompted him to preserve its past in book form. He starts his book Storia di Calitri with a discussion of its origins.

According to archeological research, numerous artifacts found in the region of the Upper Ofanto Valley confirmed that people inhabited the area during the Neolithic era. The early people there were the Hirpini, one of four tribes of the Samnite nation. Eventually, through various wars, the Samnites were conquered by the Romans.

Calitri gets its name from Aletrium. The Roman scholar Pliny the Elder, who lived in the first century before Christ, first mentions the early inhabitants, the Aletrini, in his encyclopedic work, Historia naturalis. With time, the name of the town was changed to Caletrum and later to Calitri. With the fall of Rome after the barbarian invasions, Calitri and Southern Italy came to be dominated by various foreigners: Lombard, Norman, Angevin, Swabian, Aragonese, and Bourbon. Under the Lombard rule, Calitri became part of the gastaldato or viceroyalty of Conza. That region eventually came under the rule of the Normans, who introduced the feudal system. The feudal system would come to dominate the social and political life for centuries, not only of southern Italy but also of most of Europe.

The first feudal lord of Calitri was Gionata di Balvano, followed by Raone di Balzano. Under the Angevins, the fief of Calitri was given to a French noble, Galeotto di Fleury, who left it to his son, Giovan Galeotto. In 1299, King Charles II of Anjou gave the fief to Raimondo del Balzano, who sold it to Mattia Gesualdo. Eventually the feudal system evolved into a hereditary ownership of land which determined political power and social status. As a result, the landless peasants had no opportunity to improve their lives. This title of feudal lord allowed the Gesualdo family to hold onto their fief for some 300 years. When the last member of the Gesualdo dynasty (Lavinia Gesualdo Ludovico) died without an heir, the land according to feudal law returned to the Crown. Lavinia’s widower, Niccolo Ludovico, purchased the Gesualdo estate, remarried and had a son, Giambattista, to whom he passed on his inheritance. Because of financial difficulties, Giambattista sold the fief of Calitri to Francesco Mirelli.

Mirelli and his family moved into the magnificent castle. This castle, built during medieval times, had 300 large rooms and was furnished with two drawbridges, four large towers, and a secret underground tunnel. However, in 1694 a tremendous earthquake destroyed a great part of the castle, killing over three hundred people, and making the castle uninhabitable. The only survivors of the Mirelli family were those living in Naples. A grandson, Francesco Mirelli, became the new lord of Calitri. Rather than restore the castle, he had a new residence built. Calitri under the Mirelli dynasty continued for several generations until 1814 when feudalism was abolished by law.

During the rise of Italian nationalism, Calitri played its part in the Wars of Independence. The town’s first martyr to the cause of the Italian Risorgimento was Giovanni Margotta. Also involved in various insurrectional uprisings were Giuseppe Tozzoli and Pietrantonio Cioffari.

After the unification of Italy, Calitri entered into its saddest period when lawlessness in the form of pseudo-political brigandage spread through the surrounding area. Most of the bandits were ex-soldiers of the Bourbon army who feared reprisals by the new Italian army. Living clandestinely in the forests, the bandits preyed primarily on the aristocrats and the clergy, but when necessary, even on the peasantry.

The Brigand Wars ended in 1864, but by that time the unification of the peninsula was regarded by inhabitants of the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies as an outright invasion and annexation. The royal treasury in Naples had been appropriated and factory machines were seized and brought to the North. Living conditions in Southern Italy became deplorable in the later part of the 19th century with overpopulation and epidemics. High taxes, lack of work, soil erosion, scarcity of cultivatable land, and deforestation added to the economic problems. Improvement in rail and transoceanic transportation with low fares encouraged the peasants to emigrate to look for work. The Calitrani were ready to emigrate.

Vito Acocella ends his book Storia di Calitri with the Age of Emigration. During this period Calitri sent over three thousand residents to the United States. This book, They Came by Ship: the Stories of the Calitrani Immigrants in America, takes up where Acocella left off.

BUSHWICK MEMORIES

Josephine Galgano Gore, Fred Rabasca, Paul Caputo and

Angela Cicoira Moloney

It was a long journey for a simple peasant to leave life in Southern Italy and start over in America. However, beginning around the turn of the 20th Century, young men had little choice but to leave their poor hilltop town of Calitri and join the vast waves of immigrants seeking employment in America. At the time, New York was a growing metropolis in need of cheap manpower and this reality was evident to the immigrants as soon as they set foot on shore. New York offered the best opportunity to find work, send money home, repay the debts incurred for the transatlantic journey, and last, but not least, pave the way for a better life for future generations.

Around the turn of the 20th century, most of the Calitrani immigrants arriving in New York lacked education and language skills. Open discrimination and class distinction kept their earning potential at the lowest possible level. If they came to America a little later on, in the 1920’s, the employment picture was brighter, but the country was going through a cultural transformation. People were dancing to the lively Charleston or the sultry tango; liberated women were showing off short haircuts and short skirts. New York was experiencing a building boom that would make it a world class center for business and entertainment. However, a few short years later, the new arrivals grappled with the misery of huge unemployment due to the Great Depression.

No matter when they disembarked, their first impression was overwhelming—especially when they realized that blending into this new world was not going to be easy. Still, the new arrivals held on to their dreams and tried hard to make something out of the alien environment in which they found themselves.

The Calitrani group who settled in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, New York became a family that provided a touch of home and a support network that helped ease the transition for new arrivals. To alleviate the pain of loneliness and to help in their adjustment to their new land, the newcomers decided to band together and set up a fraternal brotherhood. They would meet regularly to share friendships, job and apartment referrals and to offer language assistance to one another. They personally arranged to meet ships, guaranteed financial support and offered character references for immigrants. At that time, the law required that all newcomers have a local sponsor willing to assume personal responsibility so they would not become a burden to the taxpayer.

Bushwick is located just south of Ridgewood, Queens and a little to the east of the Greenpoint and Williamsburg sections of North Brooklyn. Prior to the Calitrani settlement, Bushwick was primarily populated by German and Irish immigrants who were already second generation and not inclined to readily welcome newcomers who looked different and spoke in a tongue foreign to them. The German-Americans had settled in the Bushwick area as part of the labor pool for the beer breweries and beer garden restaurants that became the core of Bushwick’s economy. Germanic influence even on the architecture was undeniable—solid brick row houses with long stoops, concrete staircases that ranged from two to fifteen steps in length. The hallways in the multiple dwelling houses were immaculate and well tended—and the front steps were scrubbed clean daily. The German landlords set high standards that made the Bushwick section an excellent place to reside or do business.

The professional heart of the area was Bushwick Avenue, a tree-lined thoroughfare, where doctors, lawyers and dentists who served the community resided in elegant homes with spacious windows. Running parallel to Bushwick Avenue was the Broadway shopping strip. The clothing and home-furnishing stores were owned primarily by immigrant Jewish merchants. It was humorous to hear our mothers bargaining and haggling in their Calitran dialect with these shopkeepers who spoke in heavy-accented English, neither side fully understanding the other.

Bushwick was served by a convenient system of public transportation. The Broadway BMT elevated train line, as well as the Canarsie subway line, provided an inexpensive way to get to work, to school, or to visit a friend. Before crime became a serious problem in New York, one could ride the trains at any hour feeling safe and comfortable. This was fortunate since automobile ownership for the early immigrants was a luxury beyond their means.

The original Calitrani settlers rented housing in multiple dwellings with shared bathrooms in the hallway—no central heat or hot water. The apartments were literally cold water flats with about four to five rooms in a row and a kitchen that had a basic black stove for cooking and warmth. The apartment was heated with coal and/or kerosene delivered on a regular basis. The food was stored in an icebox cooled by cakes of ice. One could save the cost of ice in the winter months by storing perishables in a small metal box outside a window.

Generally, meat and groceries were bought daily from a corner store to insure freshness. The kitchens were small in size but had the mandatory tub used for washing clothes by hand as well as for personal bathing. Money was always in scarce supply, so living from meager paycheck to paycheck was common.

Cooking was done on a big black combination stove/heater. The typical diet included macaroni, which is the general term used by the Calitrani for pasta, plus meatballs, chicken which came freshly killed from the chicken market, veal, pork, and sausage. Greens, such as escarole, spinach, broccoli, were always part of the daily menu, as well as plenty of healthy lentils and fagioli, plus egg frittatas. Mamas would make ravioli and noodles by hand for special holidays. Wine was consumed at every meal and, where possible, was made at home and stored in the cellars. Homemade tomato sauce, antipasto peppers and eggplant in vinegar were stored in bottles and measured in quantities to last about one year’s time.

There was a general attitude of distrust about buying and eating local American products so the immigrants thought it was worth the work and sweat of going through the annual ritual of recreating homemade recipes to protect themselves from what they perceived as tainted, tasteless and unfamiliar food.

The apartment hallways had dumb waiters which were small wooden platforms about the size of a telephone booth that traveled up and down like an elevator and stopped on each floor. A person pulled cords by hand to bring up groceries, ice blocks, coal, or kerosene containers from floor to floor so he or she wouldn’t have to cart heavy materials up multiple flights of stairs.

In the early days, the families were rather large so it was not unusual to have six, seven, or eight children. A household of ten people was common and apartments were overcrowded. With the passage of time and through hard work, the sheer force of personal sacrifice began to pay off, so families were able to buy or rent in two-family homes with central heat and hot water. Finally, it was possible to enjoy some family privacy and the luxury of an expanded dining and living room space. The move to better quarters usually happened when the older children began working and making their obligatory contributions to the household.

In the context of the times, it was customary to poke fun at Italian culture and language, and the new arrivals soon became the target of this insensitive rite of passage. This behavior was directed at any new immigrant group and the Bushwick immigrants endured their share of cruel teasing, bullying and ridicule. They stood out when they added vowel endings to words, cooked with garlic that smelled too strong, and produced a steady stream of babies. Some Americans, here for all of two generations, concluded the new Italian arrivals would never blend into the American way of life because they were too inflexible to change the ways of the old country. As the children of the original immigrants graduated from public and religious schools, they acquired reading, writing, and arithmetic skills that would insure their future success.

Here’s a list of local Public Schools that served the Bushwick community: #113 at Moffat Street and Evergreen Avenue, #106 at Putnam and Wilson Streets, #151 at Halsey Street and Knickerbocker Avenue, #56 at Bushwick Avenue and Madison Street, #75 at Grove Street and Evergreen Avenue, and #85 Halsey Junior High at Evergreen and Covert Street.

As the community grew, Italian-speaking shopkeepers emerged to serve them. Beginning in the 1920’s, business ownership by Calitrani consisted primarily of service shops. By the late 1920’s and 1930’s, the quality of life began to improve as midwives and medical clinics offered improved services in the Italian language. Those immigrants who didn’t have a specialized skill went to work in the breweries and knitting factories. The Calitrani consisted of mostly trades-people. Whether they lived in the neighborhood or were just visiting, the Calitrani would always patronize their own before shopping elsewhere.

Listed below is a sampling of Calitrani shops and businesses in Bushwick:

Barbers:

Peter Rabasca—1169 Halsey Street

Joseph Galgano—987 Halsey Street

Fruit & Vegetable Store:

Louis Cestone—562 Central Avenue corner of Halsey Street

Bars/Restaurants:

John Scoca—John’s Bar—Evergreen Avenue and Halsey Street

Anthony Toglia—Tudor Bar—Gates Avenue and Broadway

Nick Caputo—Dew Drop Inn—Central Avenue and Cooper Street

Carmine Talese—Central Avenue (Hancock and Weirfield Streets)

Nicola Cristiani—149 Cooper Street

Mike Maffucci—Bar at 1514 Broadway between Jefferson Ave. and Hancock St.

Joe DeNicola—J & J Bar on Fulton and Crescent Streets

Peter and Ann Bozza—operated the Yulan Hotel in Washingtonville, NY

Pizzeria:

Anna Carpinella and husband Fred Croce—Broadway just off Halsey Street

Billiard Parlor:

Michele Bozza—Central Avenue and Cooper Street

Cab and Car Service:

Angelo Galgano

Painter:

Ralph Della Badia—1139 Decatur Street

Shoe Repair:

Michael Galgano—956 Halsey Street

Bootblack Shop:

Canio Rainone—563 Wilson Avenue

Vincenzo Lucrezia—1011 Halsey Street

Leather Goods Supplier:

Gabriele DiMaio—1021 Gates Avenue

Insurance Services:

Michael Galgano—originally from Marion Street—served the community but business was based in Manhattan

Funeral Director:

Thomas Cesta—632 Central Avenue

The lives of the Calitrani families in Bushwick would intersect daily. They would meet each other on the streets, in the stores and at their homes. A return from a visit to Italy by one paesano would require a house visit and verbal disclosure of news to the immigrant families. In the summertime, there was always a beach or picnic gathering. Our Calitrani beach crowd (the Solimenes, Della Badias, Cicoiras, Rabascas, Galganos) came together every Sunday at Bay 11 in Coney Island. It was a routine that remained unchanged for many years, and any Calitrani family was welcome to join in at their pleasure.

To close out the season, they gathered in Forest Park on Labor Day to hold a barbecue-style feast on the outdoor picnic grills. The men usually roasted chickens, sausages and tasty side dishes. On one particular occasion, the men insisted on an unusual picnic dish—homemade cinguli. So, the women came up with a plan. Though it is hard to conceive how they managed to accomplish it, the women hand made and transported eight pounds of fresh dough to Forest Park. They formed an assembly line to cut and shape the cinguli by hand, cook them in boiling water on the grill and add a delicious meat sauce much to the delight of their husbands and youngsters. Nothing seemed impossible!

Also, the Calitrani would see each other at baptisms and weddings and, always, at funerals. Depending upon where the families lived, they belonged to a Catholic Church set by parish boundaries. Local parishes and connecting parochial schools included: Our Lady of Lourdes, Fourteen Holy Martyrs, Our Lady of Good Counsel, St. Martin of Tours, St. Barbara and St. Joseph. The one church that was considered the Italian church was Our Lady of Loreto on Sackman and Dean Streets. They stored an exact hand-made replica of Calitri’s Immacolata Concezione statue, and displayed it on appropriate feast day observances. In fact, many Calitrani immigrants and their children were married in Our Lady of Loreto Church.

The first Calitri-born couple to get married in this church were Michael Cerreta and Maria Teresa Zarrilli on August 14, 1898. The groom, now from Jersey City, was the son of Vincenzo Cerreta, a bricklayer, and Maria Michela Zarrilli. The 20 year old bride was the daughter of Canio and Rosa Rapolla Zarrilli. The following year Vito Rapolla and Flavia Capossela tied the knot on June 4th with Nicola Del Re and Maria Giuseppina Lampariello as witnesses.

Weddings tended to be informal and were known as football weddings—a name that was derived from the sandwiches filled with provolone, ham, prosciutto or salami that were literally tossed from containers to the guest filled tables. Unlimited beer, soda and wine added to the festivity and a giant cake filled with cannoli cream finished off the celebration. Everyone, including young children and babies, was invited to the football weddings. In those days, the women would never think of using a babysitter.

There was always a live three-piece band at weddings, and everyone, from the grandparents to the young ones, danced to the popular tunes of the day, typically those of Glenn Miller, Harry James, the Dorsey Brothers, Artie Shaw, the Mills Brothers, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. The youngsters used to stare wide-eyed at the older generation as they danced the traditional tarantella or sang familiar Neapolitan melodies. The evening’s festivities would end with the Grand March—a group dance ritual that concluded with participants forming neat rows while joining hands. Then, there was the Conga—a snake line dance that became popular as Latin music entered the popular culture. While dancing to a Latin beat, a single file of men and women would hold each other at the waist and work their way around the far corners of the room. Here, at these social events, the first-generation would see their immigrant parents celebrating a special moment away from the burdens and labors of their lives.

The value of attending movies cannot be overestimated because it proved to be the window to the outside world for the newcomers and their offspring to assimilate American culture. Going to the movies cost about 5 to 25 cents and on most any convenient day of the week, the whole family would go to the theater. It was their only chance to escape from reality and enter the world of imagination. In particular, they enjoyed Charlie Chaplin, Abbott and Costello, Shirley Temple, Greta Garbo, and Nelson Eddy with Jeanette McDonald. Musicals, gangster movies, and dramas were also popular. The youngsters were loyal to westerns, war stories and comedies. Local movie houses included: Alhambra, Colonial, Decatur, Empire, Monroe, RKO Bushwick, RKO Madison and the Loew’s Gates.

Times were changing and the United States entered a new war, this time on two fronts. Calitrani Americans from Bushwick proudly