I was born in New York. My parents were born in New York. My grandparents, all four of them, were born in New York. My family’s immigration story goes all the way back to my great-grandparents, all of whom came during the immigration wave of the early 20th century.
I knew very little about my mother’s side of the family. My maternal grandmother, when reminiscing about her late husband, would speak of his tastes. He did not care as much for Italian food the way my grandmother did. “He was always a meat and potatoes guy.” So my mother never heard the stories of her ancestors that I did when I’d badger my parents about where I was from. After a little quality time with Ellis Island’s passenger search database, I found some interesting things about my mother’s family. My mother’s father’s father came to New York in 1920 at about age 19 on a ship called the Italia. According to the ship’s manifest, Rosario Venezia went to stay with his brother Salvatore in Brooklyn, Stone Avenue to be specific. He was from a place in Italy called Sant’Angelo, across the peninsula from Rome. He married a woman named Angelina, probably while he was in America. It was more difficult to find information about her on the database. I do not know her maiden name, and neither does my mother. I do know that my mother’s maternal grandparents, Rosario and Catherine, came from Sicily. I do not know if they were married before they came, or when they came. With any member of my mother’s family, I do not know why they came, though it was probably the generic “start a better life” reason that brought so many huddling masses to America.
My father’s family’s story I know quite well. I’d come home from school to find him pouring over grainy printouts of manifests of ships that his parents and grandparents came over on. He had the stiff black and white photos of my grandfather as a boy, my great-grandparents towering over him and his siblings. My father’s paternal grandfather was called Santo, and he lived in Petralia Soprana (Upper Petralia) until coming to America in 1904 at 23 years of age. He stayed with his brother in Lower Manhattan. My father’s paternal grandmother was a relative of Santo, first cousins. Lucia emigrated from Italy when she was fourteen. She traveled with her father Leonardo and her younger brother Damiano. She came over simply to marry Santo. She traveled with several people with the last name Librizzi, many of whom put their next address as a place on Mulberry Street.
And now for the Mafia story.
The old family story goes that Santo owed the Black Hand (I often wonder whether it is the same gang responsible for the assassination of Franz Ferdinand) some money. They put my paternal grandfather, Leonardo, and his brother, Victor, on a hit list. They would either be kidnapped or killed. My father’s family had settled in Rockaway, but left when Leonardo and Victor were very young, one and three respectively. Santo is found on another manifest, dating from 1910, and one dating from May 1912. Lucia and the two boys, listed as three and five, are found on a manifest dating from October of 1912. This evidence adds credibility to the Mafia Story, but not all is known.
In comparison, I know little about my father’s maternal grandparents, but I know that they emigrated around the same time from Naples. Ludovico was my father’s maternal grandfather, and he was born around 1890. It is possible that he came over around 1909, but the Ellis Island workers probably mistook him for a Luigi based on what I was able to find in the database.
Is it any wonder my dad spent so much time looking up this information? Finding that sort of information brings elation. I did not know my great grandfather on my maternal grandfather’s side was from somewhere north of Naples. I had previously thought that all of my ancestors were from the southern part of the peninsula if they were not from Sicily.
This is my relationship with the immigration story of my family. It is a treasure hunt, a puzzle, and a story still waiting to be written and told.
