52 Ancestors Week 28: Transportation

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 28 is all about "Transportation." As the daughter of a service station owner, I grew up around cars and developed an appreciation for them. Whether it's planes, trains, or automobiles (or canal boats, or steamships, or... ), think about transportation and how it affected an ancestor. Did canals open up markets for crops? Did railways offer job opportunities? Explore the transportation theme this week!

On the boats and on the planes....

    This is actually the second blog I've written about this prompt. The first transportation-related blog I wrote was back in 2019 and in it I wrote about grandpa Hamel and his plane. What shall I write about this week? How about a boat? That's good, Chris. How about something a bit more specific? What if I wrote about the boat that brought my great-grandmother Maria Tedesco and her children Marco and Nicolina to America? Sound good? GREAT!

All aboard!

      

     On October 30th, 1929, a passenger ship called the S.S. Roma set off from the Italian port of Naples and would arrive at her final destination in New York City on November 8th. The Roma, according to Wikipedia, was an ocean liner built for the Italian shipping company Navigazione Generale Italiana and was constructed at the Ansaldo shipyard in the Genoese suburb of Sestri Ponente. The vessel has the distinction of being one of the first built by the company when she was constructed in 1926.

    She was capable of carrying 1,700 passengers and crew and was powered by eight turbines connected in couples to four shafts. She was steam powered like many ships of the era. She had a steel hull and had a rather interesting story once her days of being a passenger liner were behind her.

Famiglia di Ferraiolo

    I'll save the story about her final fate for later in the blog. Right now let's focus on Maria and her two small children. Why did they go to America by themselves? Where was the children's father? Well, Vincenzo had already become a US citizen by the 1920s and as far as I can tell Maria travelled alone with her children. It was customary for Italian men in those days to go to America and send for their wives once he could afford passage for them. They also often sent for the rest of their family once they became established.

    Vincenzo and Maria were married on January 15th, 1921 and in fact he left America in 1920 so he could get married in his home town of San Pietro a Maida. Nicolina was born in 1923 and my grandfather was born in 1925. Between 1925 and 1929, Vincenzo went back to America. I haven't been able to find any proof of this. However, the manifest I posted above seemed to indicate that Maria did indeed travel alone with the children.

    With those questions answered, Maria and the children arrived in New York on November 8th, 1929 and would take a train from New York to Haverhill, Massachusetts. I can't imagine traveling across an ocean and by rail two hundred and forty miles with a six year old and a four year old. Maria must have had a firm grip on those kids! They must have had something to occupy their time since iPads and various Nintendo handhelds wouldn't be invented for several decades!

SS Roma

    Over the course of her lifetime, the Roma most likely carried many people to and from Italy. The story above was one of many the ship had seen during her active duty. Unfortunately, by the 1930s things took a rather dark turn for the vessel. In January of 1932, the ship unfortunately collided with the American ocean liner S.S. President Roosevelt, causing severe damage to her hull.

    The hits continued to come when the second world war erupted in Europe and the Roma was converted into an Italian aircraft carrier under the name "Aquila" and served the regime of Benito Mussolini. Under her new name, she was considered to be Italy's first aircraft carrier project. As she was clearly not built for that kind of duty, the project was never completed. She was converted into an aircraft carrier in a futile attempt to compete with the French and British navy of the era. 

     By 1943, she was seized by German forces shortly after Italy surrendered to the Allied forces on September 8th, 1943, seven months after Maria passed away. 

    On June 16th, 1944 the former Roma was attacked in her home port of Genoa during an Allied raid. The Italian "co-belligerent" government feared the once proud ocean liner would be used against the Allies as a blockship in the harbor. Divers were sent to scuttle the craft in a harmless location and sank the ship. She was raised from the sea floor in 1946 and towed to La Spezia in 1949. In between 1951 and 1952 the ship was scrapped.

    The story of the Roma's end was hardly the most fitting for a ship that once carried people from Italy to places all around the world. It's unfortunate that a vessel designed for peaceful operation was converted into a tool of war by the regime of Benito Mussolini and when I found out about its fate I sighed. In hindsight, I probably should have expected it because Mussolini was not quite all there. There's a reason many Italians today curse his name!

    I will say this. I am grateful that my family came to America well before the Roma became an engine of destruction. Her story should be a testament to how evil people can sometimes take the most innocent of things and turn them into machines of war. I wish the story had a happy ending and it's unfortunately one of the many sad stories that came out of one of the darkest periods in our planet's sad history. The only thing we can do is learn from the past and make a better future.

    I'm also glad that I researched the ship. Learning about it helped me understand the context of the time period Maria and all the passengers of the Roma lived in and it makes me want to learn about the ship Giuseppe Carrabs and Clementina Forgione sailed on called the Adriatic. Let's hope that ship has a better backstory!

See ya next time!