52 Ancestors Week 4: Curious

  From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 4's theme is "Curious." Several people have already asked how to interpret this. Remember -- it's completely up to you! When I put the list together, I was thinking of something that you've always wanted to discover (something you're curious about) or a record/discovery that you find curious (unusual). You could also write about an ancestor who was curious (an inventor or detective, perhaps?)

A marriage date on a birth banns? It's more common than you think.

    Curiosity is something that brings us all together when we're searching for our ancestors. We all want to know "Who", "What", "Where", "Why" and "When". The five "ws" aren't just for those interested in journalism or the law. They also come in handy when you're naturally inquisitive and as I've said many times I was 100% that kid who would ask a million questions. I couldn't help it! I was curious. There's nothing wrong with being curious! Unless you're a cat. Or a chimp named George. I also can't help but feel like a certain dark knight when I make a discovery. After all Batman is a detective, scientist, genius, billionaire, playboy etc. While I am none of those things, I do have a relative of mine who actually WAS a detective.

    Enter Paolo Coppola, brother to my 2nd great-grandmother Caterina Coppola. Like his brother and sister, he was also born in San Pietro a Maida. He went to America shortly after his brother, Giovanni, established himself there as a grocer. He lived in Beverly, Mass and eventually he and his family moved to Haverhill. Over the course of his life, he married two women Lena King and Antonia Iellamo (Yellum). If you look at his WikiTree profile, you will see that the man had seventeen children with thirteen surviving to adulthood or close to it. One died when he was eighteen. Still, that is a LOT of children to take care of!

    I found out he that was known as a "national detective" while looking him up in various censuses and other documents. Oddly enough, he had two different professions on his two World War I draft cards. That's right. He had TWO World War I draft cards. Why? I have no idea. I used to think there were two different men with the same name living in Haverhill. However, there's a note on one of the cards which states in the margin "This man previously registered June 5th, 1917 on card #466"

    Having two World War I draft cards is a bit of a curiosity by itself. To make things even more interesting, he had two different birth dates on them and he listed himself as a "mill operator". His older draft card listed him as a "shoe maker". So, when was he known as a "national detective"? To answer that question, we must look at the 1920 census in Haverhill.

    

    Shortly after the death of his fist wife Lena in 1918, Paolo and his children started living with his sister, Concetta, brother-in-law Vincenzo and their family. On the census, you see that his job was listed as "city detective". It seems that some time between 1917 and 1920 he became a detective. Not bad. I'm not sure what the circumstances were. However, I am impressed he made it that far in three short years! I noted his profession on WikiTree and let it simmer until I got a DNA match who descended from his daughter, Beatrice. She confirmed that her great-grandfather was indeed a detective and that's not all! She gave me what is essentially a genealogy book of her family and inside its pages is a story about one of his cases!

Antonia Iellamo

    The book was compiled by a genealogist named Mary Smith in 1992. Apparently, she did a lot of research into the family of Antonia Iellamo, the second wife of our detective friend Paolo. She traced her story back to San Pietro and being the daughter of Francesco Iellamo and Caterina Cortese of San Pietro a Maida. She also included some riveting tales about her family, descriptions of the people and so much more. It's basically genealogical gold!

    One of the stories was actually the story of how Antonia met Paolo. Antonia's sister, Mary, was apparently known throughout Haverhill for her beauty. She was tricked into a loveless marriage at the age of fourteen. Her parents found out about it and the abuse she suffered so she was sent to a "Home for little Wanderers" in Jamaica Plains for her own safety. 

    When Mary turned sixteen, she returned to Haverhill and worked with her older sisters at various shops. It was soon revealed that she was secretly dating the man who would eventually become her second husband! Sadly, the second marriage was also turbulent and the birth of four children did nothing to calm down the tensions. She was apparently pretty restless. If this story took place in the 1960s she'd have totally gone to Woodstock.

    I digress. Before she met and married her second husband, she was seen around town with her first husband whose name was Peter Trainor. Peter was known to drive by the local grammar school to pick up Mary. One day he picked up Mary and her friend Edith. He dropped Edith off at her house and drove with Mary to Portland, Maine. She was located there by our hero, Paolo, who had been hired by her very frantic parents.

Mary Iellamo

    Mary was returned home and even though there were no signs of abuse Paolo must have sensed something was off and let the family know about his feelings. Regardless of the warning, the Iellamos let her marry Trainor. This proved to be a bad call on their part because not long afterward it was reported by his family that Peter was quite abusive to his new wife. The family, Paolo and even her physician all agreed that the two needed to be separated and divorce proceedings were held in 1924.

    Because of her age she was placed in the "Home for Little Wanderers" There she learned handcrafting. She later met Speros Spelios and had four children with him and passed away in April of 1971. I know I am supposed to be objective but it's a GOOD thing she got out of there and it sounds like she eventually had a happy ending despite everything that happened to her in the 1920s.

    This is the only one of Paolo's cases that I know about. I'm sure there are many others. It's one thing to read a document that says this guy was a private eye and another thing entirely to learn the detective was basically a hero. That is beyond cool. That's just awesome. 'Nuff said. I've told my cousin that her great-grandfather was a hero and she agreed with me.

    It's honestly amazing what you learn when you ask the right questions or look at the right document. You won't get a story like this in a census or anything like that. At best you could maybe get a police report. Even then it'd be minimal and who knows if they keep case files that are about a century old at this point. Of course there's also the tried and true newspaper archives. Perhaps this case was reported in the Haverhill Gazette? It's possible. I would have to know when this case happened before I could even think to look for it.

    Either way, it's great to know that someone in the family, even if he is distantly related to me, was helping people. Paolo had eight children with Antonia including my DNA match's grandmother. I'm fairly sure she thanked him for helping the family as he did. He may have met her under some interesting circumstances. Even back then love worked in mysterious ways. You really can't argue with the results.

    Paolo and Antonia lived together for many years until he passed away in 1954. She passed away just five years later. From what I've been told by my cousin and other DNA matches who descend from Paolo is that Detective Coppola was definitely a hero. There is no doubt about that. He may not have been Batman. But, he was still pretty cool.

    I'm curious to see if there's more to the story. What made him decide to be a detective? What did his family think of his career path? I'll probably never have answers to those questions and it'll annoy me for some time. For now, I'm sure everyone was happy Detective Paolo Coppola was on the case! As for me, I'm always going to be curious. Can't help it!

See ya next time!

Editor's note: In April of 2023, I found that Giovanni Coppola was not the brother of Paolo, Caterina and Concetta Coppola. He is likely a first cousin of the three. Look for details in a future blog post.