52 Ancestors Week 47: Wrong Side of the Law

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 47

This week's theme is "Wrong Side of the Law." Scoundrels. Ne'er-do-wells. Criminals. Every family has them. This week, explore someone like that in your family tree. 

Breakin’ the law! Breakin’ the law!

When it comes to being on the wrong side of the law, I’ve never been too sure if anyone in my family tree had ever committed a crime. It’s not like I’ve never looked for newspaper articles about them! I have. Everyone seems to have been on the straight and narrow for the most part. For example, you’d be hard pressed to find anything about the Mafia in my tree. Let’s face it. Don Giovanni isn’t going to keep paperwork on file about the capos working under him and you won’t see Mafia records on Ancestry! You’d have to go somewhere else for that kind of information and if you do, you’d better watch your back. Remember what happened to Fredo!

This doesn’t mean that everyone was a goodie two shoes. No, no, no, no, no. Everyone has got a story and everyone has a past. History isn’t all sunshine and rainbows and sometimes someone unexpected could do something that certainly was a crime in his day.

I recently learned that my great-grandfather, Alfred Hamel used to help run liquor during the Prohibition. Prohibition in the United States ran from 1920 to 1933 and was a nationwide law which strictly prohibited the sale, production, importation and transportation of alcoholic beverages in the United States. Many people didn’t like that law and found various loopholes and consumed alcoholic beverages in secret in places called “speakeasies”. 

While I am fairly certain that Alfred here wasn’t tending bar at one of those speakeasies, I am sure that he found other ways to be useful during those dry times. During the Prohibition, Alfred was working on boats prior to opening his Fix-it shop in Newburyport, Mass. The city is situated at the mouth of the Merrimack river and so he had his hands full tending to the boats of various rum runners hoping to sell their wares up and down the river. As far as I know, he never got caught!

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the city was a hotspot for rum running. Newburyport was also known as a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Even though the river can be a bit choppy on even the clearest of clear days, it was still an important river as goods and people could be transported around fairly quickly. Rum runners would be hard to detect if they were sailing around in the wee hours. However, there were hazards along the way. 

Speakeasies were still raided from time to time and the people running the booze had to make tracks for the harbor. Once there, they has to quickly board ships and make tracks for international waters just three miles off of the Massachusetts coast. These weren’t necessarily sailboats, by the way. These were speedboats rushing out of the river to meet up with larger vessels which were full of all kinds of contraband!

Many rum runners were still caught and as you can imagine it didn’t deter people one bit. Let it be known that we humans will do anything to get that glass of scotch! For some interesting stories about Prohibition era Newburyport, check this article out.

It’s crazy to think that at the center of all the Prohibition drama Alfred was fixing the boats for the rum runners. Sadly, you’d wouldn’t be able to find any information and solid evidence of his actions. Like I said he was never caught and you can bet that the police would have loved to have talked to the guy who was fixing their boats. 

There must have been some code the runners went by. They didn’t want Alfred to get in trouble so they didn’t squeal on the repairman. That’s honestly pretty cool. It’s like there was a “honor among thieves” situation. He’d help them and in return he wouldn’t be identified should a sailor running booze be caught by the US Coast Guard.

So, the question remains. How did my mother find out about this? Apparently, there was a family discussion about this ages ago and she remembered the stories her own grandfather told her while she was growing up. Whether or not this was family lore is up for debate. I can definitely see all of this happening. Let’s look at the facts.

1. Alfred was good with his hands and he certainly had the means to repair the speedboats.

2. He talked about the experience with his family and this showed that he knew a great deal about speakeasies up and down the Merrimack. Oh and let’s not forget that the port city where he lived was a hotbed of illicit activity.  For detail on the speakeasy experience, check this article out.

It’s a shame that there is basically little to no information on Alfred’s involvement. I know it’s hearsay since it’s family lore. However , it is possible given the time and place he lived. It’s cool to think that he was involved in such a counter culture movement. I have so many questions I’d love to ask him. Why did he do it? Did he have any interesting stories to tell? How did you avoid getting caught?! My family tree already has cool stories and this is one I definitely want to hear more about. Family history has shades of gray and you have to admit some stories like this are the ones worth telling!

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 46: Tombstones

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 46: Tombstones

This week's theme is one of my favorites: "Tombstones." Cemeteries are near and dear to many of us. Whose tombstone stands out to you? Was it something on the tombstone, the effort to find it, or who was buried there that makes it special to you?

An oldie but a goodie.

 What will you have on your tombstone? I’ll have sausage, caramelized onions with ricotta cheese and garlic knots on the crust. Wow. Now that I think about it, that pizza is a recipe for bad breath. It’s also a real thing you can order at Granfanally’s in Salem, NH. I digress. Tombstones aren’t just a tasty brand of pizza, you know. They are a memorial to loved ones who have passed on and a monument to those who have gone before us. They serve to remind us of our family’s history and they all have a story to tell.

The tombstones at Haverhill’s Saint Patrick’s Cemetery are no exception. My dad’s cousin Bob has taken me there a few times and he has told me some of the history of the place where our ancestors and several of our relatives are buried. On the surface, Saint Patrick’s appears to be the de facto Italian and Lithuanian  cemetery in the city as evidenced by some stones with names engraved in Italian and markers which read “Buona Fortuna” embedded in the ground. The Lithuanian stones have Cyrillic script and tend to be just as elaborate as this stone for Vincenzo Ferraiolo, Marco Ferraiolo, Olympia Carrabs, Maria Tedesco and Fortuna Grasso as seen here.

Growing up, this was the stone I went to the most because every Christmas and Memorial Day my father made it a point to visit and decorate it with flowers or with a wreath.  We would also go down to where my great-grandparents Giuseppe Carrabs and Clementina Forgione are buried and pay our respects since they were right down the “road” in another section of the property.

For years and years, that was the extent of my exploration of the tombstones at Saint Patrick’s since I really didn’t see the need to explore until recently when cousin Bob took me on a tour of the grounds. I wanted to look for the Coppolas and instead found more than I could have ever imagined! I’m not going to go through all of the stones I’ve checked out. I’m just going to talk about the ones that took me ages to find and what significance they have to my family.

First up is a stone that I really should have noticed years and years ago. I mean it didn’t exactly GO anywhere! Tombstones don’t just get up and move around, right? For a while, I was looking for Giovanni Coppola’s tombstone and I had no idea just how close it was to a stone I was already very familiar with. It was actually two stones away from my grandparents’ marker! Talk about being observant! How did I miss that?! Well, there’s a perfectly good explanation for this. The front of the stone hid all of the secrets! 

Seriously! It looks innocent enough! But, I don’t think you can blame me for this one mistake. This time! I’m sure there’ll be other chances!

 Looking at the front, you’d think anyone with the last name Coppola would be buried there just because of how ridiculously common the last name “Coppola” is.  For years that’s what I thought until I began my search for the stone. I had a hunch he was in the area and several trees and documents mentioned that he was buried at Saint Patrick’s. I had a clue and thus began my search!

The last time we were there to decorate, I wondered if the Coppola stone near my family was the droid I was looking for. My parents were cleaning up and I took it upon myself to look at the back of the stone to check the names out. I think the “HELL YEAH!!!” I exclaimed when I saw the names on the back may have woken the dead. In that case, I am sorry/not sorry, 2nd great-uncle and nearby relatives. 

Buried with Giovanni (whose name was anglicized for some reason) were his wife, Natalina, three of their children and two of their spouses. Quite a few people, right? I thought so! Of course these aren’t the only Coppolas there. The cemetery has a ton of other Coppolas buried there and only one family isn’t connected to me. I’ve checked. That just goes to show you just how common the last name is! The other Coppola family seemed to have come from Sicily.

Oh and I think Giovanni’s name was probably anglicized to John because that might have been what he was known as in life. Then again Vincenzo was known as James and Giuseppe was known as Joseph. Maybe the family just wanted to put “John” on there? Who can say? I do know that it is definitely the stone of the man who worked as a grocer and brought many people from San Pietro to Haverhill.

I haven’t found this stone in person, yet. This is the one for Giovanni’s sister, Concetta, her husband, their son James and his wife. This is an important one to find because my cousin who lives in the Calabrian town of Maida never met his grandmother and has asked me about her final resting place. I think I might have talked about him before. Here’s a recap. Concetta’s son, Francesco, was sent back to San Pietro a Maida shortly after the birth of his youngest child. I still don’t know the circumstances behind his departure. But, when Francesco returned to San Pietro, he married another woman and the rest is history. I haven’t been too sure how to brooch the topic with my cousin. I would think a bit of tact would need to be involved.

In any case, I helped help fill in the blanks about Concetta and showed him a picture of her from the “Italians in Haverhill” book. Someone on Find a Grave eventually put this photo online and as you might have guessed, I showed my cousin the photos. He was very appreciative and I was just too happy to help. After all he is a cousin. What else could I do? Some day I’ll find the stone in person and for now this was the best I could offer him.

There is still one Coppola in Saint Patrick’s that I’m looking for and his name is Detective Paolo Coppola. I had some trouble finding his stone until recently. I am very close to finding it as I called the Catholic Cemetery Association and they emailed me the exact location for the stone. It’s actually in the same general area as Giuseppe and Clementina’s stone! So, when next we go decorate, I will be making a bee line to that section and I will take a picture of the stone. Why not? I already have three Coppola sibling stones. The one for my 2nd great-grandmother, Caterina is actually in San Pietro.

I got a picture of it from my cousin, Adriana. It’s nice! But, it’s not really a tombstone. It looks more like a memorial. I’ll be sure to share it some time! It should also be noted that most Italian tombstones include pictures of the deceased. That is pretty cool. I wonder why that practice isn’t common in America. 

In any case, the tombstones in Saint Patrick’s are among the many stones that serve as memorials for various family members. It’s been fun exploring the grounds and connecting the stones with living family members all around the world. I’ve shown Vincenzo’s stone to my cousin Caterina and I’ve shown Concetta’s to her grandson, Vincenzo. They reacted positively and in a way they received some closure since they live so far away and I’m happy to do whatever I can to help. Though, I get the feeling many other San Pietro residents today also have relatives who were buried in Saint Patrick’s. The odds, it seems, are very likely. 

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.

52 Ancestors Week 45: Ghost Story

 From Amy Johnson Crow: This week's theme is "Ghost Story." Any haunted houses in the family or an ancestor who is supposed to be haunting one? Let your imagination run with this one!

Sometimes **** happens. Someone has to deal with it and
who're you going to call?

    It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that the city of Haverhill has had many ghost stories and sightings over its almost four hundred year history. Several of its cemeteries have been reported to be haunted like Hilldale Cemetery where the ghosts of the original settlers are said to roam the twenty acre property. Civil War era ghosts have also been sighted there as well. There are so many sightings that the city has even organized "ghost tours" every Halloween night. Here's a video of one such tour! Watch if you dare! MWAHAHAHA!

    Other cemeteries and homes in the city are also said to be haunted like Walnut Cemetery where a fourteen year-old girl known as "The Lady in White" is said to wander the grounds. Scary, huh? I wonder if she ever ran into the Felkers and my great-grandmother who are among the many members of my family buried there. Who can say? I've never stayed at those cemeteries after dark and it's not like I've never had an experience with the paranormal. I have. Gather 'round, everyone. It's time for a ghost story for the ages!

Grandma Ollie.

    I've long felt that there are things in this world that defy explanation. We don't know everything and sometimes things just don't make any sense. We may never know the answer to several questions like "Why do we hear a bump in the night?" Is it really just the house settling or is it something more?

     I know I've told this story before and it is a good one! When my grandmother Ollie passed away in 2002, I definitely felt some presence in her house when we were trying to sell it and various odds and ends at a yard sale. I think it's time to go more in depth into this story!

    This is a really personal story and I don't think I'll ever forget it. It's not just because I was upset over losing my grandmother. Who wouldn't be? I loved her and I saw her practically every week or two since she lived very close by. To say I was close to my grandmother was a bit of an understatement.

    Grandma Ollie taught me so much about my grandfather since he passed away when I was four. She and her sisters all talked to me about their parents. Ollie cooked a lot of great food and was generally a great person. No other words could describe her!

    So, when she passed away in February of 2002, I was a bit upset. My parents did their best to cheer me up since I had my college graduation that May and my brother's wedding in August to look forward to. They had a point. However, I still felt like something was missing. I couldn't explain it. Everyone mourns in their own way. But, I just felt like something was off. I definitely felt that feeling when I stepped into her house for the first time and not seeing her greeting us. It just wasn't something I was used to, you know?

Is Grandma's house still haunted?!

    By March of that year we were getting ready to sell the property and we had a yard sale after we brought home several of the things we wanted to keep like the infamous box and several photographs. For details of those contents, please check this blog out.

    I didn't have much to do other than organize the remaining photos we were going to take home with us. I remember looking at a picture of my great-grandfather, Giuseppe in the living room and suddenly hearing a woman's voice calling my name. At first I dismissed it and put the picture away. I thought it was nothing and went about my business. The house wasn't that old. So, I didn't think there was a ghost--At first!

    A bit of house history for you! Grandma Ollie's house once belonged to my great-grandfather Vincenzo and his second wife, Fortuna. It was left to my grandfather, Marco in 1970 when Vincenzo passed away and the rest is history. House history!

    I sat down to do some reading on the very couch where my brother and I once played with our toys whenever grandma would watch us. Memories actually came flooding back from out of nowhere and I felt like I was suddenly transported seventeen years or so into the past. I suddenly remembered which Transformer I was playing with on the couch and again heard a woman's voice and this time it clearly said my name, "Christopher."

    My grandmother never really called me "Chris". It was always, always just "Christopher" and no it wasn't because I was in trouble or anything. She always called my brother "Little Jimmy". But, that's another story! I shook my head and started to read again and when I tried, I heard the voice call my name again. "Christopher", she called and this time it sounded exactly like grandma Ollie! I was freaking out at this point and I called for my mother who was working on something in the kitchen.

    My mother came into the living room to see what I was up to and I told her I was hearing grandma Ollie's voice and I stopped for a second. Grandma Ollie had a very specific scent from the perfume she used and I could smell it in the air. I looked at my mom and she said she thought she smelled something in the living room, too.

    Here's where things go into "Paranormal Activity" territory. We told my dad what was going on and he tended to believe in the supernatural based on a few experience he had. For example, when he was working in the basement in our house or at grandma's he could sense his father's presence. He had a particular odor, I guess, and he just felt like he smelt him nearby. My dad said it was the strangest thing. I believe him. So, here's where things took a turn into the paranormal. We needed to put theory into practice!

I think this pic speaks for itself.

    My grandmother was known to have a bit of a sweet tooth. She loved chocolate and she would always keep a tissue around to clean herself up with. Knowing this, my father decided to put a Hershey bar on the kitchen table just in case anything were to happen to the candy. The bait was set and we locked everything up before we left. The front, side and back doors were all locked up tight and we went on our way.

    A day passed and we went to the house to check on the candy bar. To our surprise all that was left of the candy bar was the wrapper and next to it was a tissue that was folded up very neatly next to it.

    Now, you might think the place had been broken into but keep in mind that all the doors and windows were completely locked. There were no signs of any intrusion. The remaining furnishings were not stolen. There was no sign of any crimes. There was just an empty wrapper and a tissue on the table. That was it!

    My father smiled and he knew it was probably his mother's ghost that ate the candy. I think we should all be relieved it wasn't a poltergeist or something from "The Frightners". That wouldn't have been cool because we sold the house shortly thereafter and I don't think selling a house with a vengeful spirit residing in it would be a GOOD idea. Do you?!

Who IS that adorable baby?! ;)

    Whatever the case is, I'm pretty sure I ran into a spirit from the other side who was trying to talk to me. Was my grandmother trying to tell me that things were going to be okay? I'd like to think that she was. It is a mystery. 

    The supernatural is one of those things we may never truly figure out and I can't really talk to my grandmother about it unless I had access to a medium or a Ouija board.

    I do wonder something, though. Did her spirit pass on to the other side after that day? Or is she, along with my grandfather, at my parents' house? I haven't heard her voice call my name. So, maybe not. Whatever the case is, it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. Perhaps not all experiences with the paranormal should be frightening. In an odd way, perhaps it was comforting.

    In the end, I think I'll take that as such. Like I said before, I was really close to my grandmother for a variety of reasons. Maybe hearing her voice was her way of telling me I was going to be okay without her. That's what I'll take from my encounter with the supernatural. At least I knew for a fact she was a friendly ghost. =)

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 44: Shadows

 From Amy Johnson Crow: This week's theme is "Shadows." There are some ancestors who seem to hide in darkness, whose stories are hard to tease out. There are also people who "live in the shadow" of someone else. This week, shine some light on one of those ancestors.

This is a contender for best header of the year.

    The people of Haverhill have many stories to tell and as I've been working on my "Italians in Haverhill" tree over on Ancestry, people who have relatives in the tree have taken notice of my work. Everyone from DNA matches to random people checking things out have seen the tree and have even sent me private messages. This is a classic case of cousin bait and it has also pulled some long forgotten stories out of the shadows and back into the light. Here is one of those stories!

    A while back I was contacted by a genealogist named Ashley Gallant who also had deep connections to the "Queen Slipper City". She was born there and had long since moved away from New England. Like me she has Italian and Quebecois roots. However, I didn't realize at first just how well connected we probably were to each other and to the Italian population in Haverhill!

    She initially came across several photos from the "Italians in Haverhill" book that I had uploaded to the site and naturally had many questions for me. Ashley was initially curious about the Coppola family in the book and our possible connection there. I told her everything I knew from Giovanni Coppola bringing everyone over from San Pietro a Maida to Haverhill to Concetta Coppola and her family. As you can imagine there was a lot of ground to cover and at times I felt like I was overwhelming her. It's all good, though. I gave the information in spurts and linked her to WikiTree on multiple occasions. I've even linked her to the blog a few times. It's not a shameless plug when you're doing genealogy! It's probably a good idea to give people information slowly, though. Don't overwhelm people!

   Ash was very determined to find our connection and this week the shadowy clues about our connection came flying into the light at warp speed!

    Over on Familysearch I saw that she added the 1950 census to Concetta Coppola. I thanked her for her work because when I tried to attach the document myself the site wouldn't let me. Thankfully, the glitch was fixed and now I can add the 1950 census to my family! The hints, it seems, seem to go in waves because I hadn't gotten a 1950 census hint for my grandfather Marco yet. Keyword: YET!

    I digress. I asked her what she had been up to and she was still trying to find our connection. She was looking for a record for Angelina Politano who was supposedly the sister of her 2nd great-grandmother, Maria Politano. After I told her to contact the commune office in San Pietro for details, I thought for a second. Where did I see the last name "Politano" before?

    It seemed oddly familiar! You ever come across something that sort of triggers a tickling sensation in your head? Just me? Huh. I guess I really do have a spider-sense.

    The last time I saw the last name "Politano" was in the funeral booklet for my great-grandmother, Maria Tedesco. The gears started turning in my head and I started to ask her questions for a change. She provided me with some names like "Giuseppe Barberio" and "Nazarene Benedetti" my way and my eyes widened. THOSE NAMES WERE IN THE BOOKLET, TOO!  I told her about the booklet and asked her if any names stood out for her and they sure did.

    Giuseppe was Angelina Politano's husband and Nazarene Benedetti was Angelina's daughter ,Angelina's husband. As you could imagine my head was spinning at this point. I asked her if she was connected to Benedetti's Deli and she said that they were cousins of hers. Nazarene's brother, Marcellus, had a son named Joseph who opened the deli in 1961 on Washington Street and as it happens my great-aunt Louise once worked there!

    By sheer coincidence, Marcellus Benedetti was married to Mollie D'Agosto who was connected to the Santa Amelia Gullo I talked about in my first blog in 2021! Don't say it. I can already hear "It's a Small World" playing in my head. It really was a small world when everyone was living within five miles of each other and was in everyone else's business. They probably even knew what size shoe everyone wore. I mean some of them DID work in shoe factories.

    It really shouldn't surprise me that I have these connections. But, when this information comes out of the shadows like this it really makes me wonder just how deep those ties were. Were they friends of Maria? Distant cousins? Well-wishers? What was going on in early March 1943?! I'll probably never know the full answer to that question and while finding the connections was awesome and everything, we still needed to prove that Angelina and Maria were sisters.

Aboard the S.S. Italia.... in April of 1912?! Uhh....

  A man named Fortunato Politano was living with Ash's second great-grandmother and her family at the time of the 1920 and 1930 census. That was clearly her father and thus Ash's third great-grandfather. There was no mistaking that. He was listed as a widower and they arrived in 1912. Sadly, there is not much about his wife, Concetta Sabsanito out there at the moment. Even her last name is a bit of a mystery oddly enough.

Turns out you really CAN fight city hall!

    All isn't completely lost of course. To truly find the answers we seek, one must simply go to Haverhill City Hall and ask for Angelina's death certificate. It would be a bit so much easier going to city hall than asking San Pietro. I sense a field trip coming in the not too distant future as I have her exact date of death.

    Ash's 2nd grandmother passed away in 1954. So, theoretically I could go there and find out once and for all who the ladies' parents were. Seems easy, right? It is.  But, Ash remains convinced that the two were siblings based on a few notes she has taken and the information she has found.

    To get the full scoop, someone is going to have to go to city hall....again!

    I guess you could say this story coaxed most of the connection we have out of the shadows. Let's review the facts. She has Benedetti, Montisanti, Politano and Barberio in her tree and those families were present at Maria's funeral. So, regardless if there's a connection to Angelina or not, there's still a pretty solid basis for a connection to my family. I still wonder if they were friends or related. That's something we'd have to figure out another time.

    Once again I'm going to have to praise the "Italians in Haverhill" book for helping me with these connections. It's an incredibly invaluable resource for anyone interested in genealogy as well. It's not just a niche book for those who have links to Haverhill or are just interested in Italians. The book highlights what life was like decades ago and brings connections that were long since forgotten out of the shadows.

See ya next time! And don't forget to check "Italians in Haverhill" on Amazon! Or Google Books!    

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.

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