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.