52 Ancestors Week 15: Solitude

From Amy Johnson Crow: The theme for Week 15 is "Solitude." Is there someone in your family tree who lived by themselves or would seek out time to be alone? Celebrate them this week by writing part of their story.

Did you really think I'd pass up using Superman's crystal
fortress as a banner this week?!

    We humans are social creatures. Even though many of us crave solitude in order to collect our thoughts in an attempt to appear mysterious and brooding we are in fact very social creatures. We've been that way since the earliest days of human history. Like-minded families formed clans and that eventually gave way to nations over a period of thousands of years. 

    Now, picture yourself as a traveler from that land. Circumstances have led you to want to venture far from everything you ever knew and everyone you've ever loved. You travel for thousands of miles and find yourself to be the first of your countrymen in a strange land with customs that are unfamiliar to your own. You feel isolated, alone and you seek the companionship of those who share your language, customs and history. The solitude you feel leads you to want to seek out family who live far away. It's the only way you know how to survive in a strange land.

It's a boot kicking two rocks!

    If you have an immigrant ancestor like I do, then that story should sound very familiar to you. Everyone has someone in their family tree who came from somewhere. It doesn't matter if your family arrived at a specific nation five hundred years ago or last week. We all have an immigrant story in our family history. Mine is no different and I find myself wondering just how isolated and alone the first Italians who arrived in Haverhill felt back in the day and how they handled solitude in a strange and at times unfriendly environment.

    The jury's still out on who was the first Italian in my family to arrive in Haverhill many decades ago. Was it Giuseppe and Clementina? They arrived in the 1910s along with my great-grandfather Vincenzo. If we really want to get picky about it, we'd go by the dates on the ship manifests and in that case the title would ultimatly go to Giuseppe Carrabs who first arrived in 1902, eleven years before Vincenzo set foot on American soil.

   This seemed like an open and shut case.  However, Giuseppe went back to Gesualdo as his daughter Jennie was born there in 1907. We're looking for someone who didn't go back and forth like many Italians did back then. That takes Vincenzo out of the equation, too since he also was a "bird of passage". Okay. So, who WAS the first Italian to go to Haverhill and just STAYED there?! This also rules out his brother Rocco since he went to America in 1904 and returned to Gesualdo.

La famiglia di Coppola

  Italians have been in Haverhill since the latter half of the 19th century. They trickled in from time to time, took up residence in town and found jobs in the new mills along the Merrimack. It wasn't until the massive migration in the early 20th century that we saw tons of families arriving in the Queen Slipper city.

    One of those families was the family of Giovanni Coppola. Giovanni was the younger brother of my 2nd great-grandmother, Caterina and he was probably one of the first people who came from San Pietro a Maida to Haverhill in 1905. I'm willing to bet that even amongst his fellow Italians, his family had to deal with a fair bit of solitude and isolation because when he arrived in Haverhill, many of the Italian immigrants living there were from the northern part of Italy and San Pietro is in the south.

    That distinction really shouldn't have mattered since they were all Italians. However, many in the north viewed the south as poor and there was a strong divide in Italy at the time between the northern and southern regions. Unfortunately, this led to a great deal of solitude and isolation even among their own countrymen. What was a San Pietro native to do? He was far from home and his fellow Italian neighbors probably whispered rumors about him behind his back once they learned where he came from. Well, he did what anyone in his shoes would have done. He sent for his family and anyone else willing to leave San Pietro for Haverhill.

Not the first. But, certainly not
the last!

       In hindsight, it seemed like the most logical thing to do. If your family is alone and none of the other Italians in the area wanted to play nice in the sandbox, there's really not much else you can do but call for people from your home town. Granted, there was the fact that conditions were pretty poor back home and that gave people more of an incentive to leave.

    In 1902, his brother Paolo left San Pietro. However, he didn't join Giovanni in Haverhill right away as he lived in Beverly for a brief period. He did eventually join him in the city after he married his first wife Lena in 1909.

  Another person in the family to leave San Pietro behind was his sister, Concetta who arrived with her family in 1911. I really think her arrival probably aleviated some of the solitude Giovanni must have felt. Who better to help someone feel more at ease in a strange land than a sister, his brother-in-law and their children?

    Not long after their arrival, my great-grandfather Vincenzo paid the family a visit and headed back home. Part of me wonders if he spread the word about just how great a place Haverhill was because shortly thereafter many San Pietro natives found themselves boarding ships bound for New England. Vincenzo would return again and again before settling down in the 1920s and sending for his wife and two children.

    It's an interesting idea and there may be little bit of truth to the story. I can definitely see Vincenzo telling people about the opportunities in America and Giovanni inviting every family member he could over to America. Did it really happen? It's fun to think about because so many families were invited by him and actually stopped by his house in Haverhill according to various ship manifests. To list them all would take a while.

    Giovanni must have felt happier once his fellow San Pietro natives were around and he took up a job as a grocer to likely help feed his family and help support the growing population of Italians in the city. He was no longer alone as his people from his home town were there to help aleviate the struggles he had to endure. After all there's strength in numbers.

    I should probably note that Giovanni also traveled back and forth from San Pietro to Haverhill many times. He did it on: November 10th 1898 aboard the Alsatia and on September 17th, 1929 aboard the Augustus.

The wedding of Domenico
Pallaria and Maria Giampa

    Giovanni's situation probably isn't all that unique if you think about it. Many other immigrants likely felt alone in a strange land and called for family members to come over as well. These days we call it "chain migration" where a family member desires the companionship of their kin. 

    However, what sets Giovanni apart from most other immigrants was that not only did he send for cousins, siblings and other relatives, he sent for friends as well. The more I think about it, the more I begin to realize that he wanted to recreate San Pietro a Maida in Haverhill.

   I know that sounds like a plan a supervillain would cook up. But, it makes sense doesn't it? For a time he was one of the few from San Pietro IN the city. His fellow Italians and others probably contributed to him feeling isolated so he felt the need to contact people from his home town and asked them to join him. With conditions being the way they were back home, they likely jumped at the chance to leave and boarded the ships when they could.

    Is this all true? I'm not sure. However, it'd make for a good movie. See next week's 52 Ancestors for details! In any case, it's likely the logical reason for why so many from San Pietro immigrated to Haverhill. One man's solitude in a strange new world eventually led to droves of people from that one Calabrian town to come to America. The rest as they say is history. And a movie....

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.