52 Ancestors Week 35: Disaster

 From Amy Johnson Crow: The theme for Week 35 is "Disaster." (I want to point out that this theme was chosen long before any of the catastrophic events that we've seen in the past few weeks.) Disasters come in may forms. They can be personal or they can affect an entire community. You can also have a disaster in your research.

That's great it starts with an earthquake...

    The last time I wrote about a disaster was back in February 2020 before the world shut down thanks to the human malware aka Covid. Oof. Talk about bad timing. That blog was about an error in my tree that I have since corrected. Let's now turn our attention to disasters of the natural sort. Since I live in New Hampshire we don't really have many earthquakes and when we do they're usually very minor. We typically have blizzards, the occasional hurricane and other storms here in New England. 

Lush and fertile lands come at a price.

    However, one part of the world is known for its many earthquakes and volcanos. It has been said that Italy's natural beauty comes at a price since the country sits near many fault lines and many volcanos dot the landscape. In fact, millions of people still live near Mount Vesuvius! I guess they didn't learn much from their experience with Pompeii.

      It's not like Vesuvius stopped erupting in 79 AD. The volcano erupted many times in the early 20th century and could very well be the one of the reasons why people left the country. Hey. Would you stick around if a volcano kept erupting? Is good pizza really worth your life at this point?!

    Seriously, there may be some truth to natural disasters being the reason why people leave one country for another. Sure economic factors played a role in people leaving. You can't forget that natural disasters also were contributing factors and Italy definitely didn't have an organization like FEMA around to help them out at the time.

    I don't know for certain if any of my ancestors in Italy left the country due to natural disasters running rampant at the time. However, I can say with certainty that some people in my family tree were directly impacted by those events and one in particular may have forced him to move clear across the planet.

La famiglia di Coppola

     In the Italians in Haverhill book, it was said that Giovanni Coppola's  unnamed daughter was lost in an earthquake. Could her death have been the reason why this Coppola family moved to Haverhill? When did it happen exactly? Well, if you look at Giovanni's page on WikiTree, you'll notice that there is a ten year gap between the births of his daughter Angelina and his son Frank.

    Angelina was born in San Pietro in 1898 and Frank was born in Haverhill in 1908. This means that somewhere in middle of those years a daughter could have been born to Giovanni Coppola and Natalina Marinaro. That's just conjecture at this point because Giovanni arrived in America in 1898. Though, he could have made the trip back to Italy after arriving.

    Let me pitch this scenario to you.  We know Giovanni and Natalina were married in San Pietro in 1898 thanks to information provided in the blurb below the picture. Angelina was born on September 16th of that year. Giovanni arrived in America on November 18th, 1898 with a Marinaro who was his brother-in-law. Would it be out of line to say that he stayed in America for a short time, went back to Italy for a couple years and had another daughter before coming back to America? I think this scenario works. 

    Between 1898 and 1908, Calabria was hit by three earthquakes with the strongest being a 7.2 magnitude quake on September 8th, 1905. Twenty-five villages were destroyed and 5,000 people lost their lives. San Pietro a Maida wasn't listed as one of the villages hit. However, you can bet that there were aftershocks. The next one to hit Calabria was on October 23rd, 1907 and registered a 5.9 on the richter scale. That quake was at the tip of the peninsula and the same area was hit again in January 1908.

 

      Frank was born on April 12th 1908. This meant that the Coppolas narrowly missed being involved in the great Messina earthquake. That one happened on December 28th, 1908 and caused unfathomable amounts of destruction since the cities of Reggio Calabria and Messina were almost completely destroyed. Between 75,000 and 82,000 people perished as well.

  Could this have been the earthquale mentioned in the book? I'm not sure. Maybe. The Coppolas were known to go back and forth many times and the earliest reference to them aside from Frank's birth was in the 1910 census in Haverhill. The only ship manifest I found for Natalina was in 1929 and I have a feeling that was just a visit.

    With all that said, is it possible that the constant earthquakes pushed the family to move clear across the planet? I would have to say "Yes." only because after everything that happened to his family Giovanni seemed to be quite eager to get family members out of southern Italy! I don't think anyone can blame him! So many families owe their passage to that man it's not even funny at this point. He may have thought "I want to get my friends and family out of Italy as soon as possible!!" The poor guy lost a young child to a natural disaster and I wish I knew her name so I could immortalize her on WikiTree. I doubt he wanted to lose any more friends and family.

    There is a solution of course. I could ask San Pietro if there were any Coppolas born to Giovanni and Natalina between 1898 and 1908. Her details would provide valuable insight into what prompted Giovanni and co to leave that town behind.

    The Coppola family's story is like many others Italians in that era had to face. It's easy to see why a natural disaster coupled with economic hardship forced them to move. I could be right about my theory. I could also be wrong. That's the fun thing about genealogy. You can make a theory and there may or may not be a right answer.

    At least we know that the Coppolas made a great home for themselves in Haverhill after the death of the daughter. The long lost daughter's documents may turn up in the future. Only time will tell. Many other Italians likely share the same story like I said. It's sad. But, in a way they managed to thrive in a new land despite whatever our small blue planet threw at them.

See ya next time!

P.S. This week's banner song was also the theme song for my high school graduating class's video yearbook. I wonder if that's a bad sign. Keep in mind I graduated in 1997.