52 Ancestors Week 13: Worship

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 13

The theme for Week 13 is "Worship." The lives of many of our ancestors were shaped by their choices (or lack of a choice) in how and where they could worship. This week, consider an ancestor and how their worship practices influenced their life.

Today's service will be conducted in the new Latin.

If you're like me and you come from a predominantly Catholic family, you'll find out pretty quickly that church is a very big deal in the lives of virtually every ancestor in your family tree. You'll attend various services and see people who haven't seen you in ages that will undoubtedly pinch your cheeks until they turn red. Later in life, you'll find that the church you attended was basically attended by just one ethnic group in the city and that various ethnic groups had their own church all around the same city. This was the case with one church in Haverhill, Mass called the Saint Rita's Parish.

All Saints Parish

    Saint Rita's Parish was once the Italian church in Haverhill much like how Saint Joseph's was the French-Candian church and Saint Michael's was the Polish church. I say "was" because in the summer of 1998 those churchs along with Saint George's became the All Saints Parish.

    To say that there was a lot of heartbreak when the churches closed and became All Saints was a bit of an understatement.  After all Parishoners called those churches home and their ancestors very likely attended the same church. The really sad thing is that my Google fu failed me and I couldn't find a picture of Saint Rita's as it was before 1998. So, all I have to show is a picture of All Saints from Google Earth.

    At least I know a great deal about Saint Rita's so it isn't all bad. As you might have guessed it was the main church for everyone in the Italian community in Haverhill. My father, paternal grandparents and both sets of Italian great-grandparents attended services in that building for much of their lives. According to the book, "Italians in Haverhill", Saint Rita's opened in 1915 at the height of the mass immigration of Italians to the city. For eighty-three years it served the people. So, you can imagine there were many strong feelings when it closed.

Grandpa Marco's communion and
girl looking bored behind him.

        I'm not sure why all decided to combine into one church. Did they want to save money? Who can say? My own research into the whys and hows have turned up empty. I do know that all of the congregations converged onto the former Saint Joseph's church once all the is were dotted and the ts were crossed.

    Perhaps they combined because by the 1990s the population of Haverhill wasn't as ethnically diverse as they were when my grandfather Marco had his first communion. More people spoke the same language so there was less a need to have a church for each ethnic group. Sure the city was still diverse in terms of ethnic backgrounds. However, they still spoke the same language.

    It's possible that the Archdiocese in Boston just felt that having so many Catholic churches in one city was a bit cumbersome and they wanted to downsize.  At the end of the day at least the parishoners had the chance to vote on a new name for the church and that is how All Saints got its name. Thankfully, they didn't ask the Internet. I don't the "Churchy McChurchface" would have caught on.

    Of course declining attendance and efforts to save money may have been the main reason why the Archdiocese decided to close the decades' old churches.

    Despite Saint Rita's being long gone, the memories are still there and references to it are found in obituaries, photos and other documents. It may be gone but it's definitely not forgotton as many important events from my own family's history took place there. To list them all would take some time. Trust me.

Marco and Ollie's wedding. Need
to edit out that glare.

        I can talk about two events, though. It's very likely that my grandmother Olympia was baptized in the church in 1920. Some twenty plus years later she married my grandfather Marco in the same place. That's the case for anyone who attended the church and has lived in the same area for decades. When Ollie passed away in 2002, her services were held at All Saints.

    It should be noted that all of Ollie's sisters naturally all attended Saint Rita's! No shock there.

       The church was more than just a place where people could worship and seek counsel from a priest. Due to the fact that there was no "Y" or youth community center in its heyday, many community activities were held there. Sports such as basketball were played on the nearby courts and other events were held like dances and the like. It was there that many youths in the congregation and beyond could come together and hang out without parental supervision. That's not a bad deal if there is no Boys and Girl's club around and afterschool activities were kept to a minimum.

    As you can tell Saint Rita's was an iimportant landmark in the lives of those in Haverhill who were of Italian descent. I only managed to cover a few events from my family tree. There are many, many more. I have an "Italians in Haverhill" tree on Ancestry and virtually every person I've researched has links to Saint Rita's. The church, like many others in the area, still has a place in everyone's hearts. After all two decades isn't all that long. People have fond memories of it closing and while they were saddened to see it go, the memories of generations of baptisms, weddings, funerals and community events still live on and will continue to do so for years to come in digital media and in stories.     

  I just wish I could find a picture of the place!! Sigh. Google Fu failed me.

See ya next time!

All Saint's church picture is property of Google Earth.

52 Ancestors Week 12: Technology

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 12

The theme for Week 12 is "Technology." When we think of technology today, we often think of computers, genetics, or the Internet. But technology for our ancestors would have been something we take for granted today, like electricity or indoor plumbing. How did technology affect the life of one of your ancestors?

Lost in Cyberspace

    These days the technology we have all around us can be taken for granted because a hundred or so years ago a lot of what we use today was in its infancy. The telephone was still a relatively new invention and people living in the 1920s could only dream of staying in constant contact with loved ones on the other side of the planet. Instead, they wrote to them and prayed that those letters reached their final destination. If we were to go back in time to 1924, we would see an incredibly different world.  A lot can happen in a century and it makes you wonder just how someone born in those days could've adapted to the constant changes in their world.

    Take my grandfather Robert Hamel for instance. I'd like to think that he did alright for himself adapting to all the changes in his lifetime. He was born in 1925 and lived through multiple technological revolutions. Though, for the life of me, me and my cousins never really understood why he drove the type of car for decades OR why he watched golf with the television on mute. Someone please tell me that those were just normal "grandpa" things. PLEASE!

    All kidding aside Robert adjusted to technology pretty reasonably well. He'd call me on my birthday when he and my grandmother moved to Florida and whenever he got a new television he'd see if he could find whatever channel was playing golf. You might say that was his favorite sport! The box we have in the basement full of golf magazines is proof of that at least.

    However, the one thing he was never really a master of was the use of the Internet and sending emails. That is until we got him a computer.

    I should probably take that back. It wasn't so much a computer as it was a glorified typewriter with a monitor and a modem attached to it. All it did was send emails to friends and family. That was it! There were no games. No....anything. It was just used for e-mails and that was it. At least he couldn't have gotten a virus that way! 

Not much to look at.

    Technically the device is called a "mailstation" and I'm not going to knock it. It was a useful device that allowed him to remain in contact with his family while he was living in Florida. Everyone was scattered all across the continent and Robert wanted a way to keep in touch with everyone without raking up a huge phone bill. By the Christmas of 2001, my aunt Linda set him up with a mailstation and it was an interesting ride ever since.

    I did my best to try and keep in touch with my grandfather. It wasn't always easy because I had school and everything. Still, I made the effort to email him and sometimes weeks would go by without a reply. At first he was slow to respond. But, at least he got the hang of it and the e-mails steadily became more frequent.

Gee. I wonder where I got my razor wit from....

        Sadly, there were limitations to emailing someone using a mailstation. I couldn't send long e-mails. I definitely couldn't send a picture. I remember one time I tried to send him a picture and he said:

"As you can see the msg you sent was tooooo long for my E mail to receive. Did you also try to send me a picture?"

    I facepalmed hard. At the time I was using Yahoo Mail which for all its faults still allowed you to attach images and write messages at any length. You could also link people to websites. I was so perplexed because I wanted to show him so many things like my very first family tree on Ancestry!

    I asked him if he could switch over to Yahoo so I could show him what I made and if he could offer some pointers. He said no because he had just gotten used to the mailstation. All isn't lost! I eventually did show him my very first family tree. I finally showed him it on one of the first generation iPads in 2010 and he was impressed.

    My grandfather continued to use the mailstation up until his death in 2017. While I do wish that he could have gotten an upgrade over the years to a laptop or even his own iPad, it's still good that he used the mailstation to its fullest. It may not have been the best or coolest device on the planet. But, it still allowed him to communicate with everyone save for a few hiccups here and there. So, it wasn't all bad. It definitely made his life better!

    With it, he:

* Was invited to several graduations.

* Found out he was going to be a great-grandfather several times.

* Kept up on the latest news in the family and more.

    All in all, he did "not bad for an old man" as he used to say.

    I guess an old dog can learn new albeit very limited tricks!

See ya next time!

P.S.

For his 90th birthday he Facetimed with my brother and his family in Virginia. His exact words were "I didn't know you could do that!" when we started chatting with them. He talked to his great-grandson and had a great time. 

52 Ancestors Week 11: Achievement

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 11

The theme for Week 11 is "Achievement." There are many forms of achievement, whether it's winning an award, winning a race, or accomplishing what it was you set out to do. This week, celebrate an achievement (great or small) that one of your ancestor's made.

Imagine if Ancestry had X-Box-style achievements popping up.

    Achievements can come in many forms and when I was thinking about what to write in the blog this week, I was wondering what I could talk about. Do I talk about my dad and how he became the president of the New Hampshire Dental Society? That's cool and everything. However, many steps were taken before he ever banged the gavel at one of those meetings and got the coveted presidential chair that now sits in our dining room. What exactly led to that moment? That's where my great-grandfather, Giuseppe Carrabs comes in because his achievements made my father's big achievements all possible.

Achievement unlocked: Tony Stark
'stache
.

    The first thing that comes to mind when you think of Giuseppe, Vincenzo Ferraiolo or any other Italian immigrant it's that crossing the Atlantic to make a better life for yourself in America is a great achievement. It is. There's no disputing that at all. It's just that many immigrants share that same achievement.  

    To set Giuseppe apart from all the other immigrants, you just have to look at the records and that includes his obituary. In it, you'll find that while he was a custodian at the Pentucket Five Cent Savings Bank in Haverhill he was one of the founding members of the Haverhill Italian Credit Union and that was a huge deal.

    The credit union offered loans to Italian immigrants and their families so they could make a better life for themselves when other banks would deny them loans. And trust me that happened a lot more frequently than you'd think. Banks had issues trusting immigrants. Giuseppe's organization took care of the people they denied.

    That's a pretty big accomplishment. However, there was more to the man than just his work and even his service to the United States during both World Wars. Giuseppe and his wife Clementina raised five daughters including my grandmother at a time when there were a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment. He encouraged the girls to go to school and make better lives for themselves. He clearly valued an education because sadly that was lacking in his and wife's hometown of Gesualdo at the time.

Achievement unlocked: 
Daughter gets married!

    As the years passed, he got to see his children have an education and see them get married to men who valued them and their intelligence. With all daughters, I'm sure that was a pretty big deal for Giuseppe. I don't think he was about to see them off to just anyone.

    Enter my grandfather, Marco. Marco himself was an Italian immigrant who had many achievements of his own like crossing the Atlantic. While he didn't go to Haverhill High like my grandmother, he was still a skilled craftsmen. He learned those skills from his father, Vincenzo. He ended up building things and that for sure likely impressed Giuseppe.

    Giuseppe likely knew the family well and gave the relationship his blessing. Marco and Ollie were married on June 13th, 1946 in Haverhill. Being at the wedding and giving Ollie away was definitely another big achievement for him because she was the youngest of the Carrabs sisters and Ollie was named after a child who died young. So, that was likely a very big deal for Giuseppe and Clementina.

  When my father was born both of his  grandfathers instilled in him the importance of an education and hard work. They told him stories of the trials and tribulations they had growing up, immigrating to America and the struggles they had to endure. All of Giuseppe's grandchildren had the same lesson!

Achievement unlocked: Parents married.

    By the mid 1970s, all of Giuseppe's grandchildren graduated college and were professional doctors, teachers and engineers. When he attended my parents' wedding in 1971, my father had already started dental school and his cousins were all doing well in their various professions.

        It must have been amazing for him to see his children and grandchildren succeed in life when he came from a very humble background. Sure he may have lived vicariously through their achievements. However, it was largely thanks to him and his daughters that everyone managed to get as far as they did. The best part is that he actively encouraged everyone and was an active part of their lives up until he passed away in 1974. That in and of itself is a huge achievement. He lived long enough to see his family do pretty well for themselves.

    

    As you can see, achievements don't always have to be about money or fame or anything like that. Just teaching others and watching them grow into professionals in various fields is enough of an achievement. Giuseppe literally came from nothing and in his life he saw his children and grandchildren become something special. They learned from his lessons and those lessons continue to this day. If that isn't a great achievement, I don't know what is!

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 10: Language

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 10

The theme for Week 10 is "Language." This is a theme where you can let your creativity shine! While you might want to write about an ancestor who spoke a different language than you, you could also explore someone who worked with like (perhaps as a writer or teacher). Any relatives who liked word puzzles?

Temba, his arms wide.

        Ancestors who spoke a different language than me, huh? Well, I think I've got that covered. I mean half of my family tree is Italian and the other half is three-fourths French-Canadian. I've got two of the Romance languages covered and that's pretty cool. Though, I admit I have a much easier time with Italian than I do with French because I've studied Spanish in school. Those two languages have a lot in common despite all three languages having Latin roots! It's interesting to note that while many of my French-Canadian ancestors were born in America, they still spoke French at home. I'm not sure why that was the case. Maybe they just wanted to hang on to a piece of their culture in a rapidly changing world. I don't know. But, I can certainly come up with a few ideas! It was certainly true for my great-grandmother Henrietta Legault and her brothers and sisters at least. They spoke a LOT of French!

Parles-tu français?

    Henrietta may have been born in Lynn, Massachusetts. However, she and her sisters spoke fluent French throughout their lives. That's interesting because in the US Census in Haverhill she and her sisters were listed as English speakers in virtually every census they appeared in! Their mother, Lucie, however was listed as a French speaker in the 1920 census. 

    Since their mother spoke French, it can safely be assumed that she taught her children French as well. Sadly, I have no idea if their father Antoine was proficient in French or not. I can assume he was since he was born in the heart of Quebec near Montréal. Yeah. That dude spoke Français. There's no doubt about it!

   Growing up, my mother would hear Henrietta talk to her younger sisters Clara, Matilda and Blanche in French. For the longest time, she had no idea what they were discussing. Were they talking about the family? The weather? The grandchildren?! It was indeed a mystery. Once my mother was in high school, she took French and eventually she was able to carry on conversations with her grandmother and her great-aunts in French! If there was ever an incentive to learn a foreign language, it's that! I still wish Salem High and Merrimack College offered Italian while I was there.

The Felker fam!

    Anyway, life was pretty sweet for Henrietta for quite some time. Her granddaughter learned French and they could talk to each other in two languages. Then the unthinkable happened. In 1967, Henrietta suffered a stroke which somehow robbed her of her ability to speak English.

    That, to me, was the strangest story I've ever heard my parents tell me and I know some whoppers! She lost her ability to speak English after a stroke?! I guess it depended on which area of the brain was impacted. The brain is a mysterious organ and we still don't know much about it despite all the studies that have been done since the 1960s.

    Naturally, the Felker family adapted to the new normal. She was able to understand English fine. However, she responded to questions in French. It took some time and eventually my great-grandmother was able to speak English once again. There was a lasting impact, though. Her vision was heavily impacted and she had to wear an eye patch for the rest of her life. During her recovery, my mother served as a sort of go-between between her and the hospital staff who obviously never spoke French.

Austin and Henrietta's 50th!

    The stroke clearly attacked the language center of her brain and I guess it scrambled a few circuits in there. The fact that she recovered after quite some time is a remarkable feat. Like I said. The brain is a strange organ. All it takes is one good hit to the head and you could wake up thinking you're a world famous movie star or worse. I'm just glad she recovered and lived long enough to attend her granddaugther's wedding in 1971.

    The exact details of her recovery are a little sketchy because my mother was just entering college at the time of the incident and was working at the hospital. I imagine she was all over the place at the time! She did all she could to help her grandmother recover and I'm sure all those years of learning French came in handy!

   

    The moral of the story is that it definitely pays to learn a foreign lanaguage in school because you'll never know when you'll need it. Learning French allowed my mother to help Henrietta at a very low point of her life. On the other side of my tree, my dad learned some Italian from his very Italian father and grandparents. I don't know if that ever helped anyone to the same extent that learning French helped my mother talk to my grandmother. It's still nice to have one or more languages stored up in your memory banks. Just remember English is a tough language to learn and sometimes we English speakers take it for granted.

    

Arrivederci alla prossima!