52 Ancestors Week 17: War

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 17

The theme for Week 17 is "War." One would be hard pressed to find someone whose family history was not touched by war. This week, consider someone in your family tree who was affected by war, whether as a soldier or a civilian

What's it good for? If you ask me absolutely nothing.

    War. War never changes. A soldier comes home from war forever changed and from that point on nothing is ever quite the same. It's not hyperbole to say that war changes a person. In fact, both of my grandfathers never really talked about their experiences during World War II. Sure they'd say where they were stationed, what they did and everything. However, there was never anything more than that. They never glorified their experiences and in my grandfather Robert's case I never saw the World War II era photographs he took until his wake in 2017. He never wanted anyone to see those photographs.

    I think we can all agree that war changes a person in many ways. However, war can sometimes change the destiny of many lives in an instant. The events of a war can actually lead many people to become United States citizens. That was very much the case for my great-grandfather, Vincenzo Ferraiolo.

Bit grainy, huh? Kinda like a
newsreel.

    Vincenzo was drafted into the service on April 30th, 1919 when he was just twenty-three years old and living on Grove Street in Haverhill. At the time he was working as a street laborer and was considered an alien by the United States government. On his draft card you would find that he still considered himself to be a citizen of Italy.

    I'm not sure if he put that on the record because he intended to go back to Italy some day. He eventually did go back in 1920 and married Maria Tedesco in January of 1921.

    Upon his return, he very likely saw a very different Italy than the one he remembered. Italy in the early 1900s was not the land of wine and vespas it is today--Especially in the south where he came from! Due to policies that favored the north, poverty was common in the south. Italy was neutral at the start of the first world war and eventually joined the Triple Entente aka the Allies side in 1915.

    During the course of the war, 460,000 Italians lost their lives and nearly a million soldiers were wounded in action. In the end victory seemed just as bitter as defeat.

    You can clearly see why there was a massive immigration to America during this time. So many families had to deal with a loss of a loved one during the war and that's compounded by the abject poverty throughout the southern provinces. Yeah. It was not a happy time. Why do you think they called it "La Miseria"? Things were pretty grim in the boot and Uncle Sam was more than happy to enlist the aid of any Italians out there including my great-grandfather.

    Once Vincenzo returned to Italy, he likely saw how the war effected his hometown of San Pietro a Maida. I'm not one hundred percent sure how many soldiers came from San Pietro. However, you can bet that some members of my family died in the war. One of my friends on WikiTree once linked me to a site where you could look up the casualties and I found a few Ferraiolos and other people from San Pietro who sadly lost their lives in the conflict.

    People were likely demoralized at the time and eventually people would get even MORE demoralized once relatives packed up their belongings and left for parts unknown. Truthfully, I wonder if the families encouraged other family members to leave and make a better life for themselves as long as they send some of that money back home. They surely weren't going to get it from the Italian government at that time!

    Seeing his town reeling from the war likely changed Vincenzo forever. It couldn't have been easy knowing some of the people he grew up with were now gone. The shock alone had to have been devestating! Thankfully, San Pietro pressed on and there are memorials dedicated to those men who were lost in combat.

I think I'm going to go back to that site at some point and write the names of the fallen from San Pietro down and create profiles for them on WikiTree. 

    I think I can see why Vincenzo stuck around San Pietro for so long after he got married. Not only did he want to start a family with Maria. He likely wanted to make sure his parents Marco Ferraiolo and Caterina Coppola were okay despite all the craziness going on. In fact, he probably served as a middleman relaying information from America to Italy since his aunt Concetta and uncle Paolo were still living in Haverhill. Speaking of Paolo, he had two World War I draft cards for some strange reason. I never figured out why that happened. That'll have to be a topic for another blog.

Vincenzo and Maria

    Anyway, Vincenzo went back to America some time after his son Marco was born in 1925 and by then things were more or less the same in San Pietro. People were still leaving Italy in droves at that point despite the US government insitutioning caps on immigration. It was a tough time for everyone and Vincenzo ended up going back to Haverhill without his wife and children.

    Not long afterward, he applied for American citizenship knowing that he had a substationally better life in America than in Italy. That doesn't mean he swore off the friends and family there! Make no mistake! Vincenzo still traveled back and forth quite extensively throughout his life. 

    When he returned to America in the 1920s, he made the decision to work and help get his immediate family out of Italy and by 1929 he succeded. In November of 1929, Maria and the children arrived in New York and eventually they made their way to Haverhill. And the rest as they say is history....FAMILY history that is. =D

    War definitely changes a person regardless of how involved in the actual fighting someone is. You can be on the front line or on the National Guard and still feel the impact of the war. Many Italians likely returned to their homes in the towns they grew up or heard of the destruction. The news likely strengthened their resolve to find a better life for themselves in their families. If anything I'd wager that the first world war expediated Vincenzo's need to become an American citizen. When he was drafted, he was an alien. When he returned to America, he decided to finally become an American citizen because he wanted a better life for his family. That makes a lot of sense.

    I have a feeling that immigrants all across the board have a similar story. Lives were forever changed by the first world war and by the time the second one rolled around things REALLY changed for Italy and not for the better. Italy had its share of conflicts and I think seeing San Pietro in the state it was in after the war really drove home the need to change his family's lives. Things were bad and he wanted to do his part to make a better tomorrow for everyone.

See ya next time!

P.S. Here's the site which lists the Italian casualties during World War I: https://www.cadutigrandeguerra.it/CercaNome.aspx

52 Ancestors Week 16: Step

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 16

The theme for Week 16 is "Step." When I wrote this theme, I thought about all of the "step" relationships in our family trees and how they are often overlooked. But there are numerous ways to interpret "step" -- steps in a house, long walks, steps in a process, etc. Feel free to be creative!

Not sure where I'm going with those footprints.

    Stepping into the step-relationships in your family tree can be an interesting challenge. Though, you are bound to find drama. Let's not kid outselves. There are multiple reasons why there are step-relationships in your tree stemming from a death of a parent to even divorce. I have instances of both in my family tree and today I am going to share the unique step-relationships my great-grandfather Austin had with his step/half-siblings in the Felker and the Senter clan. 

Austin and Henrietta

        Austin's life could not have been an easy one. His parents Wilfred and Gertrude were divorced shortly after he was born and they would go on to marry other people and have many children together. Wilfred married a woman named Mary Anne Porter Pierce in 1901 and Getrude married a man named Walter Howard Senter in 1899.

    I'm not sure how often Austin saw Walter and the Senter family because shortly after they got married he and Getrude moved to Farmington, New Hampshire. You would think that this would leave Austin in the care of his father in Haverhill. I'm not sure that's the case.

    Austin was seen living with his grandparents Jeremiah Felker and Elizabeth Fellows in the 1900 and in the 1910 US census in Haverhill.

    Curious, isn't it? I could understand him being in the census there if he was visiting his grandparents in 1900 when he was just seven years old and the enumerator recorded him as being a resident of that house. However, he was again in the same place just ten years later as a seventeen year old! What on Earth was going on here? It can't be a coincidence. You know what they say. First time it happens is a coincidence. The second time is when a pattern starts to  emerge! Where was his father?

  

Wilfred Felker

    Well, I haven't been able to find him in the 1900 census. Instead I found him in the 1910 living with his wife and three children George, Richard and Grace. A fourth child, Clara, was born in 1915.  Once again Austin was nowhere to be seen. Odd, isn't it?  Some people are enumerated twice and yet my great-grandfather was at Jeremiah's house on East Broadway. What's even more strange is how George was listed as a stepson in that census when he definitely was NOT a stepson. More on that another time. 

    I'm not sure what the family situation was at the time and at first glance you might say to yourself that Austin didn't get along with his stepmother or his half-siblings. I would have agreed with you had I not found an article which sheds a different light on their family dynamic.

    You might recall me talking about an article where Austin and his wife were in a skiff that hit a Coast Guard boat in the Merrimack river. The boat capsized and the passengers all had to be saved. Well, one of the passengers was his half-brother/step-brother George. I don't know about you. But, I wouldn't go boating with someone you didn't like. Sufficed it to say I think Austin got along well with his new siblings. Let's just hope they laughed about the incident because I know from firsthand experience that swimming in the Merrimack is not fun.

    Meanwhile in Farmington, Walter and Gertrude had their own growing family to take care of. I'm not sure how often they saw Austin or what kind of relationship he had with his half/step-siblings in Farmington and wow there were alot of them. Gertrude had seven children with Walter and they were: Theodore,  John, Lawrence, Ruby,  Clarence,  Hilda and Helen. That's quite a bunch, huh. A Brady Senter Bunch.

Gertrude and the Senters

    The distance between Farmington and Haverhill is a little over fifty-five miles and so you might think Austin didn't see his new stepfather as often as he saw his stepmother and his half-siblings. Fifty-five miles does seem like a good distance. However, let's consider the fact that during the era in which they lived trains were running up and down the east coast all the live long day. People traveled in the 1910s before cars were readily available.

    In fact, a few of the Senter children moved to Haverhill once they reached adulthood. Did they contact Austin? You bet they did!  Now, I'm sure no one went on an ill-advised ride in a skiff. So, let's just get that out of the way!

    I think relations with the Senters went well because my mother has good memories of meeting them and being around them for special events. In fact, Theodore and John Senter were both at my parents' wedding in 1971. So, I guess you could say they were close? You don't invite enemites to a wedding unless your last name is Lannister.

    All in all I would say that Austin had a good relationship with his half/step-siblings despite the admittedly rocky start to his life. I wish there was more information about the Felkers. Unfortunately,  many of them moved to Indiana and all contact was lost until I came across Wilfred's page on WikiTree. Richard's son, Rick made the profile for him and Jeremiah. Naturally, I sent him a message and he filled me in on a few things here and there.

    For one Rick told me that his father grew up with Austin since they lived in the same house. I'm a little confused by thate statement because if that were true why was he in his grandfather's house in two consecutive censuses? Was he really just visiting or was something else going on? I think a trip to the Haverhill courthouse may be in order. They might have information about his parents'divorce and why Austin ended up living with his grandparents.

    Austin and his relationship with his step-mom and step-dad is definitely something I want to explore further in the future. However, I may not have to since it's clear he got along well with his half-siblings clandestine trips into the Merrimack aside. At least things turned out well for Austin in the end. I think that's all anyone can ask for to be honest. He had a good life and plenty of plenty of family around him.

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 15: School Days

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 15

The theme for Week 15 is "School Days." Any teachers, principals, or school staff in your family tree? What about favorite stories of attending school or fun things you've found in school records or yearbooks?

And then for no reason at all the "Saved by the Bell" theme
popped in my head. I blame the font.

    I think we're about due for another deep dive into one of the many yearbooks I have in my collection. If you recall, I dove into my grandmother Ollie's high school yearbook from 1939 and my grandmother Natalie's high school yearbook from 1945. Both Haverhill yearbooks had different takes about life and the future at the time. The most interesting thing I found in those books was how they viewed the world before and after the Second World War.

    Now let's travel twenty years into the future. The year is 1965. A young Gene Roddenberry was trying to pitch his "Star Trek" series to studio executives after filming an unaired pilot which later became the basis for  the "Star Trek: Discovery" spinoff, "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds". Don't worry, Gene. Your franchise will definitely live long and prosper. Following the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in the previous year, the United States became entrenched in a conflict that would definitely be on the minds of high school students all across America in 1965. That conflict would go onto define a generation growing up in the shadows of the "Greatest Generation". That conflict was the Vietnam War. 

  

The third and last "Thinker" in
my collection!

    I've said it before and I'll say it again. Yearbooks are definitely a time capsule capturing what life was like for people at the time it was printed. Thanks to Ancestry, my father's yearbook is now forever in their archives. God help them if they ever get their hands on the Salem High Class of 1997 yearbook!!

    My father's yearbook has a lot of interesting things going on in its pages. The foreward by the superintendant mentioned how the book came out on the 325th anniversary of Haverhill's founding. Despite the rumblings of war on the horizen, he declared that the future seemed bright. There's that Haverhill optimism again! Well, you don't want to be negative in these books. Can you imagine? I think it's best to be positive. No need to bum anyone out.

   

    I do like how the book has a passage about the assistant school Superintendant and how she handled school finances and proved that women and business definitely mixed. Oh, Haverhill. That's just a taste of what's to come. 

    

    

    Like in previous years, the yearbook discusses the endless possibilities of the future. The language department remarked that the world was getting smaller and so the importance in learning different language was increasing. Well, that's true. It's only gonna get smaller. *taps monitor*. I like how the teachers stress the importance of picking up a language because it would help young people understand the greater world around them. It's an important skill to have. And hey it helps that their grandparents were likely immigrants from Italy, Quebec, Greece and any number of places since the people who immigrated to America were likely still very much alive.

    Much of the faculty's other passages had the same positive outlook about the future. Apparently we were standing on a new frontier in 1965. I wonder if they were taking Kennedy's speeches to heart. I really do.And then we get to my father's page.

Lookin' dapper, Dad!

    Things seem pretty normal on the page at first. You see my father James looking dapper with that sport coat and tie. I'm guessing that was the style at the time because he's got this Rod Sterling thing going on. Makes sense considering he was a huge Sci-Fi fan back then. He still is.

    One of the most interesting things about the page is that just above him is a photo of my mother's cousin Nancy Felker. Now, I always knew Nancy was the daughter of my great-uncle Austin and his wife Isabelle. That was never a big secret. 

    What surprised me the most was that Nancy was in the same homeroom as my father and he knew her a few years before he met my mother. She never introduced the two to each other because they actually met in college. 

    I was a kid when I first saw the picture and asked my mom "Is that cousin Nancy?" She said yes and that my father and her were in the same class together in high school.

    Talk about a small world! My father could have met my mother a good few years before they actually met in Boston. Alas, that never happened. To be honest, I'm not sure what Nancy ever thought of my father. They didn't really stay in touch since she moved to Florida shortly after graduation. Still, it's a cool bit of trivia, isn't it? A relative of my mom's knew my dad well before he met her. Perhaps the stars were aligned or something. I don't know.

Nancy Felker '65

   Aside from going to school with my mom's cousin, my Dad also went to school with a future mayor of Haverhill! Former Haverhill Mayor James Fiorentini is also on the same page as Nancy and my father. That's pretty cool, huh?  You never know what the future will bring. Some people become dentists like my father. Some people become the Mayor of their hometown. Somehow I don't think they ever expected that to happen.

    To make it even more interesting, my father's high school eventually became City Hall. So, in essence Mayor Fiorentini was going back to school while he was the Mayor. I don't know why but that's just funny to me. Time plays tricks on all of us, I guess.

    My father has kept in touch with the Mayor over the years as he attended many reunion meetings the class put on and the like. You never know where life is going to take you as the yearbook says. The future is bright and the sky really is the limit.

    All in all I love the upbeat nature of my father's yearbook. Thankfully, politics were left out of the equation. Oddly enough, the Social Studies department didn't have anything to say about the crisis in Southeast Asia. Curious, indeed. I guess they wanted to give students and future generations who were going to read the book a positive view of the world in 1965. Times were a changin' and the 1960s would only get more turbulent.

    I really like how several people went on to do amazing things and it makes me wonder what my graduating class has been up to these days. Thankfully, the Salem High Class of '97 remains in relative contact with each other due to Facebook! Once again the Thinker provides an insightful look into what life was like in Haverhill in 1965. The class, like all others, were optimistic about the future and once again they encouraged adapting to a changing world. Little did they know that the world was about to change in ways no one could have ever foreseen. 

See ya next time! That's three yearbooks down and one to go.

52 Ancestors Week 14: Favorite Recipe

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 14

The theme for Week 14 is "Favorite Recipe." Food has a way of bringing up memories, whether it's the cooking of a favorite recipe, meals shared with loved ones, or memories of kitchen mishaps! This week, explore a favorite recipe and the person or people who make that recipe special.

Gambit says you better like his jambalaya.

    A while back Ancestry conducted a poll on their website and one of the questions they asked was "How often do you have the food of your ancestors?" I chuckled to myself and said "I plead the fifth". When I was growing up we had an Italian dish for dinner every week. It was usually a pasta of some kind served with chicken, lobster or shrimp. That tradition still continues to this day and I should probably check to see if my heart is okay. At least all that carbo-loading is good for people like me who are into running. Yeah. I'll keep telling myself that while I order some pasta Bolognese for dinner. It's not my fault pasta just slides down real easily!

    It's honestly hard for me to pick a favorite Italian recipe. I had only one Italian grandmother and Olympia and her sisters, the "Little Old Italian Ladies™" , cooked up so many great dishes from eggplant parmesan to various cookies. Now, I bet you are all drooling and lapping the screen right now. That's gross, guys. Stop that!

    I guess if I had to choose a great Italian recipe it'd have to be pasta fagioli. It's a simple dish and to be honest it's a comfort food for me because it reminds me a lot of my grandma Ollie. 

    Preparing the dish is easy. You take tomato sauce, a pasta of your choice and some cannellini beans and you put them all together into a soup. The standard recipe usually calls for ditalini as the pasta of choice. However, you can use almost any small form of pasta and it'll come out great!

    What's really good about pasta fagioli is that you can put various leftovers into the soup or garnish it with any type of meat ranging from ground beef to sausage. If you want, you can even toss in bits of carrot and no one would mind. I swear the soup is the ultimate comfort food to have on a rainy day. It narrowly beats "Italian Wedding Soup"! However, it's not quite as good as escarole soup!

    Pasta fagioli is so versitile and because of that every Italian house has their own version. Grandma Ollie often elected to just use the recipe I described. She rarely put in sausage or any meat for that matter. If she did, it was usually ground beef.  However, nine times out of ten it was just straight up pasta and beans. And that's not a bad thing!

    I have many good memories eating the soup at her house. I think I was probably eating it when grandma Ollie and my father were talking about her father Giuseppe and his brothers Rocco and Pasquale. I guess you could say my genealogical adventure started with a heaping bowl of pasta fagioli! Hmm....It could be worse, right? It could be liver and onions!

    Seeing and eating the soup just reminds me of simpler times, you know. It reminds me of being at that big round table in my grandmother's kitchen and enjoying a meal together. The funny thing is that every time we were over her house, she'd make us bowls of the soup. It didn't matter what time of year it was or what the weather was like. She'd make it and you better believe that we ate it and enjoyed it. We even took some home with us! Why not?

    Food really does have a great way of bringing up memories and like I said every time I see or even have some pasta fagioli takes me back to that kitchen table. As time goes on, the memories of being with grandma Ollie and talking to her about her parents and living in Haverhill over a bowl still has a place in my heart.  Sure Ollie's other dishes had the same effect. But, there was just something special about the way she made the soup for us every time we came over. She somehow always had a pot ready for us even if we stopped by unexpectedly. It was a good soup and I'd honestly give anything to have another bowl.

If you want to check out the recipe yourself, follow this link: https://www.willcookforsmiles.com/pasta-e-fagioli-soup/#recipe

Mangia!

See ya next time!