52 Ancestors Week 25: Storyteller

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 25

The theme for Week 25 is "Storyteller." Genealogy is more than names and dates. It's the story of our family. It seems like every family has a storyteller, whether it's Uncle Pete with his tall tales or Grandma Adah who quietly told stories of growing up in the early 1900s. Who is the storyteller in your family?

Not to be confused with the Jim Henson show by the same name.

    Welcome back to All Roads Lead to Haverhill, true believers! Stories are a common aspect of your genealogical adventure. You might hear about tales of daring-do like when your great-grandfather narrowly avoided capture by the police or you might hear some off the wall story about how your great-uncle claimed he invented the left-handed turn. Whatever the case is there are sure to be yarns out there spun so tight that even your cat will want to play with it! Are they true? Are they fictional? Well, friends. It's up to you to decide that once your relative finishes talking!

    I love talking like Stan Lee. It's fun. As far as storytellers go, I have quite a few of them in my family tree. My grandfather Robert  was known to tell a few tales about growing up in Newburyport. My grandmother Ollie and her sisters definitely told a ton of stories in their time. You just can't beat a yarn spun by a group of little old Italian ladies. Now, picture three of them all sitting at the table trying to tell you the same story at the same time! Are there tangents? Yes. You bet there is! That comes with the territory. I think this week I'll focus on one story Ollie and her sisters told me a long time ago.....in a city not so far away.

    Growing up, my family and I would visit my grandmother Ollie's house in Haverhill quite regularly. It didn't matter if we were unannounced or not. She was always very happy to see us. She would also somehow have a meal prepared for us and we would dig in. It didn't matter if you already ate. You were still getting fed!

    I remember one visit really well. We arrived at her house on Washington street one summer day and sitting at the kitchen table were Ollie and her sisters, Ellie and Louise.  My brother went into the den to watch some television after being hugged by everyone and I being the curious kid wanted to know what was going on.

  

    Grandma Ollie had a pot of pasta fagioli on the stove and she and her sisters were just talking about "the old days".

    I wondered what that meant and I asked her to continue. Apparently Ollie and her sisters were talking about their parents and visiting their uncles in Melrose and Everett. At the time it was the first time I had ever heard of her uncles Rocco and Pasquale. They also had an aunt named Rosina who also came to America. So, naturally I asked for more information about them. I was only ten years old at the time and I was unaware of the story that awaited me AND its many, many tangents!

Rocco on the far left. Pasquale on the far right.

    To set things up properly, the three of them explained how their parents, Rocco and Pasquale were all born in the mountain town of Gesualdo in Campania. They immigrated to America in the 1910s and made lives for themselves in the Massachusetts cities of Haverhill, Melrose and Everett.

    Since the cities were in close proximity to one another, the families would get together quite frequently.  This started tangent #1 when my father brought up Rocco's wine and how it was so strong it could peel the paint off of a boat's hull. Then someone mentioned how Giuseppe's wine was strong too and a big debate ensued!

    Naturally, I had no idea what everyone was talking about. I was ten and I obviously couldn't drink. In fact, the only time I ever had wine was during communion. I started to look confused by what was happening and before I knew it my grandmother brought out this old photo album. She told me I needed the faces that went with the stories we were talking about. She also told me that every good story needed to have faces attached to it. Maybe that's why I like pictures so much now!

Master storytellers!

    I looked at Rocco's picture and I remember saying "He looks like Mario!"  My brother heard me and ran into the kitchen to see what was going on and I showed him the picture. Jim was like "Oh, wow. He does!"  My grandmother and her sisters were a little confused and had no idea we were referencing the video game character.

    Italian men in those days had thick moustaches and wore them proudly. Rocco was no exception. His was thick like his accent. We talked a bit more about Rocco and everyone talked about how he never really spoke English and how he had eleven children.

    This was the next tangent! I learned so much about each of his eleven kids that I wish I took notes. That would have been quite the time saver years latter when many of Rocco's grandchildren turned up as DNA matches on Ancestry.

    My parents even mentioned how some of Rocco's children were at their wedding. That was very cool.

   The stories about Rocco continued for some time and I never got to hear about Pasquale or Rosina during that visit. When it was time to leave, I asked my grandmother about Pasquale and Rosina and she said there'd be time for it the next time we visited or she visited us. 

    Looking back, I figured Rocco stories took up the most time because he was the one who had a ton of children. Rocco and eleven kids. Pasquale had four. Giuseppe had six. Rosina had a few, too. More on her in a future blog.

    As you can see little old Italian ladies are a veritable library of stories. They have many to choose from and many branching tangents going from one topic to another. I remember asking my grandma about my grandpa Marco and somehow we ended up talking about the African American family who used to visit them in the 1950s. Stories just went all over the place and there are some stories that should probably remain internal if you know what I mean. Definitely not safe for WikiTree.

    If there's one thing I learned from the stories my grandmother told me it's that most of them turned out to be true. It was cool seeing the pictures that went with the names and I'm glad that my grandmother had the forsight to just give me a photo album to look at while my parents and everyone else talked. That was pretty cool and I daresay that was probably the start of my genealogical adventure. I'll forever be grateful to my grandma for giving me pictures that went with the people she was talking about. I'm sure she and the sisters would be happy to know I reconnected with many of the Carrabis cousins via dna so that the stories can continue.

'Nuff said.