52 Ancestors Week 41: Most

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 41

The theme for Week 41 is "Most." Like last week, this theme can go countless directions! Most number of marriages, most children, "most likely to succeed." Let your imagination run wild!

Look at all those stock image people!

    When you work on Italian family trees there's one thing that's absolutely a sure thing and that's the fact that many Italian families have a lot of people in them. This isn't hyperbole or a stereotype you see in movies and television shows. I've lived it all of my life and I can tell you with absolute certainly that it's a fact! Granted some Italian families are larger than others and large get-togethers will often involve people who haven't seen you since you were in diapers and you have to ask your parents "Who is this guy pinching my cheeks?". It's a simple fact of life. Italian families have a lot of people in them and unfortunately names get lost in the shuffle.

Paolo and his first wife, Lena.

    Take my second great-grandmother Caterina Coppola's brother Paolo for example. Out of all the people in the first thirty or so people in my family tree he had the most children as he had a whopping sixteen children with two wives. Keeping track of who's who in that family is a full-time job and the sad thing is that when I see his tree on others' trees on Ancestry.com it's a little fragmented because not everyone has their facts straight.

     It's understandable. You're looking at a man who had several children and while some didn't survive to adulthood, many of them lived long and happy lives. However, families will drift apart due to one reason or another and sometimes information about who belongs to who gets lost in the shuffle.

    I think this week I'll try to do the Coppola clan a solid and explain who's who. After all they are connected to me, right? I've got a long list of kids here. I should probably get this party started! Keep in mind I don't think I'll be able to get to everyone today! There are just so many children and not enough time to go through them all.

    Paolo married his first wife, Lena King on January 16th, 1909 and together they had the following eight children: Paul, Rosie May, Joseph, Rose, Mark, Mary Rose, Catherine and an unnamed infant who died at birth. In fact, Rosie May and Rose also died very young. Catherine died young as well and not long after her birth Lena passed away. It's important to remember medicine back then wasn't as advanced as it is these days.

Antonia Iellamo, Paolo's second wife.

    At least many of the children did survive! After Lena passed away, the family found themselves living with Paolo's sister Concetta and the Papatola family as seen in the 1920 census in Haverhill. Two families living under one roof is definitely a challenge and it's a topic I'll be discussing next week in the "Full House" blog. Stay tuned for that one! I'll try not to make many TGIF jokes. 

    Anyway, the Coppola clan lived with Concetta and her family for a few years until Paolo married fellow San Pietro a Maida native Antonia Iellamo via a justice of the peace some time in the 1920s. Antonia was married to a man named Antonio Fruci. With Antonio she had three children: Romeo, Barbara and Joseph.

    Antonia was already friends with Paolo and according to the book my cousin Jean gave me he would tell Antonia that he'd love to be a chauffeur at her wedding. I'm honestly not sure how to take that from the perspective of a guy living in the twenty-first century. But, I guess the line worked because he did end up marrying the lady.

    The Fruci children were eventually all adopted by Paolo since Antonio passed away quite unexpectedly. It seems he died of smoke inhalation in 1924 when the building he was living in caught on fire. Yikes!

    Paolo and Antonia also ended up having eight children together and their names were Francis,  Mary Rose, Daniel John, Catherine, Beatrice, Concetta, Lena and James. That's quite the bunch, huh? Just imagine all of these children living under one roof and that's just what many of them did! In fact, both Mary Roses lived together for a number of years! I wonder if that ever got confusing since the two half-sisters had the same name. I like to think that one of them called herself Mary and the other one called herself Rose every other week just to keep things interesting. Note: Concetta is still living and that's why I didn't link her profile on WikiTree.

Mark Coppola in
the navy!

    The children all eventually grew up and some got married and many of them had large families of their own.  According to Jean there were family reunions held every once in a while and like every Italian gathering there would be laughter, love and very loud conversations.

   Naturally, keeping everyone straight is a bit of a challenge. My tree on Ancestry has everyone I've mentioned here and their children and grandchildren. It's a big family and I try to explain it as best I can to cousins in the Americas and in Europe.

    My third cousin Melina was a bit surprised when I told her about the Coppola clan. I laid out the information as best I could for her. Other cousins, like my cousin Karen, supplemented the information I had gathered with even more stories and you know how much I like a good story.

    This is a good one! Get the popcorn ready for this one!

    Karen descends from Concetta Coppola's daughter, Angelina Papatola.  (My second great-grandmother's sister Concetta, I mean. Not Paolo's daughter!) She remembers Paolo's children quite well and her family would be over his son James's house quite frequently. She recalled having a great relationship with her cousins James, Paula and Anthony. When I got in touch with Karen, she asked me if I had heard from them since they hadn't spoken in years. I told her I didn't know what happened to Paula and Anthony. However, James was on Ancestry and he and his daughter are both DNA matches with me, my father and my great-aunt. 

    To make a long story short, she had me contact Jim's daughter and eventually Karen talked with her and her father.. The cousins got back in touch and as far as I know they still talk with each other every now and then.

Lena Coppola-Dionne (1932-2020)

    I'm glad that the families are getting back in touch with each other after so many years of being apart. Several descendants of Paolo's are DNA matches with me and I make it a point to try and explain the Coppola family to everyone as best I can. Sometimes that involves linking people to WikiTree because that site allows you to see how everyone's connected and the best part is that it's free!

   Of course Paolo's branch is just a small part of the bigger picture since all the families here descend from Francesco Coppola, my fourth great-grandfather. If you look at his descendants on WikiTree, you'll see that you'd definitely need a scorecard to keep everyone straight. It's a lot to take in and like I said I try my best to explain who's who in the best way I can. 

    I'm just grateful for cousins like Karen, Jean and others who have added onto the information I collected about everyone by sharing their stories with me. Those stories help me share the information with the cousins who live in Europe and in South America. I never want to stick to just the facts when there are just so many great stories to tell.

    Once all the stories are put together, you really get a sense of how huge the family really is. Paolo may have had a large family himself.  However, he was part of a much bigger family and I'm sure he knew all about it. He had a sister in Haverhill with her own large family, another sister and several cousins back home in San Pietro a Maida, and a cousin or two living in the same city as him. Can you imagine how many Christmas cards he had to buy?!

    At any rate, Paolo clearly wins the title for having the largest family in my family tree by a mile. It's sad that a few of his children didn't survive to adulthood. But, that was an unfortunate fact of life in those days. He still managed to provide for his family and his work as a detective made him quite a bit of a legend in the Coppola family circle. That's not a bad legacy to have in my opinion. 

    I just wish that the information here in the US wasn't so fragmented. With so many kids there are just so many interpretations of the facts. Thankfully, facts don't lie. People remember bits and pieces about the past and if you combine those pieces with the facts, you truly get a picture of what a family was like. At least I'm here to make sense of it all and I'll gladly share information and stories with anyone in the family who wants to hear about them!

See ya next time!