52 Ancestors Week 49: Handed Down

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 49

The theme for Week 49 is "Handed Down." Do you have something that has been handed down to you, whether it's an item, a story, or even a name? This week is a good time to write about it!

   I said it before and I'll say it again. My house is like a museum. We have a ton of things here from both sides of the family and every item we have has a story behind it. What our ancestors leave behind is something memorable to them and to preserve the memories they pass it down to the next generation. Sometimes it's a sword like the one I talked about in this blog from 2020. Other times it's a VHS copy of "Golf's Funniest Moments" your grandfather left you. Look. Not everything handed down by our ancestors are going to be winners.

    Don't get me wrong. We have some literal gold here. I've talked at great length about the swords, the canes, the coffee table, the clocks and even a pair of candlesticks. That stuff is great. But, so are the stories that have been told. Don't forget those can be handed down from generation to generation along with various belongings. You always have to be careful with them, though. Some stories are true and some can turn out to be false.

Nicolina, Vincenzo and Cathie

   When my parents and I visited my great-aunt Nicolina in 2004, she had a lot of stories to tell us. Some stories backed up the stories my grandmother Ollie and my father told me back in the day. This included the story of when everyone went to Switzerland to attend my cousin Caterina's wedding in 1969. It's always good to have someone back up a story or two and thankfully people have been honest about the tales they've told.  They didn't need to be fact-checked or anything and I'm very grateful for that. I just wish I got the photographic evidence of the wedding in Switzerland a lot sooner. My grandmother would have loved to have seen the group picture she was in!

    Nicolina handed down a couple other stories during that stay. One of them was likely to be true given the time period. The other seemed a little sketchy. I'll share both of the stories with you all and at the end we can decide which one was true and which one isn't. Sound good? Well, you made it this far. So, you can stick around for the rest of the ride.

Vincenzo and Maria

    When Nicolina and my grandfather Marco were little, they didn't speak much English. They were both born in San Pietro a Maida in the 1920s and came to Haverhill with their mother Maria Tedesco in 1929.  I naturally wanted to learn everything I could about her since Nicolina was the only one around who actually knew her. 

    She told me all she could about her mother and handed down some stories about her and growing up in Haverhill in the 1930s. Nicolina and Marco's mother was a kind woman from what I've been told. Everyone was often taken aback by her looks, too. I guess Vincenzo had an eye for beauty, huh?

    Anyway, her parents went out and left Marco and Nicolina to their own devices. I think they had a babysitter. I'm not sure. I would hope they did! I think a family friend might have watched the two while they were out. Marco and Nicolina didn't have much other than a few games to play and a few friends to play with in the neighborhood. One of Haverhill's finest saw the kids playing in the yard and watched them as they went back into the house. A few minutes later the cop knocked on their door. 

    She and Marco didn't know what to do. They realized he was a policeman judging by the uniform. They didn't know if they did something wrong or what. All they did was play in the yard and that was it. As far as Nicolina and Marco were concerned they were innocent. The cop continued to knock while the kids were freaking out. After several knocks, Nicolina finally answered the door since the person who was watching them was napping. How she slept through the knocking is beyond me.

    The officer asked where their parents were and Nicolina just talked to him in Italian. I have no idea what she said. But, the cop was so startled that he backed off and ran away. In hindsight, I guess the cop didn't know what neighborhood he was in or didn't know how to react to two Italian kids. Either way, I think he learned a valuable lesson. Don't follow random kids to their house and knock on their door! 

    Right out of the gate this next story Nicolina handed down is going to seem less than plausible because we've heard it a million times in genealogy circles. It doesn't matter where you come from. Someone somewhere will always say "My family descended from royalty."

    While that's certainly true for many people (Particularly those of English descent), it seems really unlikely for someone of Italian descent to say "Yeah. We descend from the Prince of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies". I think you can see where this is going.

    My great-aunt told me that the Ferraiolo line descended from royalty and that we had a castle in the San Pietro a Maida area or something. I asked her a bit more about it but she said she didn't know all of the details. So, all I could do was smile and nod. What else could I do? It was 2004. I didn't have access to the Internet. 

    I think it's safe to say that the first story is true. It seems the most plausible because cops will randomly patrol neighborhoods immigrants lived in. I'm just glad the cop had the sense to walk away after hearing the kids talk. He must have filled out an interesting report at the station. I guess the man was just surprised that the kids were seemingly home alone when they obviously weren't.

    
    The story about being connected to Italian royalty was easily disproven once I started doing genealogy. Actually, no. It was disproven once I had access to the Internet  and looked up San Pietro a Maida. I didn't find a castle anywhere in the vicinity. I might still be connected to royalty on my father's side. However, it seems unlikely. For now it's best to take that story with a grain of salt the size of Pluto.

    At least most of the stories Nicolina told us turned out to be true. She told us about the Astorinos and how they moved to Argentina. The only thing is she made it sound like many of Vincenzo's sisters went to Buenos Aires when it was really just Caterina. I couldn't blame her for that mistake. She was 81 years old at that point and a lot of things get jumbled in the old noggin. She was still sharp. Don't get me wrong. But, mistakes happen and when they do you just smile and nod.

    It was a fantastic visit and I don't regret seeing her and her little yappy dog. She may have missed a few details here and there. At least she handed down some stories that later got strengthened down the road and that's what's important. I like to think that Nicolina handed down a rough draft or an outline of how things played out. Over time the actual story gets filled in and more details emerge. You should still be careful. You never know which stories are true and which ones aren't unless you do a genealogical deep dive into the records or get information backed up by other sources.

See ya next time!

P.S. What AM I going to do with that VHS tape? It's not like I have a device to play it on....