52 Ancestors Week 42: Fire

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 42:

The theme for Week 42 is “Fire.” Whether as a source of warmth, power, or destruction, everyone’s life has been impacted by fire. This week, consider an ancestor who worked with fire or whose life (or records!) was impacted by it. 

Flame on!

    Fire really is a giver of warmth and a destroyer. You have to respect it and not play with matches! Smokey the Bear said so himself. Only YOU can prevent forest fires! Would you believe I haven't encountered many stories involving fires on my genealogical adventure? I've written about the fire at my grandfather Marco's motel on Salisbury Beach. I've also written about my great-uncle Alfred Hamel Jr who was a soldier and a firefighter.  See the story about his heroic deeds in this blog.

    There was even a small chimney fire in my house in the early to mid 1980s. I don't know much about it and there isn't a lot to tell to be honest. Obviously, it wasn't a roaring five alarm blaze that destroyed everything. No, it was an electrical fire.  As a result we never used the fireplace for anything not even for roasting marshmallows. It was probably for the best. Cleaning them is hard work.

    After finding that article about Alfred, I was left wondering if any more of his heroic exploits made the local paper. The guy was news! Though, I suspect he was very modest about what he had done. Most firefighters tend to be modest and that's good. You don't want a hero with a superiority complex. Characters like that get written out of stories really quickly if you know what I mean. So, what happened to Alfred after his heroic rescue of his family in 1947? Let's find out!

Newburyport Daily
News, 27 Jan 1960, pg 10.

    It looks like our hero got a long overdue military award in January 1960. According to the article from the Newburyport Daily News, Alfred was given the ward after almost sixteen years of service as a Marine Air Reservist. The award was his belated second award of the Navy Unit Commendation.

    Other articles I've found in the newspaper archives have painted Alfred to be quite the hero. He served with distinction during the second World War and his valor was more than well deserved. I just wonder what took so long for him to receive this prestigious award. There might have been delays, red tape and all of that bureaucratic nonsense. At least he finally received it. It's better late than never.

    While receiving military awards is awesome  I wanted to see if he received any awards for his service as a firefighter. I did find one article where his father recognized his son in a photo posted by the Boston Post in 1954. Sadly, there is no archive of the Boston Post online as far as I can tell. That's okay. At least the article explained why his photo was in the paper. Sometimes you need to take what you can get and hope that an archive shows up some day.

    It seems that our hero was one of fifteen firefighters called to the Summer Street MTA station to rescue a man who had fallen from the platform into the train pit. Two cars passed over him and miraculously he emerged slightly injured.  Wow! Lady luck was with him that day and it's a good thing Alfred and co were on the scene to lend a hand. I would love to see the article AND the photo. I hope it gets posted online at some point. Can you imagine how proud Alfred senior was when he saw his son in the paper? Pretty proud, I'd say. It seems I have many heroes in my tree. I might write about superheroes but these guys are real superheroes. 'Nuff said!

    I've tried looking for more articles about Alfred's heroic exploits in the Newburyport archives. I think if I were to look him up in Boston archives I would find a lot of information and a picture or two. Time will tell.

    Anyway, it's clear that Alfred is quite the hero. He saved his family from a fire. He saved a man who fell off of a platform in Boston. That's pretty amazing! I obviously never met the man as he passed away in 1972 at the age of fifty-two. I would have liked to have met him since my grandfather told me many stories about his brother. Here's hoping I find more adventures of this courageous firefighter!

See ya next time!

Bowties will always be cool.

52 Ancestors Week 41: Water

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 41:

The theme for Week 41 is “Water.” They say that water is life, so it’s no surprise that water features prominently in our family trees. Whether it's because of occupation, transportation, or recreation, it’s hard to find an ancestor who wasn’t somehow impacted by water. Feel free to be creative with how you interpret this prompt. (Remember, there’s no wrong way to go about it!)

This is probably one of my most favorite banners.

    If you live in the Merrimack valley, you already know how much of a role water plays in every day life. The Merrimack river obviously heavily impacted the lives of my ancestors as they were from either the city of Haverhill or Newburyport. Those Massachusetts towns grew into bustling cities in the late 19th and into the 20th centuries due to various textile mills employing immigrants from virtually every nation on the planet. Working in the mills was hard on everyone and thankfully they had places to go relax, unwind and get away from the noises of the city. Thankfully, nearby Salisbury beach and Plum Island provided just the escape people needed.

   Salisbury beach and Plum Island are two key destinations in the Merrimack valley and both can be easily reached from Newburyport. For a long time, both areas were the place to go for fishing, relaxing on the beach or just plain old having fun. The sky was the limit!

So much swagger!

    In the 1920s, my second great-grandparents Joseph Laplante and Georgianna Ross  frequently visited Salisbury beach since they lived in nearby Newburyport. As you can tell from the picture, Joseph had a lot of swagger. The pipe seals the deal!

    I'm pretty sure this picture was taken at Salisbury beach. There was nowhere else they could have gone that was close to home. Granted, they could have gone to Hampton beach in New Hampshire. However, it's extremely unlikely.

    Salisbury beach in the 1920s was a very different place than the beach I remember going to back in the day. There was no arcade. Well, no arcade that had video games at least. They did have a roller coaster that rivaled the one in Canobie Lake Park in nearby Salem New Hampshire and they even had bumper cars at one point. 

    I only wish Joseph and Georgianna could have grabbed a slice of pizza at Tripoli Pizza. Sadly, there was only one or two opened at that time. Tripoli first opened in Lawrence, Mass in early 1920s. The Tripoli Pizza at Salisbury beach didn't open until the 1950s. So, no pizza or cannoli for them!

    If you think Salisbury beach reminds you of Coney Island in New York, you aren't wrong! Despite its small size, the beach played host to various celebrities from the 1920s to the 1960s. Celebrities like Frank Sinatara, Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald frequented the area's bandstand. That alone brought tons of people in from all over the valley! While that was great and everything, they still needed a place to stay for a while. That's where Plum Island comes in.

    Plum island is a small barrier island adjacent to Newburyport and it's home to many cottages. Those cottages were the summer homes of many a Merrimack valley resident like my great-grandfather Alfred Hamel and my great-grandparents, Austin Felker and Henrietta Legault.

    Austin and Henrietta may have lived in Haverhill. However, they had a cottage on Plum Island as well. I've been told by my mother that their old cottage still stands today! I should really head down there and take a picture of it, huh?

    My mother also told me that the Felkers had a skiff they often used to go fishing on. I'm not sure if it's the same one that accidentally hit the Coast Guard ship in the mid 1930s. I would think Austin got a newer one in the 1960s. Then again we had the same boat for almost forty years ourselves so what do I know? For more on the Coast Guard incident, check out this blog. 

    Naval incidents aside, Austin was still an accomplished fisherman. He took his children and grandchildren out on many adventures. They went fishing in the Merrimack and dug for clams on Crane Beach in Ipswich, Mass.

    I honestly can't think of anyone who didn't have a home away from home on Plum Island. When I do a search on Newspapers.com for a person, I sometimes get an article about someone staying at Plum Island for a while or renting a house there. Plum island was the place to be if you wanted to relax and still have access to the fun and games in Salisbury. Of course, you could always stay at a motel.

It's still standing! Just not a motel now.

    My grandfather Marco owned the Colonial Arms Motel with his sister-in-law's husband, Arnold Villanucci in the 1960x. There, they hosted many a weary traveler looking to get away from it all. While the mills were long since closed by that point, the area was still a great vacation spot for people who wanted to relax without having to travel very far.

  You could stay a while and partake in all of the fun things the beach had to offer.

Though, I wonder if the celebrities I mentioned earlier stayed there. Hmmmm....Probably not.

    Both Salisbury beach and Plum Island held a special place for my ancestors and various friends and relatives. These days, the crowds have other options for fun in nearby towns like Salem, New Hampshire. That doesn't mean that the places aren't hopping any more. No, no. People still have homes on Plum Island and people still go to Salisbury beach. It's just that there are more options available to people than there were back in the day.

    When I was growing up, my parents would take us to Salisbury beach on a weekend and even in the '80s and '90s there were still a lot of people going to the arcade, grabbing a slice of pizza from Tripoli or some fried dough at the boardwalk. We even had family friends who rented cottages on Plum island and my mother would point out where her grandparents had stayed.

    As you can tell from the blog, water plays a huge role in life here in the Merrimack valley. Along the water's edge, you can do more than fish and dine at a restaurant. You can build memories that last a lifetime. Just ummm.....don't swim in the Merrimack river. 

See ya next time!

Life's a beach!

52 Ancestors Week 40: Cemetery

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 40:

The theme for Week 40 is “Cemetery.” (Honestly, this is one of my favorite themes!) Any memorable trips to an ancestral cemetery? Whose burial place have you searched for, but haven’t found? Any sextons in the family tree? This is their week.

Everyone's dying to get in!

    It's pretty ironic we got this prompt right at the beginning of spooky season. Halloween starts on October 1st! Don't let anyone else tell you different!

    Right. Now than that's out of the way, let's get down to business.  I've often talked about Saint Patrick's Cemetery in the blog since that's where both sets of my Italian great-grandparents and their relatives are buried. Saint Patrick's in Haverhill, Mass is basically the de facto Italian cemetery in the city. Sure there are Italians buried in nearby Linwood, Saint James and other cemeteries in Haverhill. It's Saint Patrick's that has the most people of Italian descent interred there. This week, I've decided to give everyone a tour of the stones. Don't worry. It's hard to get lost and I'm pretty sure it isn't haunted. If it was, you'd hear Italian ghosts asking you why you don't call anymore and you'd feel a pinching sensation on your cheeks.

Pic taken by MassGraver on FindaGrave.com

    Before we dive into it, here's a little backstory on Saint Patrick's that I've managed to dig up due to careful investigation or constant nagging. 

    As far as I can tell, Saint Patrick's has been in operation since the late 1800s and that makes it one of the more recent cemeteries in Haverhill. Stones there date back to 1896 whereas cemeteries in Haverhill like Maplewood have stones dating as far back as the 1700s. You won't find any soldiers of the American Revolution here. You will find Civil War soldiers at Walnut, though! Legend has it that it and nearby Hilldale cemetery are haunted. The older the cemetery, the more haunted it is. I don't make the rules!

    Over time, the cemetery was designated the Italian and Lithuanian burial grounds due to the various members of Saint Rita's Parish wishing to be buried there. Once Saint Rita's merged with other Catholic churches in the area to become All Saints Parish, people from all over the city ended up choosing this cemetery as their final resting place.

    Saint Patrick's is pretty easy to navigate as the property has rectangular sections. To make things even more helpful, the stones themselves are organized by decade of death for the most part. For example, if someone passed away in the 1980s, their stone would be among others who passed away in the same time period. Sometimes that's not the case as families have stones nearby. It may also depend on who was buried in the plot first and when they passed away.  It's still convenient! Just like access to my grandfather's stone.

    The final resting place of my grandfather, my great-grandfather Vincenzo, my great-grandmother Maria, Vincenzo's second wife Fortuna and my grandma Ollie is one of the easiest stones to find. It's along one of the main "roads" on the property and is one of the first stones I remember visiting.

    Every Christmas season and Memorial Day my dad would drive us to the cemetery to clean things up, plant flowers and decorate it. We still put wreaths and other decorations up and try to keep things looking neat and tidy. The groundskeepers do a great job of course. But, there's no harm in giving them a hand!

    Maria was obviously the first in the plot to be buried there since she passed away in 1943. I've often wondered what the stone looked like back then. For as long as I can remember the stone that's currently there was always there. I just figured the names were chiseled in over time. The plot also has memorial markers dedicated to Marco and Vincenzo's service in World War 1 and II. There's also a plaque that says "Buona Fortuna" or "Good Luck" there as well.

    When I was growing up, I didn't really venture too far from the stone. We did our work there and visited my other great-grandparents' stone to see if that needed work done. Thankfully, my dad's cousin Bob took care of the plot. In recent years, he started a tradition where he'd put a small pumpkin on the Ferraiolo and Carrabs stones. Someone on Find a Grave took a picture of the stones with the pumpkins on them, uploaded it to the site and now Bob's handiwork is forever immortalized on there and as hints on Ancestry. 

    The Carrabs plot is further down the "road" from my other great-grandparents' stone and a few rows in from the front. It's still relatively easy to get to. It's also very well maintained by Bob like I said. He makes it a point to visit the stone and his parents' stone in Linwood. 

    Bob and I used to take walks around the cemetery if I asked him if he wanted to take me there and to the library. It's been a while since I've gone there with him and when I went I always made sure to take pictures and listen to whatever stories he'd tell me about the area. He knows much more about the cemetery than I do! So, any facts I have can be attributed to him!

        Before I started my genealogical adventure, those were  the only two stones I ever visited. Lame, I know. What can I say? I didn't really feel like exploring the area and I didn't know who to look for at the time. So, imagine my surprise when I found out just how many connections I have to the cemetery! I'll try to sum it up as best I can. 

   Bob and I once did a cemetery run where we were trying to find the Coppolas and man did we find them. Most of them were connected to me in some way aside from a Coppola stone across the "street" from Vincenzo and company. I looked into it and that Coppola family hailed from Sicily.

    My second great-grandmother Caterina Coppola has family buried at Saint Patrick's. Her sister Concetta and brother Paolo are interred in different parts of the cemetery along with several members of their families.

    Listing them all would take some time. Let's just say most of their kids and their spousal units are also in Saint Patrick's save for a few people. Finding them all was like shooting fish in a barrel. The cemetery is full of Coppolas. I suppose it makes sense given how large their families were.

    I should note that I made sure  to share the picture of Concetta's stone with her grandson in San Pietro. His dad, Francesco, was sent back to Italy and as a result my cousin never met his grandmother or his aunts and uncles in America. I also shared the photos of the stones with my cousin Caterina.

    The hunt for the Coppola stones went pretty well. I mean it wasn't hard finding them all. There was still one Coppola stone I had not been able to locate and that was the stone belonging to Paolo and Concetta's cousin Giovanni. I knew Giovanni would be buried there. Where else would he have been? Imagine my surprise when I found his family's stone two stones away from the Ferraiolo plot! I honestly never noticed!

    Sigh. I know. I know. I should have been more observant! There's a reason for my lapse in judgement. I knew about the Coppola stone for ages, of course. We'd drive by it on our way to the Ferraiolo plot. I just never thought to look BEHIND the stone to see who was buried there. All I saw was "Coppola" and thought nothing of it. Coppola is a common Italian last name. It could have been anyone and my parents had no idea who was there.

    A few years back I was with my parents and we were cleaning up the Ferraiolo plot. I decided to check out who those Coppolas were once and for all.  At that point I had looked all over the cemetery for Giovanni's stone to no avail. I was beginning to think that maybe they weren't buried there at all despite all evidence pointed to that cemetery. His death certificate DID say he was buried at Saint Patrick's!

Honest mistake. Really!

    I went to the back and smiled. There they were. Giovanni, his wife Natalina, their children Frank, Mary and Angelina and their spouses. I laughed and took the picture right away. They were right there the whole time! Talk about hiding in plain sight.

    Then again it wasn't exactly like they went anywhere.

    Still, it was cool finding their stone and even cooler knowing that it was almost next door to the Ferraiolo plot! It makes me wish I checked out the cemetery more when I was younger. Sure I wouldn't have known who Giovanni was at the time. I would have asked my great-aunt Nickie or my grandmother about him and they'd have told me all about him.

    These are just a few of the stones you'd find at Saint Patrick's. Some are easy to find and some are a little hard to spot. Still, it's important to remember the people buried under the stones and honor them in the best way possible. I've done my part by having their profiles on Wikitree. Users on Find a Grave had done the same thing and created profiles for the people buried there. In time, more of those people will have profiles on WikiTree. I promise!  At the time of this blog's posting, there are 6,189 memorials there. Not bad when you consider Saint James has 9,547 memorials! No wonder I can't find Antoine there. Some day.....

    All in all, Saint Patrick's a pretty good cemetery and even though it's not as old as some of the other cemeteries in the city it still has a ton of stories to tell. The cemetery tells the story of the Italian and Lithuanian immigrant experience and their lives. It was the first cemetery I remember visiting and it's the one I have the most connections to. Sure I have relatives in Walnut and other cemeteries in the city. However, it's probably Saint Patrick's that means the most to me because my Italian grandparents and all four of my Italian great-grandparents are buried there.

See ya next time!