Everyone who knew my grandfather has told me what a good and kind man he was. Grandpa Joe never swore and was always charitable. He said the rosary every day at noon, the Angelus, and went to early morning Mass when he wasn’t fishing. The fishermen called him The Abbott or the Holy Man. He adored his wife and was good to her father for her sake, caring for him at home in his final years.

Blue-eyed, blonde Giuseppe was ten years older than his wife. They were 14 and 24 when they eloped. But he returned ‘Ntonia to her parents the next morning, untouched, but now promised to him only. This was the traditional Sicilian “flight of love” or marriage by kidnap typically used to circumvent an arranged marriage. They officially married shortly thereafter, and began living as man and wife when Antonia was 15. Their first apartment was a cramped space shared with other recent immigrants. The sleeping quarters were cots separated by sheets strung on clothesline.

Giuseppe was hard working and thrifty. He had the opportunity to be a one third owner of the Prince Macaroni Company for $100 start up, but he decided against risking so much. Too bad; it would have been an easier life. He had terrible arthritis, which is what prompted him to move his family to the Lawrence mills for a couple of

years. Those were unhappy years for the family; they lost little Anna, who had her mother’s brown eyes and Giuseppe’s fair hair and complexion, in Lawrence to a fire.

He owned a small fishing boat in Boston. Although Giuseppe’s brothers Peter and Dutchie, sister Grazia, Aunt Caterina and many cousins settled in Gloucester in the early 1900s, Giuseppe didn’t relocate to Gloucester until during WWII. My dad remembered walking with him in the wee hours of the morning to the docks, through the alleys of the North End. As a boy, Dad didn’t understand then why his father insisted they walk in the center of the city  street. As a man, walking those same dark and winding ways by daylight, Dad understood.

Grandpa always did as much as he could for those left behind in Sicily, sending bundles of clothing and whatever little cash they could spare to “the orphans,”  several of whom may have been his niece and nephews. When Grandpa’s sister Giovanna was widowed with a young family in Sicily, he and ‘Ntonia with 5 young children of their own sponsored her and her two oldest sons in 1914. Giovanna remarried a Sicilian working in the mills of Lawrence, MA. The plan was to send for the 3 children left behind as soon as possible. However, a World War and the 1918 pandemic interceded. Almost 7 years passed before the family could arrange passage in 1920 for two of the three children left behind. Unfortunately, the restrictive US Emergency Quota Immigration Act of 1921 may have proved an insurmountable barrier to the dream of reuniting the family. Giovanna’s Francesco was destined to spend his childhood in a Sicilian orphanage and live his life in Sicily.   

Grandpa never really learned English well. How could he? Early to bed so he could be up at 3AM to go fishing, his only associates were the other Italian fishermen. My Dad told me that although they understood each other, they never really spoke the same language. If Grandpa noticed any inattention when speaking to his children, he would stop and ask them to repeat back what he just said. Insisting on respect, he would say, “Chi parru, a muru?” (Am I speaking to a wall?) Despite any language barriers, all his children adored both their parents, knowing them as kind hearted and loving. 

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