Gaetano and Rosina
At Via Migliore No. 10 in Serradifalco, Gaetano Vincenzo Coniglio was born on April 26th, 1889, son of Gaetano Coniglio and Maria Carmela Calabrese. His father was fifty-three years old at his birth, and because he was a "late-life" baby, the Sicilian convention of refraining from naming a son after one's self was not imposed. Gaetano Vincenzo was born twenty-seven years after his parents' first child, Raimondo, properly named after his paternal grandfather. After this Raimondo died as an infant in 1863, his parents had a second son, born in 1864, who they also named Raimondo. This brother was twenty-five years older than Gaetano Vincenzo, and is believed to have emigrated to South America with a nephew of Gaetano Vincenzo, also named Gaetano, son of Gaetano Vincenzo's older brother Antonio and his first wife Antonina Andolina.
Like his father, who was a founder of the Serradifalco Sulfur Miner's Mutual Aid Society, the Società di Mutuo Soccorso dei Solfatai in Serradifalco, Gaetano Vincenzo also worked as a sulfur miner. In the book 'Milocca - A Sicilian Village' Charlotte Gower Chapman notes that in the 1920s, in Milocca (now Milena), a town only a few miles from Serradifalco, men earned eight lira per day for work in the sulfur mines. In 1913, eight lira was equivalent to about $1.50 American. Gaetano Vincenzo also served in the Italian Army from 1909 to 1910.
Rosa (Rosina) Alessi, daughter of Leonardo Alessi and Concetta Abbate, was born at Via Prizzi in Serradifalco on September 9th, 1893. She attended school only until the third grade, as was the custom for children of the lower classes. Her sisters who survived past infancy were Angela, Maria and Concetta. Gaetano's and Rosa's ancestors and descendants can be seen by clicking the preceding links.
Gaetano and Rosa married on November 30, 1912 in the Chiesa Madre San Leonardo in Serradifalco. In April, 1913, Gaetano came to America on the ship Berlin, while Rosa remained temporarily in Sicily. Aboard the same ship was Rosa's sister Angela, who had married Gaetano’s brother Giuseppe, who was already in America, at Pittston, Pennsylvania. Gaetano went Pittston, then to Robertsdale, Pennsylvania, where he, with many other Serrdifalchese immigrants, was a coal miner. Robertsdale was a "Company Town", where the homes, facilities, etc. were owned by the Rockhill Iron and Coal Company. Miners were virtually "owned" by the company, and about the only place they could spend their wages was at the company store. This exploitation of workers was made famous in the song "Sixteen Tons" by Merle Travis, sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford.
Rosa came to Ellis Island almost two years later, on the ship Patria, on December 14th, 1914. With her was their first child, Gaetano Vincenzo (Guy Vincent), born on December 21st, 1913 in Serradifalco. World War I was being fought, and many passenger ships carrying civilians were being torpedoed in the Mediterranean by German U-Boats. Thankfully, she and little Guy made it safely. The ship Patria was later involved in an infamous bombing in Haifa Harbor when it was being used in an attempt to transport outcast German Jews to then-Palestine.
Rosa and Guy joined Gaetano, and the family grew with the births of Leonard, Raymond and Phil, at 100 Spring Street in Robertsdale. Next door was No. 96 Spring, the home of Calogero Butera and his wife Grazia Asarese, their friends from Serradifalco. The homes, of course, were rented, and the rent was paid to the "Company". Sometime between Phil's birth in 1920 and Milliie's in 1923, they moved to Buffalo and briefly lived in "the Hooks", the Canal District. By about 1925, they had moved to 309 Myrtle Avenue, where the twins Connie and Mary were born, followed by Tony. All the children had been delivered at home, and all were healthy; but in June, 1932 a baby, Giuseppe, was stillborn. On August 21, 1936, I, Angelo, became the first Coniglio to be born in a hospital, and two days later, my nephew Guy III (Guy V. and Mary Modica's first son) became the second. By the family, Guy III was called Guy Jr., or sometimes "Sonny" or "Guy-Guy". Though I preceded him into life by two days, he would finish three years before me in another accomplishment, when he would become the first Coniglio to graduate from college. His brother Ronnie would be the second, and I would be the third. Like his father before him, my father's oldest and youngest children had a wide age spead. My brother Guy was born 23 years before I was. Further, eventually, Guy and Mary would have a son Brian in 1959, who was also 23 years younger than his oldest brother.
Rosa and Gaetano and their family lived on Myrtle Avenue from about 1925 until 1944. Their home was next door to their friends the Cordaro and Modica families, and across the street from the Capodicasa family plant that produced the cleaning fluid "La Stella". They worshipped at St. Columba's Roman Catholic Church, and the children attended Public School No. 35, and then, when it closed, No. 6. Those who continued through high school attended Hutchinson Central, with the exception of Tony, who went to Technical. Mary Modica lived with her parents Carmelo Modica and Giuseppa Cordaro at 307 Myrtle Avenue, and when her parents moved, she remained there for a time, living with her uncle Rosario Modica and aunt Maria Antonia (Z'Anto) Cordaro. Guy and Mary were in third grade together at School 35, when Guy gave Mary fourteen Valentines! They eventually married and had six children, eleven grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.
In addition to purchasing "La Stella" fluid across the street, the family frequented local businesses and stores like Santora's Pizzeria, Naples' Grocery, Frustiano's and Mrs. Brooks'. Gaetano was known to "tip a few" at Marconi's Saloon, and the kids played at Welcome Hall Community House and went to the movies at the Academy, the Seneca, and Roxy theatres. Phil told the story of his first date, around 1932, when he had fifty cents in his pocket and took his date to the Roxy: ten cents apiece for admission, a nickel apiece for candy bars, and ten cents for a box of popcorn. And he went home with a dime!
Nine boisterous kids helped turn Rosa's hair grey, what with Phil and Ray often getting into "brotherly" disagreements (Ray says Phil would frequently pound on him, but Ray, the larger and older of the two, would never lay a hand on Phil!) Meanwhile, Rosa and Gaetano tried to figure out how to keep neighborhood boys away from teen-age beauties Millie, Mary, and Connie. Ray has a short finger on one hand, the result of "horsing around" when he was about 14, with his friend Joe Calcaterra. They were wrestling near an old shed, when Ray's finger was caught in the hasp of a lock and the end was torn off. Ray says he "found the tip and threw it down the sewer". The doctor who sewed him up told him he could have re-attached it. And as an infant, I once was found screaming on the kitchen floor next to the washing machine, my hand to my bloody face. My father Gaetano swept me into his arms and ran water on my face at the kitchen sink: no injury, but when he rinsed my hand, a finger dropped into the basin! He grabbed the finger and rushed me to the hospital, where, the story goes, the doctor stuck the finger in place and bandaged it, without stitches. I still have the finger. It looks a little weird, but it works! Luckily, no one "threw it down the sewer". Ray, then 19, would push my "kiddy car" (stroller) as I convalesced.
Seeing all of her sons go into military service also wore on Rosa. Guy served in the Naval Reserve in the late 1930s-early 1940s, including duty in Cuba and some service on the USS Bernadou. Before WWII began, he had been exempted from active duty because of his prior overseas service and because he already had a family with two young children (Guy Jr. and Ronnie). Some of his comrades from the Great Lakes Naval Station later served in Hawaii. Phil, Leonard and Ray all served during the war. Phil was fortunate to get stateside duty in the Navy, at the Banana River Airbase at Cocoa Beach, Florida; Leonard was in the Navy too, and was on the troop carrier The USS Republic, which left Pearl Harbor two days before the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941 as part of the heavy cruiser USS Pensacola convoy; Ray married Marion Cappellano on Valentine's day 1941, and then left for duty as an Army infantryman who saw his first combat in Africa, in Algeria, French Morocco, and Tunisia. The ship that transported his regiment there was the same one that Guy had earlier served on, the USS Bernadou! Ray went on to combat in Sicily, Italy, Germany and France, and in the Utah Beach attack on Germany four days after D-Day, 1944.
Tony and I were too young to serve during WWII, but he did his stint in the Navy in the late 1940s, and I was in the Army in Germany in the mid-1950s. While their older brothers were in the war, Millie, Mary and Connie did their part in emulating "Rosie the Riveter", working across town at the East Delavan Chevrolet factory (then called a "Defense Plant"). Guy also worked there for years as a tool and die maker, and Tony later was a labor foreman there. Phil worked at the River Road Chevy plant after the war. During summers in the 1930s and early 1940s, the whole family was trucked to Musacchio's farm in North Collins, NY, where we all picked beans and berries for pennies.
In 1944, the family moved to another home, at 973 West Avenue in Buffalo, across from the Battaglia family's Vieni Su Pizzeria. Next door lived their old paesani and friends from Serradifalco and Robertsdale, Calogero and Grazia Butera. Tragically, shortly after moving in, on July 4, 1944 at age 55, Gaetano was struck and killed by a hit and run driver on the corner of Niagara and West Ferry, near the Deco coffee shop. I was seven, and those were still the days when loved ones were laid out in their homes for the wake. Rosa was inconsolable, and carried the grief of her husband's loss deep in her heart, for the remainder of her life.
In the years immediately following the move to West Avenue, a wave of marriages occurred: Millie married Alphonse (Al) Volo, whose father was another Serradifalchese, Michele Volo, who had settled in North Collins, where Millie and Al met during our summer work excursions there. Mary married Fiore Denisco and Connie married Donald (D.K.) Miller, a sailor from Danville, Illinois who had been stationed in Buffalo. They went on their honeymoon on a Harley. Tony married Frances Knickerbocker. I, still a teenager in 1950, graduated from Public School No. 19 and entered Lafayette High School, the only one in the family to go there. In 1961, I married Angie Bongiovanni, my high-school sweetheart from Lafayette. She had lived at 93 West Ferry, next to the Deco, where in 1944, Gaetano had had his last cup of coffee. Angie used to stop by 973 West on her way to Lafayette, to walk me to school. At first Rosa, always protective of her baby boy, would tell Angie: "Angelo no home!"
To see Gaetano and Rosa's ancestors, CLICK HERE.
To see their descendants, CLICK HERE.
