Getting to America

We are here in the United States of America because our grandfather Calogero as a 14-year old got on a ship in Naples, Italy called the Italia and crossed the Atlantic Ocean to New York City.  This happened in 1896.  I have his original passport document, a now weathered and many times folded paper.

I suspect it was folded to fit in his pocket.  I can only imagine how important it was to him and he must have put his hand on it many times a day to ensure it was there.  On it, there is reference to a woman Francesca Rizzuto who was accompanying him.  I have no idea who this woman was or how she came to serve that role.  He would have already traveled around 500 miles from his boyhood home in Caltabellota on the island of Sicily to get to Naples.  Some of that would have been a water trip, but there is no record of that.  Regardless, he arrived in New York City on September 14, 1896. He was processed at Ellis Island.  At that time, the ship manifest did not state who the person was going to be with.

His older half-brother Giacomo had arrived in the USA two years earlier at the age of 23.  Surely there must have been letters back to Sicily stating that there was an opportunity to make a new life in America.  Life was very hard in Sicily at that time and so three of the brothers and one of their sisters eventually left to come to America.

Their father Paolo also eventually came to America late in his life at 54 years old with his youngest daughter Sadie Marie in 1903 and died here in 1923.  On their ship manifest, it stated that they were coming to stay with his son Giacomo in New York City.

The youngest and last of the three brothers Antonino arrived in America in 1906. On the ship's manifest it states that he was going to join his brother Giacomo.  That would have been quite a houseful.