Chapter 2. Off to the New World

After much agonizing and soul searching and many family discussions, the decision to seek passage and emigration visas to the United States was made! When father sought parental blessing, He was informed that by leaving, he would be breaking up the family business arrangement, and that by doing so, he would forfeit his right to an inheritance. All he could expect would be enough  money for his own living expenses and passage to America! Father was crushed and hurt by his father’s position on the matter. The fact that his father was so vindictive as to refuse to underwrite the cost of passage for his wife and son hurt the most! Nevertheless, early in November of 1900, father, age twenty-eight, left for America, leaving behind his wife and six month old Nicola, consoling his wife and himself with the thought that as a tailor, he would be able to earn and save enough money in the United States to be able to send for them in the not too distant future. Needless to say, father traveled steerage class on the ocean liner, as was usual for most emigrants in those days. As a child, I recall the stories he told of days spent in what he recalled as “the bottom of the ship,” in crowded, fetid, quarters. He remembered being befriended by an Italian crew member, a steward who would occasionally rescue him from the foul smelling, steaming, airless bottom of the ship for short visits to the crew member’s cabin where father would reciprocate by making clothing alterations or repairs, while enjoying a glass of the steward’s wine and conversation of a comparably educated young man in healthier quarters.

On landing in America, father was processed through Ellis Island, along with the thousands of other immigrants from southern Europe, who were pouring through that facility at the time. He used to joke about his experiences with the personnel doing the processing of immigrants in that venerable institution at the time. In addition to having been trained as a tradesman for eight years in Naples, father, as the son of a well-to-do merchant had been privately educated and tutored by an uncle who had been the abbot of a monastery. It appears that some Ellis Island processors only spoke English, and not being used to dealing with some immigrants, who could not read or write, and could only speak the rough dialects of their native tongues, found it difficult to interpret or understand some of the foreign names. As a result, many names were changed arbitrarily and became the permanent names of such immigrants in the rush of processing. Some of the name changes were utterly ludicrous! When father was processed, the processor tried to change the last name to Alexander. Father objected and won permission to record his name correctly.

After having been processed out of Ellis Island, father went on to New York City hoping to find a job and a place to live until he could earn enough money to enable him to move on to Cleveland, Ohio where he hoped he might find a permanent home and establish a residence for himself, wife, and son. Father, in reminiscing about his New York City experiences spoke about arriving there with the equivalent of about ten American dollars in his pocket and all of his remaining worldly goods in a large suitcase. While on board ship, the steward who had befriended him had given him written directions to a street known as Mott Street, where the steward had told him that he might find people from his home town. Father, in recounting the story of his arrival, often laughed at the picture he must have made as he walked down Mort Street. He felt people looking at him with amused looks, paying particular attention to his hat. He wondered what there was about his hat that might be the cause for amusement. He said that he had purchased the hat in Naples from a fine haberdashery. It was well made, expensive, and in the latest style, he thought at the time! He soon learned the cause, He also found that he also was very hungry. It was late morning, and he had not had anything to eat since the previous evening’s meal. He would explain his sudden hunger at the time by saying that he happened to be passing a bakery at that moment and saw the tempting display of baked goods in the window. Upon entering the store, he discovered to his relief and pleasure, that the store proprietors were Italian and joy of joy were people who had migrated to America some twenty years before! They too had an amused look when they saw him walk into the store. The first thing the proprietor did after warmly greeting and shaking father’s hand was to remove a  piece of cardboard from father’s hat band. It read, in capital letters, MOTT STREET! Father explained that the ship’s steward had placed the card in his hat band thinking that it would help people to understand where father wanted to go, since he did not as yet speak English. Father had completely forgotten all about it, going on to say that he must have looked ridiculous to the residents of the street. Suffice it to say that father’s newly found Italian bakery friends with typical Italian hospitality fed him the first baked goods that he was to eat in the United States of America, and as luck would have it, later that day, introduced him to another Italian family in the neighborhood who took in boarders. It was through the kindness of these new found friends that father was also fortunate enough to find work as a tailor in the Garment District the following week. Father never forgot the Lauria and D’Lirso families who had befriended him in New York City.

The fact that father had planned a short stay in New York City was wise, because he found the city’s size intimidating and his work in the Garment District a stultifying experience. The shop he worked in was a piece work shop. Any one who has worked in such a shop will tell you that the object is to grind out as many pieces of clothing as quickly as possible, In such a situation, the object is production. The more pieces produced, the more money is made by the owner and the worker. Father, being the craftsman that he was, was not trained or suited to fit into such a situation for any length of time. So as soon as he had earned enough money to cover his train fare to Cleveland, and Off to the New World sufficient funds to provide him with a good stake to get him started there, he made plans to leave. Being a stickler for doing the right thing, he gave the appropriate, timely notice to his employer and to the Lauria and D’Urso families, who had been the first to welcome him to America, and who had found his first job for him and gave him his first home in this country. Father often said that he found the moment of leaving the members of those families as heart rending as the moment of his departure from his own family in Laurenzana.