With Eyes That Remember: A Genealogy Search
© 2022 Pat Benincasa All Rights Reserved
Two years ago, I began a genealogy search of my grandfather, Giuseppe Benincasa that became an intricate labyrinth that wound its way to and from the center core of who he was. My convoluted search formed the story and painting I made of him. My “Dear Papaco Journal,” part day log and part “phone booth” was where I could talk to him as if he were listening on the other end.
Now I turn my artist eye to the old woman seated in the worn leather chair with eyes closed and fingering her rosary beads. Beyond her whispered words and faded decades, she has stories to tell and secrets to share. But first I must find her through a trail of records. Will they be enough?
Puzzle pieces in and of themselves are shaped little hints of a bigger picture. Only when pieces fit into place does an image triumph. I soon discover that in death as in life, she is a puzzle. So many things she kept to herself but, always, with eyes that remember what words cannot say.
Tricky Business
My grandmother’s life is difficult to reconstruct. There was the language barrier between Italian grandmothers who refused to learn English and their Americanized grandchildren who became fluent in reading faces and gestures.
My paternal grandparents, affectionately called “Papaco” and “Mamaco,” lived with my Uncle Frank and Aunt Mary Rizzuto in Pontiac, Michigan. My cousin, and Mamaco’s great granddaughter, Lori Angelosanto Wenrich recalled how Uncle Frank would tell Mamaco that if she had learned one word a day, she would know a thousand words by now! She would get angry and walk away. For her, there was no Rubicon to cross. Better yet, she would stay on her side of the river!
When An Artist Does Genealogy
Most genealogy work is done with research and words. As an artist, I cannot rely on words alone. If I am to know her, I will paint her portrait, with objects that define her life, like her crocheted doily, crochet needles, black bead rosary, and a vintage framed portrait of her children on a background made of naturalization, passport and birth records arcing around her face. The painting is dimensional like the life she lived. Painting someone’s portrait is a way to let them reveal themselves. I trust brush marks and paint more than words.
A Word About Flat
I don't like flat, in either windows or paintings. Why are windows always flat? I approach windows like a sculptor: an opportunity to see 3 Dimensions.
In the early 90’s I built scale models of 2-sided dimensional windows, where inside of the window was different from the outside. In 2004, I created “Redemption Window” for Hill Murray Chapel, a functioning window and sculpture consisting of 2 parts: 34 exterior windows that angle outward from the building and an interior sculpture with 10’ glass cross perched on limestone boulders. Each part is a visual continuation of the other.
As for my studio work, my sheet metal paintings of demolished industrial sites often have built structures projecting away from the surface. All this is to say that when doing paintings of my grandparents, I would of course, add objects relevant to their lives! Maybe this painting process is a result of my Catholic upbringing. “And the word was made flesh.” And the life was made real through objects. Amen.
Dear Mamaco,
Do you regret that you didn't learn to read or write? In my mind's eye, I see you holding a tattered journal with empty pages. Are you waiting for me to tell your story? But you hold everything inside. How can I tell what I don't know?
When I did Papaco's genealogy search, his story unraveled into a universe of little stories, like undiscovered planets colliding into my present-day life. His stories of burned book, immigration, Canada-Calabria back-and-forth, and Welland Canal loss of arm compelled me to write his story and paint his portrait. For you I am compelled to tell your story because of what I don't know. It's not right to leave you hidden when you have much to say.
Start At The Beginning
Gaetana Mauro was born January 30, 1887 in the small village of Mangone, in Calabria, where most of my family comes from. She was the oldest of 4. It is said that the “Mauro’s” are one of the oldest families of this village, going back several generations. I noticed that many civil documents were signed by officials with the surname of Mauro. She was also highly regarded for her sage words and uncanny ways of knowing. Villagers would often seek her advice.
She married Giuseppe Benincasa in 1906. This is where her story unfolds. Two months after they were married, Giuseppe and his brother Antonio left for Canada. This was the beginning of several Italy-Canada back and forth trips. He, 4,683 miles away, working in Ontario and she in Mangone, working the fields, for several months at a time.
Historical Perspective of Southern Italian Women
Like many, southern Italian women whose husbands were away finding work, the women maintained the family home, farm plot, goats, chickens and children. It is important not to look at the hardscrabble lives of these formidable women through a contemporary lens of victimhood or situational injustice. They did what they had to do, and they were as unyielding in their determination as the land they farmed.
In “Farms, Factories, and Families: Italian American Women of Connecticut,” by Anthony V. Riccio, he starts the book with elderly Italian women who talk about daily life in the Italian South at the turn of the 20th century. “The storytellers... reveal the trajectories of immigrant women who arrived ... with the ability to face adversity with quiet inner strength, the stamina to work tirelessly from dawn to dusk, the skill to manage the family economy, and adherence to moral principles rooted in the southern Italian code of behavior.”
A Genealogy Search Turns In To A Maze
In doing my research on Papaco, he had a paper trail of birth, military and work records, border crossings, emigration permits, ship passenger records, passports and census documents. Researching men is much easier because they are documented every step of the way! Researching women is trickier because women have a limited paper trail: birth, marriage, child birth(s), census and death records along with passenger lists and passport if, they emigrated. At first, It helped that both grandparents were from Mangone, but the local church Madonna Dell’arco, had a fire and many of its records were lost.
She doesn't have many records, which means, I will have to find a different way to approach her life. That's the thing about doing a genealogy search, each person is so different that it requires a unique path to find them. One size does not fit all.
Plan B: Going All Detective With The Cousins
For Gaetana, I used a 2-pronged approach: old photographs and crowdsourcing for memories.
“Crowdsourcing” is the practice of obtaining information into a project or task by “enlisting the services of a large number of people... typically on the internet.” I didn’t post on social media, but I did email cousins for help. My cousin, Jeannie MGlynn immediately emailed Lori Angelosanto Wenrich, the only great-grandchild old enough to have spent time with Mamaco:
“Good Morning Lori
Patti is working on information about Mamaco now that she finished her research/project on Papaco... I know you have a lot more memories of Mamaco ... since you grew up with her so wanted to connect you to Patti so you can share what you remember...”
Crowdsourcing research had never occurred to me as being a useful tool to collect information until I tried it! Jeannie amped up my request and opened a recollection doorway. My job now was to clearly ask for what I need in the form of a questionnaire. My questions had to be open enough for facts and recollections to structure my search.
Hi all,
Thanks Jeannie for reaching out to Lori in our search for Mamaco information! Leave it to your generation to crowd source!!!! This is sort of an all call to cousins who knew Mamaco...I want to tell her story with as much passion, respect and care as I did with Papaco- BUT- I realized I will have to approach her life differently: Through family memories.
Lori, you all lived with her and had day to day contact! Here is what I am looking for:
memories (big, small, ordinary)
comments she made
Did she have favorite expressions she would use?
What is your sweetest memory of her?
What type of personality did she have?
Did she laugh at things?
What made her angry?
Did she have favorite things?
Were there people (other than my dad(!) that she liked to talk to?
Any or all of the above. ANYTHING, big or small when collected, begins to tell her story. I dont know her enough to paint her.
Lori, replied with many stories and added one particular, mysterious story: Mamaco had a best friend, Pasqualina D. whom she had buried next to her husband’s grave! I will refer to her with only an initial for her last name, with respect for her relatives. More about Pasqualina later.
Photos - When Records Fail
My cousin Helen Salfi Gorday had a treasure trove of old family photos with Mamaco! She sent them to me and as I scanned and chronologically organized them, my serious face study began! A powerful theme connected all of the photos: A look in her eyes that remembers everything with fierce poignancy. Oh, and with incredible inner strength.
Family History Reconnaissance
There seems to be that one person in a family that is curious about constructing a family tree. My brother, Gary Benning started the ball rolling when trying to figure out who was related to who. He hired a genealogist from our village in Italy, who after months of research, sent Gary birth, death, military and emigration documents with translations! This Apian Way of records, allowed me to march boldly into the past to find waiting stories.
Some Things Records Cannot Say
The Atti di Nascita, (birth certificates) showed the 1910 birth of Mamaco’s first child: Bruno. It states time of birth, who was there, and more importantly, who was not.
She had her first child when her husband was in Canada: “The declarer has reported the birth of the baby boy instead of the father because he was working at the moment of the childbirth... Having read this record to those assembled, it has been signed by the witnesses and by the Registrar because the declarer is illiterate.”
What the record didnt say is that a young wife gave birth to her first child, without her husband in country. At this most vulnerable time in a woman’s life, she did it alone. Midwife, Maria Mauro, age 66, would deliver the baby, but there is no husband nearby listening for cries of new life.
Dear Mamaco,
I want to know what life was like for you in Calabria, especially when your husband was away. Helen told me that you had a reputation for being fierce, known for killing snakes in the fields.
You went about your business in a country that gave you no rights whatsoever. The husband was the ultimate authority. Yet women ran the household, raised children and maintained stability. From your marriage in 1906 to the birth of your son in 1910, so much was happening in souther Italy; The 1908 Great Earthquake in Calabria and Sicily.
"Just three days after Christmas in 1908, southern Italy was devastated by an earthquake - the largest in European history - and a tsunami that would claim the lives of more than 100,000 people."
https://www.ancestry.com/historicalinsights/messina-italy-earthquake-1908
Did you feel the earth tremble? Did trees fall, rocks cascade and village buildings crumble? How did you survive epidemics, droughts, the taxation burdens from the North and the constant poverty?
A Back-And-Forth Existence
From a modern-day view, I assumed that when men emigrated from Italy, they stayed in their adopted country and later sent for their wives and children.
Looking at passenger lists, Papaco went back and forth and stayed in Mangone for a few months at a time but was gone for several months. Between the return visits, he and Gaetana had 4 children: Bruno in 1910, Teresina in 1915, Marietta in 1917 and Francesco in 1920. In addition to working in Canada, he served in the Royal Italian Army at age 37 and was released in 1919.
When The Unthinkable Happens
The Certificato Di Morte (Certificate of Death) dated March 17, 1916 stated that Bruno Benincasa died in Mangone.
Dear Mamaco,
I remembered Helen telling me that her mother, Teresina, did not want to leave Italy. She was your oldest child. Was she mirroring you? Did you not want to leave?
You had your first child Bruno, in 1910 and in 1916, he died. For both his birth and death, his father was overseas.
A relative had said that Bruno was a very smart little boy. The night before he died, he had a high fever. You touched his forehead and told him that "tomorrow you will be better." Bruno said: "I am not going to wake up in the morning."
Bruno died when he was 6 years old. You buried him in village soil. How did you endure the crushing blow of losing a child and your husband being overseas? In the closeness of village life, did you find comfort or a stifling awareness of prying eyes?
12 years later, leaving for Canada, did you feel that you would abandon him to a place without family to remember him? Especially because he was a little boy and a child needs their mama. In the days leading up to your departure, did you go to his grave to say goodbye? Did you tell him that you had to go but would always hold him close in your mother-son heart?
The Only Photo From Italy
It was a custom for the wife and children to be photographed in Italy, before their overseas departure. Gaetana is seated with her 3 children: Teresina, Marietta and Francesco (my dad). Having the photo analyzed by Photo Detective, Maureen Taylor, she noted that the clothing is about 1914ish in style and that peasants were often dressed in out-of-date clothing. Given my father’s age, we dated the photo about 1924. Records show that the family had gone to and from Canada between 1921 and 1928.
Passengers To A New Life
Mrs. Gaetana Benincasa and her 3 children boarded the SS Montroyal of the Canadian-Pacific Line on September 29, 1928. This is their final trip, leaving Italy to never return. They shared their accommodations with 796 others in Third Class, the former steerage space. They arrived in Quebec, Canada on October 6, 1928.
My cousin Lori wrote:
“I always reflect on the bravery she must have possessed (everytime I get on a cruise ship). Leaving a buried child behind... never to visit again. Traveling 3rd class on a huge boat to an unknown, cold, gray land with 3 ... children following closely next to her, to a disabled husband who had lost a limb. Not understanding all the languages, food, smells or customs of all those other European people she had to share quarters with overseas. My Grandma told me she was so scared all the time and kept every dollar she had in her bra!”
Life in Canada
Giuseppe and Gaetana received their Canadian passports on October 22, 1923.
After their final arrival, the family settled, living near Holy Rosary Church, the parish that Southern Italians attended. They later purchased a house across the street from the Welland Canal on Towpath Road in Thorold, Ontario. (Note: “A towpath is a path along the side of a canal or river, which horses used to walk on when they pulled boats.”) https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/towpat
The children grew up and married. Teresina and her husband Jimmy Salfi stayed in Canada. Marietta (Mary) married Frank Rizzuto and lived in Pontiac. My father married Ida Rizzuto, and they also lived in Pontiac.
My dad arranged for Mamaco and Papaco to come to the US where they lived with Aunt Mary + Uncle Frank. On August 9, 1950 they became naturalized US citizens.
La Bella Vita A Pontiac
Like many 1950’s Italian-American households, grandparents lived with one of their married children. This was a time when relatives constantly visited each other. Cousins were always together celebrating birthdays, and holidays. It seemed that there was some unspoken rule that it was okay to visit family any time day or night and that copious amounts of food, wine and coffee would suddenly appear. It was Doorbell Opera at its finest! Choreographed personalities speaking in animated dialect or rapid-fire broken English. Heads would nod and faces contort to a chorus of laughter or gasps of shocked dismay! As a little kid, I thought those moments were no big deal because they would last forever.
When Things Changed
Aunt Mary and Uncle Frank’s house was always busy with their 3 kids doing whatever kids did in the 50’s with grandparents tending the huge, lush backyard garden. Things changed when Papaco’s cancer kept him painfully bedridden and then with his passing in 1958. It was as if the energy in the house had shifted; life went on but Mamaco was always saying the rosary. Cousins remember her being serious and keeping to herself, a bit distant. She still enjoyed chocolate and good food. Her favorite breakfast was Eggs in Purgatory (scrambled eggs in tomato sauce) and when she was given a Hersey’s chocolate bar, she would smile and kiss it. It was said that she cherished 3 things: “Family, food and Jesus... in that order.”
At A Bus Stop!
One afternoon, after shopping at Waites Department Store in downtown Pontiac, Aunt Mary was waiting for the bus. She struck up a conversation with a woman who was from a village near Mangone. She brought Pasqualina D. home that day! From that point on, Mamaco and she would visit all the time, deep in conversation, speaking non-stop Italian.
Emotional Refugees in a Land of Excess
What are the odds that a daughter would bring a stranger home for her mother to befriend? They were two rural women exiled in a land of abundance and automobiles with strange speaking people. Did this friendship offer them freedom to express what couldn't be shared with family? Did they share adversity and little joys? Is it comparable to girl-talk with a bestie: say anything from a place of deep regard?
Who was Pasqualina D ? What was her story?
Where Records Point
Records of Pasqualina’s life were tinged with troubling facts. She was born 10 years earlier than Mamaco and was married in her village just before WW1 and had two children. A 1938 passenger list had Pasqualina using her maiden name, traveling with her children, who used the father’s name. Ship passenger lists have a category called “Marks of Identification.” Hers read: “scar on forehead.”
She was heading to Michigan to join her husband. Using US City Directories, I could track her from arrival in the US until her death in the late 1960s. Here is where the story twists and turns. She worked with her husband in his small business. In 1943, she divorced him. “Cause for which divorced,” the record read: “Extreme cruelty.” She lived with her children in many places and continued to work at her husband’s business, even after he remarried. After 1962, I could find no trace of the ex-husband.
Dear Mamaco,
You purchased a beautiful headstone for your friend, Pasqualina, and had her buried next to Papaco. When I started my search I saw you as a mother, grandmother, grief survivor, village wise-woman, snake-chaser of the fields, maker of the beautiful crochet, gardener, cook and baker. I will now add that you were a loyal and fierce friend.
And for this, I love you even more.
As In Life So In Death
Did Mamaco give Pasqualina a magnificent granite headstone as an act of heartfelt defiance to say that her life mattered? Was having her buried next to Papaco symbolic of the words: As in life, so in death, friends forever? “Granite not only withstands the elements and holds its form, but also (and more importantly) retains information inscribed for a lot longer than its softer-stone counterparts.” https://www.memorials.com/Headstones-Materials-information.php
Both women, with granite-like determination, withstood tragic events that would have corroded a softer stone. All their joys and sorrows, carried from one country to another, are inscribed with chiseled clarity into who they were.
As the daughter of immigrants, I did this painting to honor my Southern Italian grandmother, and the many women like her who gave us the precious gift of identity. I know who I am and where I come from.
Bibliography
Aprile, Pino.(2011). Terroni: All That Has Been Done To Insure That The Italians Of The South Became “Southerners.” Translated from Italian by Ilaria Marra Rosiglioni. New York: Bordighera Press.
Cornelisen, Ann. Women of the Shadows: Wives and Mothers of Southern Italy, Hanover, New Hampshire, Streetforth Press, 1976.
Gambino, Richard. Blood of My Blood: The Dilemma of the Italian-Americans. Toronto: Guernica Editions., 2000.
Haid, Karen. Calabria: The Other Italy. Minneapolis: Mill City Press. 2015.
Haid, Karen. Basilicata: Ancient Italy. Hiller Press. 2020.
Riccio, Anthony V. Farms, Factories, and Families: Italian American Women of Connecticut, Excelsior Editions, 2014.
Talese, Gay. Unto The Sons. New York: Random House. 1992.
Website Sources
Library of Congress, “The Great Arrival,” www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/italian/the-great-arrival/
PubMed.gov, “Mortality peaks in Italy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: trends by age and sex,” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12158987/
ancestry.com, “The Messina Earthquake,” https://www.ancestry.com/historicalinsights/messina-italy-earthquake-1908
CUNY Academic Works, “land of Women: Basilicata, Emigration, and the Women Who Remained behind, 1880-1914,” https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3138&context=gc_etds
Springer Link, “Folk medicine used to heal malaria in Calabria (southern Italy),” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/1746-4269-6-27
University of Minnesota Libraries Continuum, “italy’s ‘Other’: A Study of Transnational Calabrian Identity,” https://www.continuum.umn.edu/2019/04/italys-other-a-study-of-transnational-calabrian-identity/
BOOK REVIEWS, Wormser, Gary P., Section Editor, “The Conquest of Malaria: Italy, 1900-1962,” https://watermark.silverchair.com/43-10-1374a.pdf
Daily Beast, “David’s Book Club: The Conquest of Malaria,” https://www.thedailybeast.com/davids-book-club-the-conquest-of-malaria
American Experience PBS, “Messina Earthquake,” https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/rescue-messina-earthquake/
History.com, “Worst European earthquake ever recorded,” https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/worst-european-earthquake
www.encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Veristi
