Descendants of Justina Ambruso and Anthony Graziadei

Wedding photo of Justina Ambruso and Anthony Graziadei (1929)
 

My Ambruso second cousins are coming out of the woodwork!  Not one, but two grandchildren of Justina Ambruso and Tony Graziadei have contacted me recently by e-mail.  One cousin, Debbie Justina Trail Giffone, sent several family photos including the one above. 

Justina and Tony had two daughters, Rose and Isabella.  Rose married Mark Trail.  Likewise, they also had two daughters, Laura and Debra.  Rose, Mark and the girls lived in Whitestone, Queens, NY.  Rose’s sister, Isabella, married Lenny Bruno and had a son, Gerard.  Both families lived in the same house, Isabella and her family on the floor above Rose’s family.  The sisters were very close.

When Debbie was about 10 years old, Rose and her family moved to south Florida.  A few years later, Isabella and her family also moved to south Florida along with the grandparents, Justina and Tony.  The whole family was together in Florida. 

In subsequent posts, I will share some of the great family photos that Debbie has sent me.  Many are from Uncle Nick’s house in Astoria.  We’ll have fun figuring out who everybody is.

If you have any old Ambruso family photos, please send them to me like Debbie did.  She just used her smart phone to take photos of pictures in an album, and then sent them to me attached to an e-mail.  The quality might not be as good as a digitally scanned picture, but hey, they are still worth 1,000 words.

Featured Family Photo #3

This photo was taken on the front steps of Uncle Nick's house in Astoria, Queens in the late 1950's.  It shows, from left to right, my grandfather, Michael Anthony Ambruso, Angie Iula, Esther Iula, their Aunt Josephine, and Justine Ambruso Graziadei.  It is almost impossible to show old photos of my family from this period without at least one person being named Esther. 

Send your old family photos and I will post them so we can all share in the memories.

Marriages & Families - Anthony and Justina Graziadei

Justina Ambruso was born in Salandra in 1901.  Her birth record (Atti de Nascita) shown above, lists her official given name was Giustina Clorinda Ambruso.  The name Clorinda is very rare.  I haven't run into any other person with that name in my Salandra research. I have no idea of its origin or why she was given this middle name. 

This document also lists a few other interesting bits of information.  The occupation, or position, of her father, Rocco, is given as “possidente”, or landowner, not the common “contadina”, or peasant farmer that is seen on most Salandra birth records.  This shows that Rocco must have owned some land and had some wealth.

Like her sisters, Mary, Angelina and Ottavia, Justina married a man from her hometown of Salandra.  Anthony (Antonio Vincente) Graziadei was born in Salandra in 1894.  He and Justina were married in Brooklyn, NY in 1929.  They settled in Queens and Anthony worked at the legendary Palter DeLiso shoe company on Broadway in Manhattan.  They had two daughters: Isabella, born in 1931; and Rose, born in 1933.  My guess is that both of Tony's daughters always wore very fashionable shoes.

Sunday Family Dinners at Nick Ambruso's

This video clip is from an 8mm movie, shot by Roxy Ambruso ca. 1954 at Nick and Mary Ambruso's home in Queens, NY.  It was typical for the Ambruso brothers and sisters and their families to gather weekly for Sunday dinners in the early afternoon.  The various branches of the family would travel by car or bus from different parts of NY and NJ to Queens each week which forged family bonds out through the extended relations.  A makeshift banquet table on horses accommodated everyone in the basement where huge pots of pasta and sauce were lowered from the upstairs apartment on a dumbwaiter.

On this particular Sunday Nick, Mary, son Rocco, daughter Esther and sister Helen Ambruso were joined by Tina (Ambruso), husband Vincent Angiulli and young son Johnny; Justine (Ambruso), husband Tony Graziadei with daughters Isabella and Rose and Rose's husband Mark Trail; as well as Michael Ambruso, daughter Millie, son Roxy (mostly filming) and wife Eleanor.

This film was one of our favorites when I was growing up.  We found it hilariously funny to see the family emerge from basement bulkhead and paraded for the camera.  It enabled me to get a sense of relatives, many of whom I never actually got to meet.  I could tell this was a family that knew how to have fun and really enjoyed each other's company.  I can recall my mom narrating the film, saying things like "that was your Aunt Helen.  She never left the house, that was the only time I ever saw her outside".  Now in hindsight she thinks that Helen may possibly have been suffering from something like Chronic Fatigue, Crohn's Disease or the like, but in those days a lot of those conditions were unknown and uncommon.  Helen remained unmarried and lived with brother Nick her whole life — first in Garfield, NJ then Queens, as he eventually married and had a family.

The tradition of extended family dinners depicted here was likely a continuation of a custom carried over from Salandra.  It continued throughout my childhood, not every week but in holiday family gatherings which alternated among my mom's siblings.  I recall numerous additional gatherings especially those in my Aunt Esher (Ambruso) and Uncle John Casteline's basement in Wallington, NJ.  This tradition lives on today in the form of holiday get-togethers, reenforcing those extended family bonds for generations to come.

Editor's Note:  I dated this film ca. 1954 based on where it fell among other footage in Roxy and Eleanor's Home Movies as well as the apparent age of Johnny Angiulli and and others.  Music:  Percussion Storm by Manu Dibango.

Children of Rocco and Pasquarosa

Standing: Ottavia, Diana and Mary. Seated: Helen and Pasquarosa 

In this blog, I will eventually post the factual information I have on all the Ambruso descendants.  Today I will start with my own branch of the family, the children of Rocco Vincenzo Ambruso and Pasquarosa Corrado. 

Rocco and Pasquarosa were married in 1885 in Salandra.  They had ten children, two sons and eight daughters, all born in Salandra.  They conformed to traditional naming customs for the first few, but then began to run out of names, so according to family legend, the eighth child was named Ottavia, the ninth was Novelina, and the tenth was Diecina.  This legend is questionable since the eighth child used the name Lucia on the ship’s manifest, and the ninth child always used the name Elena (Helen).  The tenth child, however, is actually listed on the ship’s manifest in 1922 as “Decina”.  She always called herself "Diana".  She was my mother's aunt and I always called her something that slurred into "Antyna".  It seems like almost everyone in this family had multiple names. 

Their first child, Maria Giuseppa, was born in 1887.  She married Pasquale Bonelli in Salandra in 1907.  Patsy came to America first; then Mary followed with her 11 month old daughter Teresa in 1909. 

Rocco’s next child was a son.  He was named Michele after his grandfather.  They then had two daughters, Felicia and Sylvia.  These three siblings, Michele, Felicia and Silvia, came to America together in 1913.  They went directly to their sister Mary in Garfield, NJ.

Michele Antonio Ambruso was my grandfather. He was born in 1889. He married Vincenza “Jennie” Lammardo in Garfield in 1920.

Felicia Ambruso was born in 1891.  She married Lorenzo Mancini in Garfield, also in 1920.

Silvia Ambruso was born in 1893.  She married Antonio Saraco in Garfield in 1923.

In August 1921 two more of Rocco’s daughters, Giustina and Lucia (Ottavia), came to the USA.  They were traveling with another man from Salandra, Francesco Maremonti, probably a good friend or cousin.  Giustina and Lucia were heading to the Bonelli house and their siblings in Garfield.

Giustina “Justina” Ambruso was born in 1901.  She married Antonio “Tony” Graziadei in New York about 1929.

Lucia “Ottavia” Ambruso was born in 1903.  She married Nicola “Nicholas” Sassano in Garfield in 1925.

Rocco Vincenzo never came to America.  He died in Salandra in 1922.  The rest of his children left Salandra a few months later with Rocco’s widow, Pasquarosa Corrado.  Rocco’s second son, Nicola, led the group which included his three sisters: Angela, Elena and Diecina.  They were all heading to the Bonelli house in Garfield.  By the end of 1922, the entire family was in America, in Garfield, New Jersey.

Angela Ambruso was born in 1900.  She married Giovanni “John” Iula in Garfield in 1925.

Nicola “Nick” Ambruso was born in 1895.  He married Mary Valentino in New York City in 1931.

Diecina “Diana” Ambruso was born in 1908.  She married Vincent Angiulli in Queens, NY in 1944.

Elena “Helen” Ambruso was born in 1906.  She never married. 

These are the first facts for each of the children of Rocco and Pasquarosa.  Now it’s your turn.  I need you to provide me with more facts, photos and interesting family stories for each of these people.  Once I have enough facts, I will publish a separate post on the family of each of these children.