Italians in America and the Great War

Unidentified Italian soldiers in Austria during World War I

 

The following is the opening paragraph of a research paper published in Italian Americana in 1978 by Fiorello B. Ventresco.  The title of the paper is: Loyalty and Descent: Italian Reservists in America during World War I:

“In the summer of 1915, an angry mob of Italians in Philadelphia stormed the hall at Eighth and Christian Streets where a meeting was taking place and attacked several of the speakers.  The speakers were attempting to convince reservists not to return to Italy, where they would fight in the Great War. Such conflicts became common in various parts of America as the war continued.  The clash of opinions among Italians in the United States emerges as one of the most interesting and complex chapters in American history.” 

The entire 29 page article can be read at www.jstor.org .  The author goes into great detail about the reasons for and reactions to Italy’s reach to America to get its young men to come back home and help fight in the war it just entered.  The enormous exodus of young Italian men to the United States and other countries during the last decade of the 19^th century and the first decade of the 20^th century drastically depleted the number of able-bodied young men available to serve in the Italian Army.  The Italian government never thought that these young men were permanently lost.  They considered them Italian citizens working in a foreign country and reservists in the Italian Army.  They assumed that they could get about 100,000 young men to return to Italy from the United States.  At the outbreak of the war, the U.S. government was neutral and formally announced that no foreign born residents could be forced to join foreign armies as long as they remained in the United States.   The records show that by December 1915, about 41% of the Italian men in the United States returned to Italy to fight in the war.  A remarkably high percentage.

How did this situation affect our Ambruso ancestors?  Consider the fact that the angry mob assembled at Eighth and Christian was just two blocks down the street from where Frank Ambruso and his sons and their families were living at the time.  Were they part of the protest? 

 Frank Ambruso was 70 years old in 1915, and already a naturalized American citizen since 1900. His sons, Michael and Leonardo were also naturalized citizens and fully absorbed into the American culture.  There is no indication that they served in the U.S. military, however they did fill out the required WW1 draft registration cards in 1918. 

Also in Philadelphia in 1915, Frank’s brother Joseph had two sons old enough to serve in the Italian Army.  Michael was 24 and Eugenio was 23.  Michael was married with two children and lived just four blocks from the scene of the 1915 demonstration.  He submitted his application for naturalization before that, in January 1914 and was granted United States citizenship in May 1918.  Obviously, he had no intention of joining the Italian Army.  The same must have been true of his brother Eugenio who was granted U.S. Citizenship in 1923. 

My own grandfather, Michael, was in Garfield, NJ in 1915 when Italy entered the war.  He had already served in the Italian Army before he came to America.  In 1918, near the end of the war, enlisted in the U.S. Army and gained U.S. citizenship.  His brother-in-law, Lawrence Mancini married to Felicia Ambruso, enlisted with him.  Unlike many of their fellow Italian immigrants, my grandfather and his brother-in-law seemed to have cut ties with the old country and embrace the new one. 

We do know what one Ambruso ancestor did answer the call.  “Hartford Mike”, Michele Ambruso (b. 1890) was in the USA in 1915 when he decided to return to Italy to serve in his country by joining the Italian Army.  It also helped that his wife was still in Italy.  He was not alone.  When he eventually returned to the United States in 1923, the passenger manifest of the ship he was on shows scores of young men who must have done the same thing.  The record shows that they were in America until 1915 and then returned to Italy.  So it seems that Hartford Mike was the only Ambruso family member that answered the call from Italy and joined the Italian Army during the Great War…La Grande Guerra.



Family of Michele Ambruso (b. 1847) and Antonia Maria Lauria

1872 Salandra Marriage Document
 for Michele Ambruso and Antonia Maria Lauria.
Difficult to read because of the old script and the slightly out of focus microfilm.
(click on photo to enlarge)

Michele Ambruso was the second son of Michelarcangelo Ambruso and Maria Giuseppa Iula.  He was born in Salandra in 1847.  He married Antonia Maria Lauria in Salandra in May 1872.  They had five children.  The first child, a girl named Maria Giuseppa after her maternal grandmother, was born in April 1874.  She married Rocco Querrieri in 1891, and then, later on in life in 1919 after Rocco passed away, she married Leonardo Gagliardi.

The second child was born in 1880.  Following naming customs, she was named Angela Maria after her maternal grandmother.  She married Nicola Castellano in 1896.  The third child was also a girl, born in 1887.  She was named Rosa Maria.  Rosa married Rocco Belmonte in May of 1903.  There is no indication that any of the daughters of Michele and Antonia, or their husbands, ever came to the United States. 

The fourth child was a boy, their first son.  He was born on 31 Aug 1890. They named him Michele after his paternal grandfather.  For some unknown reason, as I mentioned in the previous post, Michele was also the name of his father.  Michele (b. 1890) married Angela Maria Onorati in Salandra in 1872.  Michele and Angela and their family came to the United States and settled in Hartford, Connecticut. 

Michele (b. 1847) and Antonia had a fifth child, Domenico, in 1893.  Domenico married Rosaria Albanese in 1913, and later married Margherita Saponara in November 1919.  Michele died in Salandra in 1909.

Someone yelled "MICHAEL" at an Ambruso gathering and 29 people turned their head.

In the later part of the nineteenth century, four brothers from Salandra, Italy, followed Italian customs for naming their children.  Each named their first son after their own father, Michelarcangelo Ambruso, the boys’ grandfather.  There were four first cousins, all born around the same time, who all came to the United States, and they were all called Michele Ambruso.  (I talk about these Four Michaels in my post of 10 May 2013.)   If you think this would add confusion to any genealogical research, you would be correct. 

In an attempt to simplify things, I gave them my own identifying names.  The oldest was Francesco’s son Michele.  He was born over a decade before the others, so I call him Michael Ambruso (b. 1874).  My own grandfather, Rocco’s son, had a middle name so I simply call him Michael Anthony Ambruso.  He was born in 1889. Michelarcangelo broke the naming convention and named one of his sons “Michele”.  That Michele (b. 1847) then went back to following the convention and named his first son Michele.  That son settled in Hartford, CT.  I call him Michael Ambruso (“Hartford Mike” b. 1890).  The fourth Michael was Giuseppe’s first son.  He settled in Philadelphia.  I call him Michael Ambruso (“Philly Mike” b. 1891). 

As you can see, the custom of naming a first son after his paternal grandfather can be both a blessing and a curse to genealogists.  It helps determine who’s who, but unless you give each grandson some differentiating nickname or ID number, it can get very confusing since they all have the same name, which in this case is Michael.  Of course each of those four Michaels had grandsons, living today, that are also named Michael.  Too many Michaels!

Marriages & Families – Michael and Catherine Ambruso

Engagement Photo
Michael and Catherine  (1897)

Michele (Michael) Ambruso was born in Salandra in 1874.  He was the first son of Francesco and Giovanna so he was named after his paternal grandfather.  So were three of his first cousins, one of which was my grandfather.  All four Michael’s traveled to the United States and settled there.  (See my blog article from May 10, 2013 entitled: “the Four Michaels”.)  According to U.S. Census records, Michael came to America with his mother, sister and younger brother in about 1885, although the actual ships’ passenger manifest is yet to be found. 

He lived with his parents at 712 South Mildred Street in Philadelphia.  He married Caterina Di Biase in Philadelphia in 1898.  On the 1900 census she gave her name as “Kate".  Michael and Catherine had a large family.  They had ten children, nine of which lived to adulthood.  The list of their children with their year of birth is as follows:  Francis “Frank” 1900, Victor “David” 1902, Leonardo “Leonard” 1904 (died 1907), Vincenzo “James” 1906, Mary Jane 1908, Leonard 1910, Frances 1912, Salvadore 1914, Carmela 1915, Michael Victor 1917.  According to the latest count, there are 45 direct descendants of Michael and Catherine alive today.

About 1917, Michael bought the property at 812 Bainbridge St. which was just up the street at the corner of South Mildred and Bainbridge, and opened a grocery store.  Michael was a grocer at that location for the rest of his life. 


South Mildred Street, Philadelphia

A typical narrow alley street in Philadelphia's Little Italy circa 1900

South Milred Street, Philadelphia today

 

According to the US Census, in 1900, South Mildred Street was crowded with immigrants from southern Italy.   The census also showed that one house in particular was crowded with Ambruso’s.  Francesco (Frank) Ambruso and his wife Giovanna (Jannie); Francesco’s son Michael and his wife Caterina (Kate) and their 3 month old baby, Frank, named after his grandfather; and Francesco’s second son, Leonardo with his new wife Mary, all lived in the tiny house at 712 South Mildred Street.   Just a few years later, Michael and his growing family moved next door to 710 S. Mildred.  Leonardo and Mary also moved next door, but in the other direction, to 714 S. Mildred.  And in 1912, a widow by the name of Angelina Ambruso (possibly Frank’s sister) was living at 713 S. Mildred Street.

South Mildred Street was designed before the automobile.  It was only wide enough for one cart to pass, with a small sidewalk on each side.  Today it is not wide enough to drive a vehicle through without having one wheel up on the pavement (see photo above).  It is called a street, but it is little more than an alley.  The houses haven’t changed much the last 130 years.  They are all constructed of brick, three stories with a basement, and are very narrow (only 18 to 20 feet wide) with a common wall between them.  It turns out South Mildred Street was typical of side streets in that section of Philadelphia in the late 1800’s.  Several other streets in the vicinity such as Schell St., Kenilworth, Kater and Bradford Alley all had, and still have a similar appearance.  The historic photo above could be any one of these streets.  They were all home to southern Italians who converged on Philadelphia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

During the Ellis Island years, when passengers boarded the ship for their journey to America, they had to give the name and address of the person they were going to in the United States.  Giuseppe Ambruso and his two sons listed Francesco at 712 Mildred Street Philadelphia.  Nephews such as Michele Ambruso, who eventually settled in Hartford, CT and Domenico Daria, Ana Maria’s son, and probably several others, yet to be identified nephews, also used their Uncle Francesco’s address in Philadelphia as their official destination in America.  Tiny street…tiny house…important destination.

Around 1914, Michael and Kate bought the building at the corner of South Mildred and Bainbridge, about 100 feet up the street, and opened a grocery store.  After Michael died, Kate moved back to 712 S. Mildred St. after she had it renovated.  After Kate died, her daughter’s family moved in.  They lived there until 1996.  There were Ambruso’s living at 712 South Mildred Street in Philadelphia for 100 years.



Philadelphia...Finally!

In presenting the history of the Ambruso Family on this blog, I started with my own branch, the descendants of Rocco Vincenzo Ambruso who settled in the northern New Jersey-New York City area.  Old Rocco had 10 children, so it took a long time for me to get through the family.  It is now time to move on to the Philadelphia Ambruso’s.  As I said previously, two of the sons of Michelarcangelo Ambruso settled in Philadelphia.  Both branches have rich histories and interesting stories, all of which contributed to the wonderful Italian culture of South Philly that exists today. 

Francesco Domenico Ambruso was the oldest son of Michelarcangelo Ambruso and Maria Giuseppa Iula.  He was born in Salandra in 1845.  He was the first Salandra Ambruso to come to America.  He came in the early 1880’s.  It is believed that his wife and three children followed in the mid 1880's.  They came through New York City, but settled in Philadelphia. 

Francesco was one of over 100,000 Italians who made their way to Philadelphia between 1980 and 1930.  During that short period of time, the Italian population of the city grew from under 25,000 to well over 150,000.  A report by the Italian Commission on Emigration says that over 75% of the Italians who were living in Philadelphia in 1901 were from four regions in southern Italy:  Abruzzi, Calabria, Campania and Basilicata.  Ward 4, just south of South Street was the center of Italian immigration from about 1885 to 1910.  Eventually, Italian immigrants spread further south and west to the familiar South Philly Italian neighborhoods we know today.  But in period betwee 1890 and 1900, the Italian immigrant population of Philadelphia was centered in the neighborhood between 6^th and 10^th Streets on the east and west; and Bainbridge and Washington Streets on the north and south.  This is where Francesco lived. 

Francesco’s two sons Michele and Leonardo came to Philadelphia around 1885 with their mother and sister.  In 1898, Michele (Michael) married Caterina DiBiase in Philadelphia.  The next year, his brother Leonardo married Maria Isabella Gentile.  All three families lived on a narrow alley named South Mildred Street.  Like Harrison Avenue in Garfield, NJ, “Uncle Frank’s house” on Mildred Street was to become the destination for all the Salandra Ambruso’s coming to Philadelphia and elsewhere in America.

In October of 1900, Francesco’s brother Giuseppe Maria Ambruso came to the United Stated from Salandra with his two grown sons, Michele and Eugenio.  They stated on the ship’s manifest that they were going to Uncle Francesco’s house on Mildred St. in Philadelphia.  Giuseppe and his family started the second branch of the Ambruso clan from Salandra to settle in America.

In subsequent postings, I will present all the information I have on both Philadelphia branches of the Ambruso Family. I will start with posts on Francesco’s branch, and then move to Giuseppe’s branch.  This is an invitation for all descendants of both Philadelphia branches to send me any facts and stories you have on your Ambruso ancestors.  Now is the time to speak up.  All of us will appreciate your stories and family memories.