A Visit To Salandra

 

Philip Corrigan and his sons

Ambruso cousin, Philip Corrigan, is in the U.S. Military and stationed in Italy.  He and his wife and three young sons live in Naples.  They have been there for about a year, and now that the pandemic has subsided somewhat in Italy, they decided to take a family road trip to Matera, with a stop in Salandra along the way.  Salandra is the ancestral home of four branches of the Ambruso family that came to America.  

 

Salandra, Matera, Basilicata, Italy

Philip's grandfather was Rocco Bonelli, who was the son of Maria Ambruso and Pasquale "Patsy" Bonelli from Garfield, NJ.  Maria was the oldest child of Rocco Ambruso and Pasquarosa Corrado.  She married Pasquale in Salandra and was the first of her family to come to America with Pasquale.

He sent me the pictures I have included with this post.   I'll let him describe the experience in his own words:

"The town is a hill town and the hills are all sand colored at this time of year since all of the grass is burnt out. It almost reminds me of Texas. My kids thought it looked like a desert. The road to get up to the town was an adventure - classic windy Italian road with room for 1.5 cars. We only stayed in the town a few minutes - had time to grab a frozen lemonade and take some pictures.  I think the American family in the big car walking around during riposo was quite the novelty for some of the locals."

Church of St. Rocco

Philip also sent a photo of the World War 1 memorial plaque showing the names of the local war dead.  No "Ambruso", but one "Bonelli". 

 
It is interesting to think that one family from this sleepy little Italian mountain village has multiplied into hundreds of descendants, from all walks of life, here in America.

Bocce!

The photo above shows Eugenio “John” Ambruso with his bocce playing friends.  The photo was sent in by his granddaughter Maryanne Jordan Warrick.  It was taken in 1960 and shows the bocce players at the recreation center at 16^th and Jackson Streets in South Philadelphia.  John was a bocce champ and had many trophies to prove it. 

My grandfather Michael Ambruso often told of playing bocce all Sunday afternoon in the side yard at his brother-in-law, Patsy Bonelli’s house in Garfield.  Probably drinking homemade wine from Patsy’s basement. 

Bocce was certainly a popular pastime with Italian-Americans in both South Philly and Garfield.  Can you share any memories of your Ambruso relatives playing bocce?  Were they good enough to win trophies like John Ambruso?

Featured Family Photo #2

 

As I mentioned previously on this blog, the importance of 139 Harrison Avenue, Garfield NJ cannot be overstated.  That house was the cental location for my branch of the Ambruso family when they first decided to travel to the America.  It was built by Patsy Bonelli and his wife Mary Ambruso in 1909.  It was where Mary's siblings and mother came when they first entered the United States.  Patsy and Mary had a daughter, Rose, who married a guy named Mike Melfi, who lived just around the corner.  Rose and Mike came to live at 139 Harrison Avenue.  They raised their family there.

 



The picture above shows my mother Esther Ambruso Casteline with me and the three children of Mike Melfi and Rose Bonelli, all sitting on the front steps of 139 Harrison Avenue.  The year is about 1948.  My mother is holding Tommy, the youngest.  On the far left is Michael Melfi Jr.  On the far right, with the bannana curls, is Marie Annette.  I'm the little guy with the wavy hair sitting next to my mother.  Tommy Melfi, the baby, still lives in the house today. 

Bonelli Family Photo

Bonelli Family photo ca. 1940. [Back Row: Patsy & Maria (Ambruso) Bonelli, Rose (Bonelli) Melfi with baby (Mike?), Esther Ambruso (Casteline), Felicia (Ambruso) Mancini. Front Row: Rocky Bonelli, Tina (Ambruso) Angiulli, and Tessie Bonelli.].  

Marriages and Families – Patsy and Mary Bonelli

1907 Salandra Marriage Document for Pasquale Bonelli and Maria Giuseppa Ambruso

In this post and several to follow, I will talk about each individual child of Rocco Ambruso and Pasquarosa Corrado focusing on their spouses, their children and their early family life.  I will start with Maria Giuseppa (Mary) Ambruso and her husband Pasquale (Patsy) Bonelli.  If I have missed any important facts, or have said anything in error, I encourage you to use the comments section at the end of the post to add your two cents.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Patsy was born in Salandra in 1881 and came to America in 1902.  He headed to Garfield, NJ where jobs were plentiful in the textile mills.  He then returned to Salandra and married Mary Ambruso in October 1907. (see Marriage Document above) One year later, their first child Teresa (Tessie) was born.  By naming tradition, she was named after Patsy’s mother.  In 1909 Patsy came back to Garfield.  Mary and baby Tessie came a few months later.  At first, they lived with Patsy’s uncle Domenico and his family at 92 Westminster Place.  Within a few years, Patsy bought a new house at 139 Harrison Avenue, which became the center of Ambruso activity in America for many years. 

Mary’s nine brothers and sisters all came to America, and they all came to Garfield before settling in other places.  139 Harrison Avenue was a two family house.  Patsy and Mary lived upstairs, because it had a better view.  (In those days there were still empty lots in Garfield.)  At first, they had renters downstairs, but before long Ambruso’s were occupying the downstairs flat.  My grandfather told stories of home-made wine in the basement and bocce tournaments in the side yard on Sunday afternoons.

In January 1911 Patsy and Mary had a second child.  Her baptismal name was Rose Pasqua, honoring her maternal grandmother, Pasquarosa.   The next child was a boy born in July 1914. By naming convention, he should have been named Giovanni after Patsy’s father.  However, for some reason, he was named Rocco after Mary’s father.  Rose and Rocco were baptized at Our Lady of Mount Virgin Church which was just 2 blocks away from where they lived.  Rose married Michael Melfi in 1937 and their family lived in the house at 139 Harrison Avenue for decades to follow. 

Garfield, NJ

The construction of the Dundee Dam on the Passaic River near Garfield, NJ in the 1860’s, provided water power to the growing number of textile factories that lined the river.  The Passaic/Garfield area became a major center for worsted and wool fabric production in the United States.  Companies such as Samuel Hird, New Jersey Worsted, Gera Mills and Forstmann Mills started in the first decade of the 20^th century.  These mills offered an abundance of work for common laborers with job titles such as mill hand, spinner, weaver, dyer, and twister.  The main industry was textiles, but there were also a few rubber mills and chemical factories. 

The plentiful job opportunities in these industrial plants drew unskilled immigrant laborers from European countries such as Hungary, Russia, Poland, Slovakia and Italy...especially Italy.  The Third Ward in Garfield, a wedge between Passaic St. and Midland Avenue, up to about Leonard St., was populated almost entirely by Italian immigrants in the early 1900’s.  Right in the middle of this wedge was Our Lady of Mount Virgin Roman Catholic Church a parish formed in 1903 to serve the growing number of Italian immigrants.  “Mount Virgin” or “de Monte Vergine” was the religious and cultural center of the Italian community in Garfield.  Nine of Rocco Vincenzo Ambruso’s ten children were married.  Five of them were married at Mt. Virgin.

In 1902, Pasquale Bonelli, a young shoemaker from Salandra, came to America.  Eventually, he went to live with his uncle Domenico in Garfield, NJ where there were lots of jobs in the booming textile factories.  He got a job as a spinner in one of the worsted mills.  He must have done well because he went back to Salandra, married Maria Giuseppa Ambruso, the oldest daughter of Rocco Ambruso, in 1907 and then came back to America in March 1909 and returned to a job in the worsted mills.  Later that year, in September 1909, Maria and their 11 month old daughter, Teresa, came to America.  Maria was the first of Rocco’s children to come to America. 

The 1910 U.S. Census shows Pasquale, Maria and little Teresa lived with his uncle Domenico on Westminster Place.  The same census shows that in 1910, Garfield was not a very big community.  There were only 10,213 residents.  Most of the houses were surrounded by empty lots, but new houses were being built rapidly.  Pasquale and Maria purchased a new house at 139 Harrison Ave., in the heart of the growing Italian neighborhood.  Patsy and Mary’s home on Harrison Ave. was to become an important part of Ambruso family history.  It became the United States destination and the original hub of activity for all the members of my grandfather’s branch of the Ambruso family in America.  We will talk more about activities at the Bonelli house on Harrison Avenue in future posts, so send me any stories or photos you might have.