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.