A Street by Any Other Name Still Spells Home

What’s in a Street Name?

Some streets hold more than pavement and addresses. They hold the first footsteps of people who had just crossed an ocean, the smell of simmering tomato sauce and frying garlic drifting from open windows, the sharp cry of a street vendor, the soft clatter of wooden pushcarts on cobblestones. Mulberry Street in New York City and Taylor Street in Chicago were two such places. For hundreds of Italian immigrants—and for my own family—they were the closest thing to home that the New World would ever offer.

Neither street began as a place of wealth or prestige. Both were crowded, working-class neighborhoods that outsiders often looked down on. Yet within their own borders they became something stronger: Little Italys, insulated by language, custom, mutual-aid societies, and the simple fact that almost everyone understood what it meant to have left everything behind. On summer evenings the air itself seemed Italian—thick with the scent of basil, espresso, and laundry hung between tenement windows.

My great-grandfather Fedele Poppa
 lived at 114-118 Mulberry St in NY, c. 1906-1910
before settling in Bridgeport, CT

New York was the great doorway. In the nineteenth century most immigrants stepped ashore at Castle Garden; after 1892 the processing moved to Ellis Island, which stayed open until 1954. Once the inspectors finished their work, many Italians walked straight to Mulberry Street. That short stretch of Lower Manhattan was the heart of the city’s Italian colony during the late 1800s and early 1900s. My great-grandfather, my grandfather, and my great-uncles were among them. They lived for a time in tenements, one at 62 Mulberry Street and two others at 114–118 Mulberry Street—buildings that no longer exist. I can almost picture the narrow stairwells, the shared hallways that smelled of coal smoke and cooking, the single window that looked out onto a fire escape crowded with geraniums and drying clothes. One lot later became a parking area, and by 2019 the others had been rebuilt yet again into mixed-use structures with luxury apartments. The place where so many families first “parked” while they found their footing has been transformed more than once, as if the city itself kept rewriting the story.

My grandfather, Isidoro Poppa
lived at 114-118 Mulberry St in NY,
then Bridgeport, CT and later,
 at 2160 DeKalb St in Chicago, c. 1924

At its largest, the Italian district ran roughly from Worth Street south to Houston Street north, and from Lafayette Street west to the Bowery east. Today only a few blocks of Mulberry Street still carry the name and the feeling of Little Italy. The neighborhood began as Mulberry Bend, a densely packed section that the reformer and photographer Jacob Riis once described as “the foul core of New York’s slums.” In those years the street pulsed with life: the constant murmur of southern Italian dialects, the rattle of wagons, the high-pitched calls of children playing in the gutters. Mass immigration from Italy in the 1880s filled the area with families, pushcarts, and storefronts. After World War II many residents moved outward to Brooklyn, Staten Island, and New Jersey. When immigration rules loosened in 1965, neighboring Chinatown expanded northward. In 2010 the combined Chinatown and Little Italy area was listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places—recognition that arrived long after most of the original families had moved on.

My great-grandfather Leonardo DiFoggia
 lived at 62 Mulberry St in NY
 and later in Chicago, c. 1906/1910

In Chicago the same story unfolded along Taylor Street. That corridor became the main gathering place for the city’s Italian immigrants and the neighborhood most often called Little Italy. It sits inside the larger Near West Side, a district that at the turn of the twentieth century also held sizable Greek and Jewish communities. Over time most of those other groups moved away, leaving a strong Italian presence that lasted for decades. On market days the sidewalks smelled of fresh bread, sharp cheese, and the sweet, yeasty air that poured from bakery doorways. Men stood outside social clubs arguing politics in the old language; women leaned from windows to call children home for supper. The air itself seemed to carry the neighborhood's pulse—garlic and basil drifting from open kitchens, the rattle of pushcarts, the quick laughter of kids darting between stoops.

Italians first appeared in Chicago in small numbers in the 1850s. By 1880 the city counted 1,357 Italian residents. Immigration accelerated sharply in the decades that followed; the foreign-born Italian population rose from roughly 16,000 in 1900 to a peak of nearly 74,000 in 1930. The Taylor Street area held the largest concentration. By the late 1920s Italian-owned businesses—hundreds of grocery stores, restaurants, and pastry shops—had become a familiar part of Chicago’s food landscape and helped introduce Italian cooking to the wider city. The scent of cannoli frying in hot oil, the gleam of polished espresso machines, the soft thud of dough being kneaded—these became part of the neighborhood’s everyday music.

The Italian population on Taylor Street reached its height in the 1950s and early 1960s. After the University of Illinois decided to locate a campus in the neighborhood in 1963, the residential community began to shrink. Blocks that had once held dense rows of flats and storefronts gave way to new institutional buildings, and many families dispersed. A number of long-standing Italian restaurants and shops still line the corridor today, carrying the memory of what was once a denser, louder, more tightly knit world.

I never lived on Taylor Street or in the surrounding Tri-Taylor, University Village, or Maxwell Street areas. My grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, and a few cousins did, so I claim a connection through family. The stories I grew up hearing mixed hardship with warmth: the Spanish Influenza, the Depression, scarce jobs, many mouths to feed, two World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam. Yet they also spoke of closeness among relatives and neighbors—of kitchens that always seemed full, of the comfort of hearing the same dialect on every corner, of pride in the community and in Italian heritage. Those feelings still surface whenever those who were there share their memories. Not a bad thing.

What’s in a street name? Sometimes an entire beginning. Sometimes the only home a family would know for a generation. And sometimes, if you’re lucky, a handful of stories that still carry the smell of sauce and the sound of laughter long after the tenements are gone.

Grandma Poppa and Family on DeKalb Street - 7/15/1951

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Citations for direct quotes and specific facts

• Jacob Riis quotation (“the foul core of New York’s slums”): from his writings on Mulberry Bend, commonly referenced in historical accounts of the neighborhood (including How the Other Half Lives and later summaries).
• Former boundaries of Manhattan’s Little Italy and the reduction to roughly three blocks: standard historical description drawn from accounts of the neighborhood’s extent.
• Castle Garden (19th century) and Ellis Island (1892–1954) as the main processing centers: widely documented immigration history.
• Chicago Italian population figures (1,357 in 1880; approx. 16,000 foreign-born in 1900; peak of nearly 74,000 in 1930): from historical demographic records summarized in sources such as the Encyclopedia of Chicago and related scholarship.
• 1927 business counts (hundreds of Italian-owned grocery stores, restaurants, and pastry shops): drawn from period economic surveys of Italian neighborhoods in Chicago.
• Peak Italian population on Taylor Street in the 1950s–early 1960s and the impact of the 1963 University of Illinois campus decision: standard local historical narrative.
• 2010 National Register listing of the Chinatown and Little Italy historic district: official designation.

Winding the Mantel Clock: Angelo DeLio 1880-1944

In the late nineteenth century, mass migration from Italy accelerated. Chicago’s foreign-born Italian population grew from 16,008 in 1900 to a peak of 73,960 in 1930. Most of these newcomers were peasants—contadini—from the southern regions, especially Basilicata, Campania, and Sicily. Drawn by the demand for railroad workers, many were enrolled in work gangs by padrones and sent to construction sites across the country. Once men found steadier work in the city’s public works and industries, they sent for their wives and children. Women often took jobs in the sweatshops and factories of the garment trade.

This is the world my grandfather, Angelo DeLio, entered as a child.

Life in Italy

Angelo was born on March 13, 1880, in the village of Gesuiti, part of the municipality of San Vincenzo La Costa in the province of Cosenza, Calabria. Family lore claims the hamlet was so small that a person could yell from one end to the other and be heard clearly. Even today the population hovers around 370, so the story may not be much of an exaggeration.

His parents, Carmela Perri and Raffaele DeLio (Ralph, as he was later called), were farm laborers. Opportunities in such a place were scarce. Between 1880 and 1920—the height of Italian migration to the United States—roughly four million Italians, the majority from the South, arrived looking for work they could not find at home. After unification, factories and wealth concentrated in the North while the South remained largely agricultural. Many southern farms were owned by northern landlords who offered terms similar to those of post-Civil War sharecropping in America. High taxes, low wages, recurring drought, and scarce water made life even harder. Over the longer period from unification into the mid-twentieth century, an estimated 26–29 million Italians left the country (roughly a quarter of the population at the time of unification), with the heaviest waves occurring from the 1880s through the 1920s.

In the late 1800s a mysterious parasite destroyed most of the grapevines in southern Italy, pushing many farms into failure. Unemployment rose, skilled workers lost their livelihoods, and cholera and malaria swept through the region. Early in the twentieth century came a series of natural disasters—eruptions of Mount Etna and Mount Vesuvius among them. Like so many others, Ralph went ahead to the United States to establish a foothold before sending for his wife and young son.

Arrival in America                                                  

1. SS Bolivia

On January 4, 1888, the SS Bolivia arrived in New York from Naples. Seven-year-old Angelo traveled with his mother, listed as Ma Carmella Perri. A notation on the passenger list records 777 Italian aliens in third-class steerage. Three weeks at sea in crowded conditions would have been difficult for any adult; for a small boy leaving behind everything he knew, and doing so around Christmastime, it is hard to imagine.

2. The Battery & Castle Garden Immigration Center - N.Y.

Whether they landed at Castle Garden or Ellis Island is not entirely clear from surviving documents. Castle Garden operated from 1855 until April 1890; Ellis Island opened in 1892. A fire on Ellis Island in 1897 destroyed many earlier records, including those from the Castle Garden era. Given the date of their arrival, Castle Garden is the more likely port of entry.

3. Chicago street map, 1890s  - University of Chicago

How the family made its way from New York to Chicago remains unknown. The 1890 federal census, which would have been the first to record them, was largely destroyed by fire in 1921, and the remaining damaged records were later disposed of by government order. What is certain is that the DeLios settled in Chicago’s Little Italy and stayed.

Little is known of Angelo’s childhood. The 1900 census notes that he could speak English but could not yet read or write. By 1910 he could do both. Whether he taught himself or received some formal schooling is an open question.

On January 2, 1892, Carmela gave birth to Emilia Maria—Millie to the family. There was a twelve-year gap between Angelo and his sister. Census records indicate that Carmela had four children, only two of whom survived. Millie was the youngest.

4. State Street North of Madison-Chicago - 1890s

The 1890s were a remarkable decade in Chicago. The World’s Columbian Exposition opened in 1893. Prairie School architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright were gaining recognition. Theodore Dreiser began work on Sister Carrie. On the darker side, H.H. Holmes (Herman Mudgett) was operating his "Murder Castle" near the fairgrounds, and just before the exposition closed, Mayor Carter Harrison Sr. was assassinated.

Two years after the fair closed, on March 16, 1895, Angelo became a naturalized citizen. The naturalization record lists him as a minor living at 140 Sherman Street.

 

Building a Family

5.  Angelo DeLio - ca 1900

In June 1900, twenty-year-old Angelo lived at 180 West Polk Street with his parents and sister and worked as a day laborer. 

6. Pg from 1905 marriage registry —
Holy Guardian Angel Chicago

              

 By 1905 marriage was approaching. As was common, a match was arranged between Angelo's parents and the neighboring Lufrano family. Fourteen-year-old Maria (Mary) Lufrano, daughter of Michele (Mike) and Saveria Lufrano, married Angelo on January 15, 1905, at Holy Guardian Angel Church. 

The young couple moved in with Angelo’s parents on Polk Street. Before the decade ended, Mary gave birth to two sons: Carmine Raffaele (Carl, or Carmie), born April 17, 1906, and Michael Joseph (Mike or Mikey), born July 3, 1909. Both were baptized at the same church.

7. Holy Guardian Angel Church-Chicago

In 1910 the extended family—Ralph, Carmela, Millie, Angelo, Mary, and the two boys—moved to a second-floor apartment at 640 S. Sangamon Street. Mary’s uncle Frank and his family occupied the first floor; two boarders lived in the basement. 

In 1912 Mary gave birth to a daughter, Giuseppa (Josephine, or Josie), on July 26. The family soon moved to 712 S. Morgan Street. Most of these buildings are gone now, cleared for highway construction, a university campus, and medical facilities.

8. Angelo and Mary DeLio's DeKalb Street Rowhouse

Francesca Carmela (Francie) arrived on December 30, 1914, while the family lived at 711 S. Loomis—a rowhouse that still stands. 

Sometime in 1916 they made their final move together, to a house Angelo could now afford as a freight handler for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad: 2129 W. DeKalb Street (later renamed Bowler Street). 

That rowhouse became the family homestead until around 1950. Inside its walls the two youngest children were born: Maria Saveria (Marilyn, or Mary within the family) on June 10, 1917, and Giovanni Angelo (John, or Johnny) on September 10, 1920.

The Later Years

                                                                                             9. DeKalb Street - Chicago

By the mid-to-late 1920s the older children were in school, bringing friends home, and beginning to date. My mother used to tell a story about those evenings. When it was time for the visitors—especially her sisters’ boyfriends—to leave, Grandpa would walk into the living room and begin winding the mantel clock. He never said a word. That single action was enough. The girls knew better than to argue; the young men said goodnight and went home. The sons were treated a little more leniently—though they were probably receiving the same silent signal at their girlfriends’ houses.

In June 1930 Carl married Catherine Citro. By the end of the decade all four of Angelo and Mary’s parents had died—Ralph DeLio and Michael Lufrano in 1928, Carmela DeLio and Saveria Lufrano in 1929. Then came the Great Depression. The lowest years, 1931–1933, brought high unemployment, poverty, and a general loss of confidence. Recovery would not truly arrive until around 1940.

Life continued as normally as it could until the later 1930s, when three more of the children married: Francie to Dominic Segreti in November 1936, Josie to Joe Lipari in September 1939, and Mike to Irene Urbaniak two months later.

War and Loss

Germany’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, marked the beginning of World War II. The United States instituted the Selective Training and Service Act in September 1940. After Pearl Harbor, the draft expanded. On April 27, 1942, Angelo—then sixty-two, still working for the B&O Railroad—registered. His draft card describes him as five feet tall, 131 pounds, with a sallow complexion, gray eyes, and black hair.

Johnny served in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1944 and saw action in and around Italy. During his service he married Lee Rodgers; the marriage ended about five years later. The last of the DeLio children to marry was my mother, Marilyn, who wed my father, Rocco Poppa, in July 1944. Angelo did not live to walk her down the aisle.

Shortly after registering for the draft, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He endured the illness for roughly two years and died on February 21, 1944, at the age of sixty-three.

I never knew my grandfather. From everything I have learned, he was a good man who left too soon. Researching his life has brought me closer to him. I wish I had uncovered more, but the clock has yet to run down, and until it does, my search continues.

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Photo credits

1. SS Bolivia (built 1873 by Robert Duncan & Company for the Anchor Line; transferred to the Glasgow–Naples–New York service in November 1887).
2. Battery and Castle Garden, New York City. Photograph by William Henry Jackson; published by Detroit Publishing Co., ca. 1890–1897.
3. Chicago street map, 1890s. University of Chicago Library.
4. State Street north of Madison, Chicago, 1890s. Historic photograph (Detroit Photographic Co.).
5. Angelo DeLio, ca. 1900. Author’s private collection.
6. Page from the 1905 marriage registry of Holy Guardian Angel Church.
7. Holy Guardian Angel Church, Arthington Street, Chicago. The Newberry Library.
8. Angelo and Mary DeLio’s DeKalb Street rowhouse, 2019. Author’s private collection.
9. DeKalb Street, Chicago, 2019. Author’s private collection.

Sources & further reading

• Chicago Italian community and migration background: Encyclopedia of Chicago (“Italians”).
• Broader Italian emigration statistics and southern Italian conditions: standard historical overviews of Italian Americans and Italian emigration (including figures commonly cited for the 1880–1920 peak to the United States and the longer 1861–mid-20th-century totals of roughly 26–29 million departures).
• Chicago in the 1890s (World’s Columbian Exposition, architecture, literature, and the H. H. Holmes case): Donald L. Miller, City of the Century (Simon & Schuster, 1996); Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City(Random House, 2003).
• Great Depression overview and World War II Selective Service details: commonly available historical summaries.

Family details, addresses, vital records, the mantel-clock anecdote, and personal reflections are drawn from census records, naturalization documents, church registers, draft cards, and family oral history.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Never Looked Back: Carmela DeLio, née Perri (1845–1929)

Carmela DeLio about1905

Carmela Perri was born on August 28, 1845, in the small Calabrian village of Gesuiti, in what was then San Vincenzo La Costa. She entered a world that still belonged to the old order—an Italy of kingdoms, duchies, and Papal States, not yet a single nation. By the time she turned fifteen, the Risorgimento had begun to remake that world. In 1861 the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed, the same year the United States tore itself apart in civil war. Carmela came of age while one country was being born and another was being broken.

On March 19, 1877, she married Raffaelo DeLio. They worked the land as farm laborers. In 1880 their son Angelo was born. Life in rural Calabria offered little enough for a growing family, and like so many others from the Mezzogiorno, Raffaelo eventually went ahead to America in search of work. Carmela stayed behind with their boy until the time came to follow.

In December 1887 she and eight-year-old Angelo boarded the steamship Bolivia in Naples. The winter crossing brought them into New York Harbor on January 4, 1888. They stepped ashore at Castle Garden, the immigrant station that preceded Ellis Island, and began the next leg of their journey. From New York the family made its way west to Chicago, settling among the growing Italian neighborhoods that would become known as Little Italy. Raffaelo found work as a trackman for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, laying the iron that was stitching the country together.

Carmela would give birth to four children in all. Two did not survive infancy. The eldest, a boy named Carmen or Carmine, died young. Another child—whose name and gender remain unknown—was also lost. Angelo, the boy who had crossed the ocean with her, lived. In 1891, in Chicago, she gave birth to a daughter, Emilia.

Carmela in the backyard on DeKalb St ca 1927 

She lived long enough to see the turn of the century, the Great War, and the restless years that followed. The world of her childhood—agrarian, pre-industrial, still half-medieval in its rhythms—gave way to streetcars, electric lights, automobiles, and radio. She had left a fragmented Italy and grown old in an America racing into modernity. On February 22, 1929, her long passage ended.So much of her daily life is lost to us now: the sound of her voice, the stories she told, the particular weight of the losses she carried. What remains are the outlines—a birth in a Calabrian village before Italy existed as a nation, a winter voyage on the Bolivia, a life built in Chicago’s Little Italy, and a death just months before the crash that would usher in the Great Depression. It is a life that stretches across nearly eighty-four years and two continents, from the final days of the old Italian order to the threshold of the modern American century. The approaching anniversary of her birth offers one small, concrete way to keep her place in the family’s longer story from fading.

A Father's Day Tribute aka Dad-isms...

A Father's Day Tribute...

There are so many sweet, classic dad moments that pop into my head every now and then. I don’t know what triggers them, but I thought it was time to write some of them down while they’re still fresh in my memory. 

For instance, I remember a time when my dad called me on the phone. He wasn’t used to answering machines, so when the machine picked up and the message was in my voice, he said, “This is Jeannie’s dad. Can you tell her to call me?”

I can just picture it—the slight confusion in his voice as he talked to the machine like it was a polite roommate or a secretary who might actually pass along the message. Answering machines were a whole era of technology that tripped up so many parents. I don’t think he ever really got the hang of it, but it’s the kind of small memory that makes me smile years later.

I also remember the time there was a really bad thunderstorm—the kind where the wind is howling and the power goes out. The whole city was under a tornado watch or warning (whichever is worse). Dad called me to check on whether my cat was okay. “She’s fine, dad. So am I,” I replied.

That’s peak dad energy right there—priorities straight to the cat in the middle of a tornado warning. Wind howling, power flickering or out, and him dialing me up specifically to make sure the furry one was handling it okay.

One of my favorite memories happened when I moved into my first apartment. I had furniture being delivered, but the store refused to do it on a Saturday. I couldn’t take the day off work, so I was stuck—until Dad stepped in.

He was working nights as a baker at the time, so he offered to come straight from his shift to my apartment and wait for the delivery. Not knowing how long he’d be there, I decided to bake him a batch of cookies the night before as a thank-you and a little something to keep him going.

When I got home from work that evening, the furniture was perfectly arranged exactly where I’d asked. On the counter sat a platter with my cookies—only one or two missing. I smiled and asked Dad what he thought of them.

“The biscuits were good,” he said.

I blinked. “What biscuits?”

He pointed to the platter.

In my defense, my “cookies” were nearly two inches thick and looked far more like biscuits than anything you’d find in a cookie jar. Dad, bless him, had eaten a couple anyway.

From that day forward, I happily retired from the baking side of the kitchen and left that particular skill to Mom and Dad.

I wish I would have saved some of these calls. It’s a tender kind of regret—the kind that sneaks up on you years later—those little quirks of his that made him so lovable. Even if the actual tape recording is gone, or in some cases, never existed, the moments I shared with him and the sound of his voice saying what I lovingly refer to as dad-isms is still crystal clear in my head. There are so many great memories that I could include in this tribute, and maybe one day I will. Some are funny, some poignant, and all of them pure—dad.   

TOUGH GUY...

Augie - about 2 years old

Leavitt Street House in 2022

My Uncle Augie's name on his birth certificate was Agostino, named after a paternal uncle. However, that was likely the last time he was ever called that. He was the youngest child of Isidoro and Teresa Poppa. He was born on April 7, 1922, at 821 South Leavitt Street, a row house in the Little Italy neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Agostino opted for the given name of August. He was, however, most affectionately known as Augie or Gus by family and friends. He was one year and four months old when his father died from tuberculosis. 

The Poppa family moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, between Augie's birth and his father's death. The move was made so that Isidoro would be close to his parents and siblings when the end came. My grandfather would enter Bridgeport's Englewood Isolation Hospital shortly after the family arrived in Connecticut for the last time. According to his death certificate, Isidoro suffered from tuberculosis for 1-2 years before his death. Sadly, various forms of lung disease of one kind or another would affect most of his children throughout their lives. My Grandmother Teresa, pregnant with her last child Mary, would give birth on July 9, 1923; a month later, on August 18, Isidoro passed away.

Sadly, 1924 did not turn out to be much better than the year prior. Augie's infant sister Mary died. Although I have not been able to validate her cause of death or the month and day of her passing, I suspect she succumbed to the same fate as her father based on the timing of events.  

My Grandmother's family, the DiFoggios, made their homes in and around the Chicagoland area. So, whether it was late 1923 or early 1924, Teresa and her children returned to Chicago permanently after Grandpa's death to be closer to her parents and siblings. Time and money permitting, occasional visits and or family events would bring Isidoro's family back to the designated Poppa homestead in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Once back in Chicago, my Grandmother Teresa and her six surviving children, Freddie, Ann, Rocky, Lenny, Beth, and of course, Augie, lived in the 3rd-floor apartment at 2160 West DeKalb Street (n/k/a Bowler Street). According to the 1930 Federal Census, Teresa was charged a monthly rent of $22.00 for that apartment. In the 1930s, the average annual income was $1,970, and the average cost of rent was about $18.00 a month. Teresa was a lampshade maker for a lampshade factory. I don't know how much she was paid in that line of work, but it was likely, not much. There were seven mouths to feed and only one paycheck coming in. Grandma paid the rent with limited resources, and the family lived barebones. Long after the Poppas left the neighborhood, the three-story apartment building on DeKalb Street was demolished and rebuilt as a three-story single-family home in 1997. 

In 1930, Augie was eight years old and attending school. I am still looking for the school's name. But since the Poppas lived directly across the street from St. Calistus Catholic Church which had a grade school attached, I don't think it would be unreasonable to assume that Augie and his siblings got their early education there.

By 1940, the Poppas had moved to 1553 S. Drake Avenue in Chicago. However, the census report for that year listed several discrepancies making the information collected suspect. For example, Augie was recorded as 28 years old. However, he was only 18 years old in 1940. In addition, his place of birth was Illinois, and he was a U.S. citizen, not born in Italy or naturalized. 

Drake Avenue House in 2022

According to the census, Augie's highest level of education reached was 8th grade. While this fact has yet to be verified, it is possible that Augie's education was limited, as were many individuals in the 1930s and 40s. A high school diploma was not as important then as now, and college was a luxury few could afford. As a result, many young people quit school as soon as possible and entered the workforce. In addition, WWII was on the horizon, and many young men left school, if not to work, then to join the military. 

The Poppa brothers were all tough in their way, but Uncle Augie was probably the toughest, more out of necessity than his natural temperament. He was, after all, the baby of the family and the only one that never really had a chance to get to know his father. As a result, his survival skills undoubtedly kicked in early. Whatever the reason, Augie enjoyed the sport of boxing in his downtime from his job at the Maremont Automotive Company on South Ashland Avenue in Chicago. 

If newspaper articles are to be believed, he began a promising career as a boxer at 17. By 19, his toughness and skills in the boxing ring were on full display when Augie, now a Golden Glove bantamweight winner, would take on the more experienced, two-time fly-weight champion, Harold Dade, on February 12, 1942. Unfortunately, Uncle Augie didn't win the fight. Still, he was a formidable opponent. When asked about his upcoming fight with Dade, the Chicago Tribune quoted my uncle as saying, "They tell me he's pretty good." When the reporter went on to ask if he thought he could stand up against the more seasoned fighter, Augie responded, "He'll know he's been in a fight."   

                

I cannot say whether his boxing career was entirely behind him after the matchup with Dade, but on June 26, 1942, at age 20, Augie registered for the draft. According to his draft card, Augie completed his registration as Gus Pope. He was unemployed and living at home on Drake Avenue then and listed his next of kin as his mother, Mrs. Teresa Pope. The draft registrar described Augie as 5'3 ⅟2" tall, 129 pounds, with black hair, brown eyes, a dark complexion, and 'no other obvious physical characteristics that will aid in identification.' I am still determining the exact date he was called into the Army and the camp where he was subsequently stationed; those details still need to be researched. However, his military discharge date was September 25, 1943, according to the notation at the top of his draft card.  

Augie - age 22

Augie had no trouble attracting women; he was a handsome guy. However, holding on to them may be another matter. He was married three times during his lifetime. His first marriage in 1946 was to Marion Akison. Augie's marriage to Marion, or Mary as she was known, produced two sons, Robert (Bobby) and Richard (Ricky). The marriage ended in divorce sometime in mid-to-late 1948. Within the next two years, Augie would marry for the second time. On April 19, 1950, Kathryn DeBartolo became Kathryn (Kay) Poppa. Two more children would be born during this union, a girl named Linda and a boy named August, or Gus, as he preferred. Sadly, this marriage would also end in divorce by the mid-to-late 50s. Around 1964 give or take a year, Augie made his final trip down the aisle when he married Elaine Mozer-Mustari. Elaine had four adult children from a previous marriage, Arlene, Arthur, MaryAnn, and Frank. Between his four children and four stepchildren, Augie became a grandfather to 17. At the time of his death, he was great-grandfather to 16.

Augie - July 1948

Sometime in the late 40s or early 50s, Augie began work as a pipe fitter and was a loyal member of Local 17 Heat and Frost Insulators Union. Regrettably, his many years in this line of work exposed him to high levels of asbestos. Subsequently, he suffered from the effects of that exposure. Unfortunately, I have not seen his death certificate. So I cannot confidently say which of the two killers, Asbestosis or Mesothelioma, led to his death over 50 years later. 

Uncle Augie was a good man. Like most of us, I'm sure there were things in his life he would have changed if he could, but as they say, hindsight is 20-20. My uncle was there for my sisters and me after my dad's stroke in 1991. At the hospital, he took no guff from the doctor at the suggestion that perhaps my father would need to go to a nursing home. Fortunately, that never came to pass, and my dad moved in with me. Augie visited often and kept Dad company, bringing him scratch-off lottery tickets, which he knew my father liked playing. I couldn't relate to you any conversation I overheard between the two brothers; neither was very longwinded. They would sit and watch television and sometimes try to play pinochle like before Dad's stroke. Uncle Augie attempted to teach me how to play, too …unfortunately, it didn't work so well, but I gave him props for trying.  

August Isidoro Pope died on July 19, 2004—one of my favorite tough guys. Rest in Peace, Uncle Augie. You are missed.

Photo Credits:

From Author's private photo collection:

1. 'Augie about 2 years old'
2. 'Leavitt Street House in 2022' 
3. 'Drake Avenue House in 2022'
4. 'Augie - July 1948'
5. 'Augie - age 22'

Newspaper Clippings:

• Newspapers.com - Chicago Tribune - 5 Feb 1942 - Page 23
• Newspapers.com - Chicago Tribune - 5 Feb 1942 - Page 24
• Newspapers.com - Chicago Tribune - 13 Feb 1942 - Page 27

WHAT'S SO GREAT ABOUT GREAT GRANDPA?

 

Fedele Poppa

Frederick, Fred, or Alfred. I've seen my great-grandfathers' name in many different forms. But the truth is, his name was Fedele. Fedele Poppa, to be exact, and his grandfathers' namesake. He was born in Orsara di Puglia, Foggia, Italy, on April 11, 1856, to Lorenzo Poppa and Antonia Melchiorre. I have found one sibling for Fedele. A brother named Lorenzo was born about 1853 in Orsara and named after his father, in keeping with an old Italian custom.

 In September 1882, Fedele married Elisabetta Branca in his hometown of Orsara. During their marriage, the couple raised five children, three boys, Leonardo, Isidoro, Augustino, and two girls, Marietta and Maria Grazia. My grandfather Isidoro was the second in line in the family hierarchy. Now that Fedele's’ family was complete, the time to secure a better future for the Poppas was upon him. 

Citta di Genova - 1906

On Tuesday, March 26, 1906, Fedele and Isidoro would set sail from Naples for America for the first time on the passenger ship SS Citta di Genova. Father and son listed the occupations they were leaving behind as a baker and a tailor, respectively. As third-class passengers traveling in steerage, the trip would be long and arduous. The voyage lasted three weeks to the day ending with their arrival at New York's Ellis Island. 

Ellis Island - early 1900s 

Millions of immigrants passed through Ellis Island in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But before admission, they had to show they were fit to work and had money (or relatives who would take them in). Unfortunately, for many future family historians, immigrants needed no passports or visas to enter the United States through Ellis Island. Moreover, papers were optional at the beginning of the immigration boom. As a result, so much information about these early immigrants was lost.

The Poppas arrived on Tuesday, April 17, 1906; Fedele had twenty dollars in his pocket to stave off starvation and shelter for himself and his 15-year-old son. According to the ships' manifest, Fedele and Isidoro would stay with his brother-in-law, Vincenzo Fiore, in a crowded tenement at 114 Mulberry Street in New York's Little Italy. Unfortunately, depending on your perspective, the original building was razed and not preserved as an immigrant museum. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to see what awaited my ancestors on arriving at where they placed all their hopes.

Mulberry Street ca the 1900s

In Italy, many rural families might have slept in tiny cramped houses, but work, socializing, and outdoor eating occupied most of their waking hours. Tenement life for the newly minted immigrants came as quite a shock; some of their greatest dangers concerned their housing. In New York, most immigrants, Fedele and Isidoro included, lived in narrow, low-rise apartment buildings that were generally grossly overcrowded by their landlords. Cramped, poorly lit, under-ventilated, and usually without indoor plumbing, these tenements were hotbeds of vermin and disease. Frequently swept by cholera, typhus, and tuberculosis, a condition young Isidoro would fall victim to in the years to come. Ironically, as of 2019, 114 Mulberry Street now holds a new mixed-use building with 23 luxury residential units currently occupying the space.

Early twentieth-century working conditions for immigrants were often as dangerous as their living conditions. For example, many that came to America from southern Italy had only worked as farmers and were only qualified to work unskilled and more dangerous urban labor. So instead, many went to work in the city's municipal works projects, digging canals, laying paving and gas lines, building bridges, and tunneling out the New York subway system. As a result, by the end of the nineteenth century, 90% of the labor force in New York's Department of Public Works were Italian immigrants.

Single men among the immigrants only stayed for a short time, returning to Italy within five years of their arrival. Those immigrants that chose to remain kept in close contact with their families back in the old country and worked hard to have enough money to send back home to help with their support. How long Fedele and Isidoro remained in New York has yet to be discovered. However, they both returned to Orsara sometime before 1910. I say this for several reasons:

1. Isidoro married Theresa DiFoggio in 1910, in Orsara.
2. Isidoro's Naturalization Declaration of Intention, filed in 1919, states that he arrived back in the United States in January 1911.
3. There doesn't appear to be any 1910 U.S. Federal Census Record for either Poppa.

Also, Fedele returned to the United States with his wife and three of his children in 1913. The Poppas were incredibly close-knit. Immigrating to the United States was a decision intended to make a better life for the family and keep everyone together. So I do not believe Fedele would have stayed away from his family for seven years. 

SS Venetia - 1913

Fedele's' two eldest sons, Leonardo (28) and Isidoro (22), were married and living in the United States by 1913. The next and final wave of Fedele's family to make their way to America were wife Elisabetta, daughters Marietta (17) and Grazia (14), and son Augustino (11). The family arrived at Ellis Island on the SS Venetia on March 21 of that year. Upon their arrival, they would stay with Isidoro and his family in New Rochelle, New York, according to Venetia's passenger list, leaving no one from this family line of Poppas behind in Italy.

Ives Court House in 2022

Homeownership is often seen as one of the paths toward achieving the American dream. Between 1913 and 1920, Fedele had a steady job in the sanitation industry and earned at least one of his dreams when he bought a house in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He and his family made a forever home at 73 Ives Court. The house was built in 1902 and still stands today. It was lived in by many of Fedele's family and extended family at one time or another. The house remained in the Poppa family for years after Fedele's death.  

No parent expects to outlive their child, but on August 18, 1923, that is precisely what happened. Fedele's son and traveling companion from the old country to America, Isidoro, died from pulmonary tuberculosis at 31. I have long thought my grandfather contracted the disease due to the unsanitary and crowded conditions endured during the three-week ocean sailing from Italy or living in the contamination-prone tenements upon their first arrival in New York.

St. Michael's Cemetery

Fedele died at the age of 69 on May 28, 1925. He was laid to rest at Saint Michael's Cemetery in Stratford, Connecticut, as are many of his family members. 

I've told Fedele's story as best I could. I hope I've answered the question, 'What's so great about great-grandpa?' If not, let me add the following:

1. Fedele exhibited extraordinary courage risking everything to try and make a better life for his family.
2. He was hard-working and gave his children a strong work ethic.
3. He overcame prejudices toward immigrants that were often cruel and unfair, such as language limitations or heavy accents, and what was perceived as looking different (dark eyes and olive skin), and;
4. Let's not forget those gosh darn names that are so hard to pronounce.
 

Fedele got his American dream through sacrifices, risk-taking, and hard work rather than by accident or riding on someone else's coattails. That's what's so great about my great-grandpa... in case you want to know.