by mgrandusky | Jun 6, 2015 | 20th Century
Years passed and I had done nothing with the information I had, other than transcribe the newspaper articles. All I had was the basic story. No background. No conclusion. Then came the day when I discovered that the internet was a great addition to a computer. It was no longer just a word processor!
I quickly discovered search engines and started looking for the names of the people in the articles. There was more about the police officers who investigated the homicides than there was about the victims or the perpetrator. I found more than I could put in a single novel.
Then I discovered a small editorial, dated 1922, in a Bridgeport, Ct. newspaper. It was a discussion about domestic abuse. In it was a reference to a murder which had taken place in Hartford ten years before. The editor commented on the fact that the police were of the opinion that the double homicide was a case of domestic abuse, at first. But, then, as they investigated the days leading up to the murder, and the consequent flight of the murderer, they dismissed that theory in favor of a planned homicide. That information had not been given to the journalists in Hartford and it had not been discussed in the newspapers.
There was one interesting line in the article: It was known that Giuseppe Amato, our killer, had moved to British Columbia soon after his escape from police. That explained why I never made a connection with any Giuseppe Amatos in Connecticut! I now had to broaden my search.
I decided to find out any information I could about the Amatos previous to their coming to America. And the best place for me to look first was the amazing LDS (Mormon) files. At the time all these files were on microfiche. Files for Serra San Bruno covered the years 1801-1910. And, at $5 per roll of microfiche, I could hold them at the LDS center near my home and research them in the hours that it was open to the public. It was there that I found, after hours of fighting the poorly maintained readers and comparing names and dates, marriage certificates for Maria Amato and Domenico DeFrancesco, Carmela’s sister, and a baptismal certificate for Maria Teresa Amato, first daughter of Carmela and Giuseppe. Her godfather was named Salvatore Timpano. I meant to go back for more but I found a better choice.
The website ancestry.com had been out a few years by the time I joined. I combed the forums and put out feelers, addressing anyone who mentioned “Serra San Bruno” or “Amato”.
I also found a website, named italiangenealogy.com, where one can ask questions and people on both sides of the ocean will attempt to help answer them. Two women at the site, Tessa and Suanj, having great amounts of research knowledge, helped me with my very elementary questions. I thought that anyone with the names Giuseppe and Carmela Amato had to be my Giuseppe and Carmela. But, of course, research is not that easy when you have common names. The Amatos who came in via Boston were not mine. The Amatos who married in Vancouver were not mine. Over the space of several weeks, we discovered that Giuseppe had come alone, twice, and Carmela came later, with a new baby girl, Maria Teresa, in 1904. And they moved in with Domenico and Maria on Asylum Ave. They also found the ship manifests which listed who came with Maria when she came in 1903, who traveled with Giuseppe when he returned to America in 1904. And for the first time, I found a reference to Giovanni Tassone and his wife, Rafaella Gentile, outside of the newspaper reports. These two hardworking ladies found dates of arrival of each and the marriage certificate issued in 1901.
by mgrandusky | Feb 21, 2015 | 20th Century
For those of you who want to get a taste of the book before spending the time to wait for Amazon to ship it to you, here is chapter one of The Ragman Murders.
1 HARTFORD, CT. MARCH, 1930
“Here, Miss Amato, have a seat.” Detective Lieutenant Frank Santoro held the back of a worn wooden desk chair for his guest then walked around to the other side of his own desk and eased his old frame into the extra-wide leather room across from the frosted glass door. The only wall hangings were a framed photo of a younger, thinner Santoro accepting an award from the well-known mayor of the city of Hartford, Ct. and a large, well-marked calendar, turned to the correct month of March, 1930.
He quietly studied her as he pulled out various papers from his desk drawer. She was obviously uncomfortable being here, for this reason, but had been advised by her family to just do it and get it over with. The young lady demurely looked at the older man across from her. Anyone, even a crotchety old man could appreciate the chiseled features, the dark bob, the piercing blue eyes, all sitting on top of a well-made mink coat. Her hands, placed lightly on her lap, had fine white gloves. Her cloche was a little out of date, but it looked appealing on her. It was even hard for the detective to believe that such a woman was the little girl he remembered.
“First of all, I want to thank you for coming in here on such short notice. Since you are not in Hartford very often, I wanted to meet with you this week. Your traveling between New York and here is easier for me. I am not one to chase.” Miss Amato watched the detective pull a large white handkerchief out of the pocket of his vest, regarding it as he began to cough. He held it up to his nose and trumpeted loudly. Marianne looked with concern at the face of a supposedly hostile questioner. Santoro then turned to a brass spittoon on the floor beside his desk and nicely aimed into the pot.
The detective began again. “Excuse me, Miss. Allergies.”
“Detective, I am married now,” she began, turning in her seat to indicate the tall fair man with the glasses. He was sitting on the other side of the frosted windows dividing the questioning room from the main detective bureau office.
“Miss Amato! I have so many names in this file! It goes back eighteen years! And with all the Italians Americanizing their names, I am not going to start adding another generation of married names! DeFrancescos becoming Francises! Amatos not getting adopted but pretending they are! And then Amatos marrying each other! Italian women not always changing their names when they do get married! No, I’m sorry but I am not going to fill in any more new last names. We will keep what you got. The others in the squad are going crazy with the names as it is. Besides he”, nodding towards the door. “He hasn’t got anything to do with this, anyhow.” He blew his nose again and breathed in deeply. “And then, I do not want to retype all these pages just to add another name in all the right spots when I am trying to close out this whole thing. So, we will just stick with Amato.” Santoro took another deep breath and smiled to reassure her.
“We had to reopen the murder case based on information that your family gave to one of our detectives a few weeks ago.”
“Yes. It was my sister Mary,” the young lady interrupted. “And my cousin, Nickie. They came here together. It’s about the phone number, isn’t it?”
O’Neil looked at her impatiently, not appreciating the interruption. He had this all settled in his head and he did not want details where he did not want them. “Chief Farrell wants this file closed. It has been a thorn in his side, and mine, all these eighteen years. He was a detective when the whole thing happened. He and the whole crew were pretty mad that we did not get our man.”
“I spent an hour with them and one of the other detectives spent another. We wanted every little detail they could remember,” Santoro continued. “But they could not seem to associate the phone number in British Columbia with anyone they know.”
He began to flip though the file, looking for something specific. “Yes. Here it is.” He looked up at the young lady simultaneously pointing to the faded type-written words. “It says here that you and your sister Teresa were eye-witnesses. You two and Mrs. Tassone are the only ones. And Mrs. Tassone disappeared off the surface of the earth a long time ago.”
Marianne Amato felt a shiver go down her spine. A name she had not heard or thought about in a long time had been bringing back memories these past few days. Bad memories. Santoro watched her hands ball up, gripping the coat, She blinked hard a few times and swallowed. She glanced around the room, apparently trying to get her bearings. The old place had eleven foot ceilings, the paint was peeling at the corners and the wallpaper torn along the seams. The upholstered chairs, sitting against the wall common to the detective squad room, had seen better days. It smelled like dirty shoes and the cigar smoke from the old stubs in several ashtrays.
“Your sister, Teresa, hasn’t been back to Hartford in years. And I cannot subpoena across state lines. So that leaves you. And I am going to sit and have a long talk with you. I want to get every last little memory out of you. The murder investigation has been reopened because of this new information and the chief wants to finalize everything before he retires in June. So I am going to give it one more attempt.”
“I was very little then,” began Marianne.
“Your uncle and aunt must have talked about it.” The detective was not taking no for an answer. “I want you to think back. Any detail. Any detail at all may make a difference in how we go about finding this man, picking him up and making him pay for what he did.”
“May I have a glass of water before we start?” she asked.
Santoro heaved his arthritic frame out of the maroon leather chair and walked over to the door, opened it and shouted, “Hey! Charlie! Get us some water. A pitcher!” Then, horrifying to the witness, he turned to the bespectacled young man who had looked up at the sound of the door opening, he said, “I am keeping your wife for a few hours. Go back to wherever you are staying. You will just be underfoot here.” Then he shut the door and returned to his seat.
navy blue dress with a dropped waist, pleated skirt and white collar. It was knee-length, a little short for the current fashions, but well-tailored. She had removed her gloves as well, but left on the hat, as was the mode.
A knock on the door was followed by an older assistant bringing in a tray with two glasses and a pitcher of water. Charlie crossed the spacious room, moved papers out of the way to free up space then placed the tray on the old wooden desk. He turned to the lady. “Miss, the man outside waiting said to call him when you are ready to leave.”
“Thank you,” she replied. He exited quickly, after nodding to the detective. Santoro glanced at his guest and poured some water into one of the glasses.
“There you go,” he said handing her the glass across the desk. He pulled out his fountain pen, filled it and straightened out some blank white paper, ready for any notes. “Now let’s get started. I want everything. Leave nothing out. There has to be a clue somewhere.”
“I do not remember my real mother and father very well,” she began. “I was only six and a half when everything changed. But my Papa, who is really my Uncle Ciro, has told me some information. My Aunt Mary and Uncle Dominick Francis have filled in more. My Ma, actually my aunt, my Uncle Ciro’s wife, Emelia, gave me the biggest piece of information, probably accidentally.”
Santoro rolled his eyes. “Wait. Let me make sure those names are in my file here.” He viewed a list of names, making growling sounds as he found each. “Okay. Go on.”
“Once, when I was about nine or ten, I had a dream. I dreamed that I woke up and there was a red-headed lady standing at the foot of my bed just watching me sleep. Well, I think it was a dream. It may have been real. At any rate, I was frightened and asked Ma about it. She told me the lady was my real mother and she had come back from Heaven to check on me. That answer made me feel better than I had in a long time. I felt a little of the love that I had lost.
“That is not to say that there is no love for me. My Papa loves me and spoils me sometimes. Like this mink coat he bought me for my 16th birthday and the beautiful librettos he got me when he took me to the operas in New York. But, Ma, who makes sure I am always aware that she is not my real mother, made life dull as possible. But that is neither here nor there.”
“Yes, that’s very nice,” Santoro scowled, remembering meeting Emilia Amato at the funeral and things he had heard about her among the gossipy ladies who lived by the tracks. “But how about your real father? What do you remember about him?” He looked at her carefully, trying to catch if she recognized him. But there was no glint of acknowledgement.
“My real mother and father met and married in Italy,” the young lady continued. “It was in the small town of Serra San Bruno. Up in the mountains. They had dreams for the future. They were in love, at least at the beginning.”
by mgrandusky | Sep 24, 2014 | 20th Century
Tuesday we drove from Missoula to Great Falls to pick up Hubby's gun,which he had to drop off at a gun dealer to hold for him because one can't bring revolvers into Canada. We then drove south to Helena, the Montana state capital. Being too crowded in town to have a camping site available, we drove almost fifty miles east to find a very nice KOA campground at Canyon Creek.
Since Montana and South Dakota are the locations of so many historical sites, we decided to go to the place of one of the US Army's greatest losses outside the Civil War, Little Big Horn. I did not know the back story of this battle, so the museum gave us a lot of interesting tidbits. One thing that struck me was a photo of Sitting Bull, the famous chief involved in this battle, wearing a large crucifix on a chain around his neck. The placard read that the crucifix was given to him by Fr. DeSmet, the famous Jesuit who toured all over the mid-West. I needed more information as to why. It just so happened that in the car I had a book of short stories with Catholic themes. I reviewed the table of contents and it just so happened that there was a letter in there from Fr DeSmet regarding his meeting with Sitting Bull in 1868 when he convinced a council of Indians to sign a treaty with the US government. Of course, the government wanted their land, promised them food, clothing, lodging and a reservation. They got only a little land, in the end. Sitting Bull and his people decided to go to better lands. The govenment objected. Hence the battle, in 1877, when Custer and his men caught up with them. The land consists of rolling hills in a semi arid environment with very few trees, mostly just some brush. One could get easily lost because it all looks the same. There is no place to hide a horse, much less a battalion. Sitting Bull was a very spiritual man who wanted peace and justice. He was assassinated by his own people in 1890.
Learning about the Sioux and the Lakota and the other western tribes made me realize how awful the US has treated those who are not Anglo-Saxon Protestants through the past centuries. And now the government is causing harm to the Iraqi Christians by not doing enough for them. There are many things Washington could do without sending soldiers over.
Thursday night we stayed in Sturgis, SD. Sturgis, outside of Sioux Falls, is the site of the nationally famous "Sturgis Motorcycle Rally" in August and Oktoberfest in September. The RV park is designed for RVs towing motorcycle vans, so the pull-through sites are 100 feet long. The city itself is lined with saloons (yes, that is what they are called out here!) and souvenier shops. Of course, we couldn't help ourselves. We bought gifts for several people. And the grocery store was much cheaper than we have been paying so we stocked up and had steak on the grill for dinner! We met a storekeeper who had moved from Alaska to South Dakota in the past few weeks. He was still settling in. Hubby and storekeeper exchanged stories and compared knives, of which the new transplant had quite a few. He also had an eclectic collection of Bibles, silver flatware and Alaskan memorabilia. I found a copy of "Story of a Soul", which doesn't fit in with the rest of his stuff, but he made a buck off me.
We were so close to Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse monument that we just had to go. They are within 16-17 miles of one another in the Black Hills. The artist of the Crazy Horse monument never finished even after 35 years and his children are now working on it. The amount of money required for the project is astronomical! The Lakotas own the land and are planning for a university, a tech research center, a medical center and a museum (this is already in place) all on the site. The feds offered them millions to help build it but they refused, remembering all the trouble they got into 125 years ago when they agreed to accept something from them. I had no trouble paying for the admission so that they can continue their work.
Mount Rushmore, although more famous, is not as impressive as the Crazy Horse site. Perhaps because I commiserate with the Indians, perhaps because the finished monument will be so much larger. Perhaps because this is one thing the feds don't have their hands in and I am good with that.
We had to get back on the road and were driving along Rt 80. Signs started to pop up along the side of the road. "Free Ice Water...Wall Drug", "Hot coffee 5 cents...Wall Drug", "Something to crow about...Wall Drug", Free coffee and donuts to honeymooners...Wall Drug". Every mile or so for 30 miles!Well, we just had to stop in Wall, SD to see what this was. It is not so much a drug store as it is an event. A train depot and corral to take pictures in. A loud dinosaur head which screeches for two minutes every so often,trinkets, souveniers, chocolate shop, bed and bath products... On and on. The series of buildings takes up two blocks. It is the stop to take bus tours to! It was fun to look around and take a few photos. But it was getting late and we had used up our shopping joy in Sturgis, so we started looking for a place to stay for the night.
by mgrandusky | Sep 19, 2014 | 20th Century
Our cousins actually live outside Vancouver, in the greater metropolitan area, in the Tswassen area of Delta. It is an upscale suburban area with new houses, beautiful condos and many boutiques and sidewalk coffee shops.
Tswassen is on a peninsula bordering the strait of Georgia. Due to the treaty of the US and Canada in 1925, the peninsula is cut in half by the 45th parallel, south of which is US territory. So, there is about 6 square miles of US at the tip of the peninsula. And the only way in and out is through Canada. The RV park is on the US side and the cousins are on the Canadian side. So, we were constantly going through border guards during our stay.
Beverly and Don live in a lovely, spacious first floor condo on a cul de sac. There is a sizeable deck in the back, alongside the morning room. Roses and evergreens grow together in the lawn adjacent to the deck. Lovely.
The reception of these two people for a couple they have never met was overwhelming. On Tuesday they had us for dinner, chicken and potatoes, plus dessert. We exchanged stories of the families, Beverly and Don explained their visis to the family origins in Italy and compared family pictures. I had brought a family scrapbook.
Wednesday we had lunch together. Dear Hubby was over tired from all the driving, so he took a quiet break while we three took some sun in at the beach. Then Beverly and Don hosted a cousins pot luck dinner to introduce us to the others. We met Maureen, Rick (brother and sister) and Diana, plus Rick's wife, Lisa, and daughters Clare and Grace. They are cousins of Beverly (thus, of mine) who also live in the Vancouver area. All were gracious, had questions, looked at the scrapbook, and declared who looked like whom. Apparently everyone has been to Serra San Bruno but me! Dinner was great! Rigatoni, sausage, meatballs, salad, several desserts and a variety of beverages. We chatted for several hours before the evening ended with photos being taken of the new-found cousins.
Thursday morning, Hubby and I went for a walk to the beach on Point Robert. One restaurant, Brewster's, had a "fresh fish today" sign. That gave us an idea for dinner. In the afternoon, Beverly and I went out for coffee and a little quiet time, then I suggested dinner on the point instead of her cooking. We went to the quaint little place we had seen in the morning with the sign in front. We had crab cakes, or fried oysters or baked salmon. We hated to say goodby at the end of the dinner, but all good things must come to an end. But we will be talking to each other. Beverly gave me copies of letters from cousins in Hartford and will be sending me pictures.
Friday and Saturday nights were spent in a very nice KOA park to wind down from a few very intense days. Sunday morning we went to St Stephen the Martyr church. This was one astonishing place. The church, a one story, flat roofed affair on a 20 or so acre campus. There were extra buildings housing the housing office, the bottle collection, the food pantry. There are little picnic pavilions and a grotto. Plus three parking lots. And there are 4 weekend Masses, including one in Spanish. The church easily holds 500+ and was almost full. Ushers had to help people find a place to sit. The bulletin was even impressive. So many activities that it is 8 pages long!
Since we got a late start on Sunday, we figured we would only go as far as Spokane, 200 miles. We got off Rt 90 for lunch at the Pancake House in a pass in the mountains. Got lost trying to get back on and took a detour down a crazy mountainside with switchbacks. Took almost an hour to get back to where we were supposed to be. Then we decided to get off 90 and take a smaller more local road. Unfortunately, the map did not indicate a lake that was in the way of a right hand turn. Going 30 miles before we realized the problem, we lost another hour. So, needless to say, we ended up staying in the middle of the state instead of the far eastern section. After the Cascade Mountains, the middle of the state became semi-arid. Very sandy and rocky. Mostly for cattle, but in the areas irrigated, there are many orchards. Fruit stands abound.
The trailer had been making a sound since we got the new tires. We decided it was one of the driver's side wheels. So, getting into Spokane on Monday, we found an RV service center. They didn't have time to see us. So, Hubby took the wheel off in front of the place, found the broken spring mechanism and took it in to the parts department. "We don't carry that kind of stuff!" was the response. Hubby took it out to the lot and asked a worker where a parts store might be. The fellow took one look, took Hubby for a ride on his golf cart and down to a junk yard where they found an old axle with the exact right part still attached. So, we lost the sound and it cost nothing. Why? The worker said, "Just say a prayer for me". Honest!
Spokane is about 4 hours from Missoula, Montana. Beverly's daughter, Gia, lives there. I had spoken to her a few years ago via ancestry.com. Now I got to meet her! Lovely. Looks like the Amatos, same eyebrows. Very gracious and hospitable, she made dinner for us and invited her mother-in-law and brother-in-law over. Turns out the hadand her husband lived in Cortland til her sons were high school age. It was like old home day, talking about central New York, in addition to family. We spent two hours with them. I enjoyed speaking with Gia. She, too, has been to Serra San Bruno. Guess my next trip should be there! I am the only one who hasn't been there!
by mgrandusky | Sep 11, 2014 | 20th Century
Finally, three days late, we were on our way again! and just in time, too! Wednesday morning we looked out the windows of the trailer and saw a dense coating og snow on all the cars in the yard. Too cold to walk the mile into town when you only have sneakers and a velour hoodie. So I sat tight and hoped the part went in fast.
The new part fit fine and we were on our way before noon. All was well all the way to the border crossing. But by 4pm we got another flat tire. No problem! We had a spare. The first hundred miles on the Alaska highway into the Yukon suffer from upheavels and gravel-only zones. It's the area where we had the two flats before. But Dear Hubby fixed it quickly and we were on the road in half an hour. The only problem was that the road was not finished with us and by 5:30, we had another flat, but this time we had no spare. Luckily, there was a turnout within feet, we rolled in and spent the night in the wilds again.
Next morning, Hubby left at 6:30 and drove thirty miles to find a tire. Found two radials after talking to a territory contractor who pointed out a house down the road. Hubby had to wake the tire dealer up. (Up there everyone wears several hats; this man was also a tow truck driver.) Customer service is quite different in the Yukon. Hubby was served coffee by the wife while the man took his time getting ready. Three hours later, Hubby was back with 2 radial tires. Max and I were entertaining the other travellers who were stopping by the turnout. We met a group who had stayed in Haines Junction for several days watching
the Northern Lights at night.
Late afternoon we arrived at Whitehorse where we bought two more tires so that the four tires on the trailer were all heavy duty radials. This should last us a while, I hope. We picked up supplies at a Walmart. It just amazes me that the hub of the Klondike Gold Rush, the tiny village of Charlie Chaplin's movie, Gold Rush, is now a town of 21,000 with a downtown and tourist attractions! To keep on our time schedule, we did no tourist stuff this time, but got to an RV park, ate and went to bed.
Early in the morning we drove out. Our goal was Muncho Lake. We had 6800 miles on the trip odometer. And we put another 400+ miles on that day. Mucho Lake is a lovely little lake in the middle of the Canadian Rockies. The Northern Rockies Lodge is in the middle of nothing but mountains and lakes. They operate totally off the grid, like so many other places along the way, thus you hear the hum of the diesel generator all the time. This lodge, with its accompanying RV park, is in a wooded setting. The lodge itself is a beautiful structure with pine timbers going up three stories, making an atrium of the lobby. However, you have to be in the lobby to get wifi, somewhat annoying when it is raining, since it is several hundred feet from the trailer. And, like most places in the north, the wifi band width is tiny. All you can do is email and post comments on facebook, but no pictures, no videos.
About 20 miles outside Muncho Lake we ran into a very windy descent with an 8% grade. We looked down to a white lake. White lake? Never saw one before. Couldn't be ice. Not cold enough! It was about 40 degrees, F. As we descended further, we realized it was fog. We drove through and then under it. Fascinating experience. Never saw fog that dense except in an airplane!
Gas is very expensive in Canada. Along the Alaska highway, it runs $1.34 to $1.52/ liter, making us go through about $100 or more a day just in gas money! I am shocked at the expense!
We spent the night in Dawson Creek again. Being as it was a Sunday morning we went to Notre Dame for Mass again. The same priest again. Another great sermon. The epistle was about trying to correct a member of the community who has sinned, including all the steps that should be taken, in order. Well, Father presented each step and described the correct method to use. Taking a 2000 year old document and explaining it up to date is a gift!
The church itself is very modern. It is built in the round, with a rectangular addition for the parish center. Entering the building, there is a hallway that follows the contours of the exterior and you have to walk around a bit to find the seating. The pews are arranged in a
250 degree arc facing the altar, which is on a curved dias. The tabernacle is away from the altar by about 25 feet, with a candle, off the dias, closer to the entry into the auditorium. This Sunday was a special day of harvest for the Indian community (from India). So, many of the women came in lovely saris and three were dressed in white silk ones with gold trim and they brought up the gifts. Very international group!
After Mass we went to Stuie's Diner. Few breakfast choices, but ample amounts and the coffee was a little weak. The omelet is made one way...with everything. Filling!
We then left for Prince George, where the gas is a little lower, $129.9/liter.
The RV park was a little better than the previous one we had stayed at in Prince George. We found one on the south side of town called Bee Lazee. Satellite TV and fair WIFI! Since we had traveled a little faster and further than we expected to, we got to sleep in a little and left after 9am to head on our way south. I got Dear Hubby to stop in William Lake so I could do some gift shopping. Any place that advertises they have the biggest piece of jade around, I want to see! It is 2850 lbs!
Finally the terrain stopped being so high and reminded me more of the Catskills. The flat areas were like going north and south across the Mohawk Valley. The further south we went, the more arid the land became. It became almost desert-like, with cactus, for a while.
Tuesday morning was an adventure as we drove through the Fraser River Canyon. Great heights! We drove along a narrow two-laner, with arid cliffs on one side (accompanied by signs reading "avalanche area") and sheer drops to the river hundreds of feet below on the other. Hours passed as we drove with our mouths agap at the scene. We were later told that few people take that route into Vancouver anymore.
At last we got past the Cascade Mountains and into the Vancouver area. All is new and industry is booming there. The city and its suburbs are built on bays and the Fraser River delta. The mountains are in the distance and the water is warm and shallow at the beaches. I can understand why real estate is so high. Everyone would like to live here. Weather is lovely. I haven't seen so many roses since we left Wisconsin!
Recent Comments