Christina Prinzo Famoso - A Wonderful Mother

Christina Prinzo as a young lady around 1906

Christina and her brother Charles 1905

Christina Prinzo Famoso and her son John 1911

Christina Prinzo Famoso

On her birth certificate, her name is listed as Crestina Maria Giuseppa Luisa Prinzo.  Christina was born in Harlem, Manhattan, New York on June 16, 1892.  She was my grandmother.  I never knew her but by all accounts she was a wonderful mother and grandmother.  Sadly, she only got to know one of her grandchildren.  She died on April 24, 1943.  Her life was short and heartbreaking.  She was a beautiful young girl who met her husband to be at a funeral before she was even 16 years old. Luigi and Christina were married on April 23, 1908 when she was not quite 16 years old.  Her parents were from “the other side” but she was a ‘Merican.  Grandma Christine only went to school up to the 4^th grade.  That was probably quite a bit more schooling than either of her parents had. Francesco Prinzo and Maria Giuseppa Luisi were farmers back in Italy. Her father Frank became a laborer to support his family in the United States. When she met and married her husband Luigi she actually gave up her citizenship for him. For a very short period of time, that is what happened when an American woman would marry a foreign-born man. Christina must have thought he was so handsome and well-educated. I’m sure she must have admired him, at least at first. I don’t believe that her love could have lasted too long because he turned out to be a selfish husband. She gave birth to ten children but only 9 survived to become adults. That was pretty good for the times they lived in. Her 4^th child, Joseph, died of enteritis at the age of 7 months. 

I know that Christina could sew and cook. I also know that she worked hard and was a very good mother. She did not have much extra time to tell her children stories or play games with them. She simply had to make sure they would survive in the world. 

According to a story my mother heard at Christina's husband Luigi's funeral, Christina had to go to her sister-in-law Loretta and beg her to get money from Luigi for food. This story was told by Luigi's sister Loretta.

My father told me that he helped his mother wash clothes on a washboard. I can’t even imagine how difficult and time-consuming that must have been. Especially, when you were washing clothes for 9 children and two adults!

Dad also told me that his mother always said that she could put sauce on rocks and her 9 kids would eat them! Her boys were always hungry.

Grandma Christina fought for my father to stay in school so he could get his high school diploma because his father Luigi wanted him to quit school to get a job.

She worked in a factory making snowsuits for a few years to make money so she could support her family. 

She saved pennies in a cup for insurance for each one of her boys. When they grew up she was able to give each of them $500 which was a whole lot of money in those days.

Her sons liked to think they protected her from their father. I asked my dad if Luigi was a violent person and he said they didn’t know because he would not have taken on any of his sons who were all bigger than him.

Christina taught my father how to sew and use a sewing machine to turn a collar. That was a good way to save money on clothing at the time. When your shirt collar wore out, then you could turn it and get several more years of wear out of it without looking like a hobo.

In her later years, when her kids were all grown up she would sometimes sit outside on their front stoop (porch) to watch the neighborhood kids play. My dad says that she knew all their names and would try to make sure they did not get hurt. I guess that proves she was a mother at heart and was taking on the village approach to raising kids.

Her death was probably not sudden or unexpected.  She had gotten hit by a trolley car and sustained injuries from that accident.  The actual cause of her death was congestive heart failure.  She was only 51 years old but looked at least a decade older than that due to her hard life.  I know she would be happy to know that all her kids got married and most of them had children of their own. 

Christina Prinzo Famoso, Luigi Famoso, Sam Famoso and Catherine Prinzo
Wedding 1908

Christina and her mother Josephine Prinzo - 1940

Christine Prinzo Famoso - 1940

Christine Famoso Prinzo 1940

Anna Vincenza Sebastiana Pirolli - A Tragically Short Life

This post is about my great grandmother Anna Vincenza Sebastiana Pirolli.  She was born in the City of Caserta in the Province of Caserta in Italy on December 24, 1857 according to her birth record.  I have her birth, marriage and death records.  That is essentially all I have for her.  I know, I know...  another mystery... big surprise.  No, not really.  This poor lady worked really hard all her short life to bring up children and what do we know about her, virtually nothing.  No stories have been passed down about Anna.  The only thing that has been passed down is her name.  I have plenty of cousins named Anna and Ann.  I also knew her last name was Pirolli but, of course, that could have been a misspelling.  No matter.  Here is where I start to get fanciful in my interpretations of Anna and her life.  I can't say much about her birth except that her parents were Giovanni Francesco (according to her birth record) Pirolli(o) age 33 and Elisabetta Zampella (sp) age 26.  As far as I can tell, from Anna's birth record, her father Giovanni Francesco was a day laborer or giornature.  The most interesting and amazing thing about Anna that I have found out is that she could read and write.  I think that was a major thing back in the mid-1800's for a woman to read and write.  Especially in Italy.  I have read that there was no emphasis or interest in having a woman educated at that time.  Her only job was as a wife and mother.  Even on Anna's marriage record, it states that she is a dona di casa or housewife.  I keep thinking that she was probably a "spinster" at the time she was married because she was already around 22 years old.  Her marriage record does not say that she or Giovanni were ever married before.  Perhaps her parents knew Giovanni or I should say her mother knew Giovanni because her father had already died by the time Anna and Giovanni were married.  Unfortunately, I have never found Anna and Giovanni's Allegatti.  That would have given me a ton more information but it is lost somewhere. The marriage record also says that their Marriage Banns were posted in Caserta on February 23 of 1879 and on 2^nd of March 1879.  I haven't found those either. This seems to be another dead end unless I find the Banns and even if I do find them there is certainly no guarantee they will tell me anything.

Next we have Anna giving birth to 12 children.  Yes, I said 12 children.  Sadly, only 7 of them survived to adulthood.  I only found out that Anna and Giovanni had 12 children recently when I found their youngest daughter Loretta's birth record.  Loretta was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey so it was very helpful that the document was written in English!  But wait, I'm jumping ahead here.  Anna came to the United States to meet up with her husband in 1901.  I found her traveling on the Citta di Torino with 4 of her children.  The manifest shows that she had Sossio (Sam), Biagio (Brasso), Alphonso and Columba Rosa with her on that journey.  I have a mental image of them and it looks like some of the photos I've seen of foreign ladies and their kids disembarking ships back in the early 1900's with sad looking faces wrapped in dark blanket-like clothing. They all look dirty and hungry.  I'm hoping that wasn't true for them but it probably was.

I catch up with them next in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The entire family seems to be together again at least for a short time.  My father always said that his father and uncles loved to go to Atlantic City.  We did not know that they had ever lived there until recently.  Now all that makes sense.  The biggest event for Anna that took place in Atlantic City was the birth of her youngest child Loretta.  Anna was already about 45 years old when she gave birth to Loretta.  Another amazing thing for that time was having a baby at that advanced age and surviving the birth.  Baby Loretta also survived.

Jumping ahead to 1905 we have Giovanni, Anna and kids living in Harlem, New York City.  I also have my grandfather Luigi on a census from New Jersey that shows him still living in Atlantic City at age 22. Go figure?  I can't say which is correct but I know many of the censuses that I have seen are wrong.

The last event I have recorded for Anna is her death at age 50 in New York City on September 13, 1908.  It seems like she was under a doctors care when she died after reading the death certificate closely.  The death certificate says she died of a cerebral hemorrhage.  I think we should take that diagnosis with a grain of salt considering it was given in 1908.  I am going to go out on a limb and say that the doctor probably put down death caused by cerebral hemorrhage when he didn't know why the patient died.  I'm just guessing here but it seems to me that he wouldn't know unless he did an autopsy (doubtful).  Poor Anna was buried in a pauper's grave at Calvary Cemetery.  The reason she was buried in a pauper's grave is open to interpretation.  I wonder if Giovanni was away at the time of her death or if he just didn't want to spend the money to buy a plot for her.  I just don't know. What I do know is that when she died, she left two small children with Giovanni.  He had a 4 year old and a 9 year old to care for.  I can't even imagine what that was like.  I have decided that there is only one good thing that came out of her having died so young and with young children.  At least, she did not have to see her son Brasso die in the war.  I'm sure she would have been crushed to hear of his death.

UPDATE:  Pirollo, very rare, has a small Venetian strain, one of Frosinone, Iserniese and Caserta and one in Salerno, has a Venetian strain especially in the Padua and Venice, and one in the southern Naples, Avellino, Salerno, a small strain in Potenza and one in Bari, should all be derived from nicknames linked to the late Latin word" pirolus "( pear tree ).