S.S. Presidente Wilson

OCTOBER 5, 1919
92 years ago today my grandfather arrived in America on the Presidente Wilson (passenger #21). But not until he put up a little bit of a stink about it.

As the story was told to me by my grandfather himself, he was just 5 when he and his mother left Arnara, Italy to join his father in Pennsylvania. And the little tyke just didn't want to go. He didn't want to leave his nonna or his little dog. He didn't want to travel to Roma and get on the big ship. According to him he was cranky and disagreeable for most of the trip, picking a fight with his mother as the ship passed through the Strait of Gibraltar. While his mother admired the Rock my grandfather tore the little cap from his head and threw it overboard.

Things went from bad to worse after the incident at Gibraltar. At some point, either during the journey or at Ellis Island, my grandfather was served oatmeal - for the first and last time.

Ask my grandfather anything about this voyage to his new home and he always managed to circle back to that frightening gray blob of oatmeal - very little about the sights he saw, absolutely nothing about meeting his father for the first time. It was always about the food.

Search Ship Lists on the Ellis Island site

Italian Americans: The Immigrant Experience
Leslie Caron Carola

Who Knew?

JULY 28, 1919
On this date my Great-Grandmother Lucia submitted a Declaration of Intent to Depart for the United States to the American Consulate in Rome.

This document is a big fat surprise for a few reasons:

1) I've been working on my family history for more than 20 years and have never even heard of a Declaration of Intent to Depart for the United States. The delight of discovering something completely unknown is gradually turning to irritation with the document which probably shouldn't be new to me at all. A real genealogist would know what this paper means. I used to love spending hours (days?) flipping through books and clicking through web sites to track down a piece of information ... now, not so much. I've recently taken up gardening.

As first glance it appears to be an application for a passport, but that's incorrect because according to the form Lucia applied for a passport on July 18, 1919. I'll report my findings on this form when I know something more.

2) Usually any document which originated in Italy requires a magnifying glass and Google Translator, but not now - this form is bi-lingual! Below each English question is the Italian translation. Very handy, but odd since Lucia and about 4 million other Italian-speaking cittadini completed this form in Italia. This should have been written in Italian in the first place.

3) I'm not sure why my family was in possession of this - shouldn't it be stuffed in a moldy government file somewhere? Why would my favorite uncle keep this document stuffed in a drawer for years and years without telling me? Is he new? Doesn't he know I need to know everything that happened 100 years ago ... er, now?

Introduction to Immigration Records
The National Archives site

Guide to Genealogical Research in the National Archives
U. S. National Archives and Records Service

Tracing Your Ancestors in the National Archives: The Website and Beyond
by Amanda Bevan

Lucia Maria

JUNE 20, 1886
On this day Great-grandmother Lucia Maria is born in Arnara, Italia. She emigrated to America in 1919 with my five year old grandfather, joining her husband and brother-in-law in Williamsport in a house on Dove Street.

Lucia was remembered by many for feeding hobos during the Depression, but I always found this story to be a little suspect. It was always nice to hear the stories of Lucia's charity, but by 1930 she was a young widow with four children - could she possibly feed the homeless when her own circumstances were so tight? And how exactly did an immigrant woman, who barely spoke English, find the hobos in the first place?

After 30 years, and through the magic of Google Maps, I'm willing to concede the people who actually knew Lucia were not just handing down a romantic fairy tale of her benevolence. Just a few short blocks from my great-grandmother's house is a railroad track. It would appear the hobos came to her.

Women and the Great Depression
from History Now

Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1940: How Americans Lived Through the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression [DAILY LIFE IN THE US 1920-1940]