How Far Are You Willing to Go, to Find a New Life?

Every year on October 23rd, I think about my grandmother Rachel.

I knew that she arrived on Ellis Island on October 23, 1920, but I never wondered why she took a ship from Le Havre, France instead of Naples, Italy.

My grandfather Concezio had to walk or share a ride in a donkey cart for 112 miles from their isolated mountain village in the rugged hills of Italy’s  Abruzzo region to reach the post in Naples. I learned that information after speaking with one of my Aunt Josephine’s cousins, Laura (DiFrancesco) Swidersky. In the early 1990s, Laura heard the details firsthand from dozens of young men who were part of the first “wave” of Italian immigrants to arrive in Scotch Plains, New Jersey in the early twentieth century

When I visited my grandparents’ birthplace in 1974, I traveled by car around hairpin turns to reach Montazzoli, which is located two and a half hours from Rome. Nearly half a century later, it is still difficult to reach our ancestral village, my friend, Fiorinda, told me after she returned from visiting family there in August. Her comment prompted to start an online search to figure out the steps my grandmother had to take.

I logged onto Google and began counting the steps my grandmother likely had to take, after scrutinizing maps of Italy:

1. Unlike my grandfather, she couldn’t have walked to the ship she took to America. Le Havre, France, which is about three hours north of Paris on the English Channel, is about 1,700 kilometers—1,100 miles—from Montazzoli: 10 times the distance to the port of Naples where my grandfather boarded a ship for America.
2. In 1920, the railway system in Italy was expanding, but from what I could see on this map, the most direct route was on the Terni-Sulmona railway line in Pescara on the Adriatic coast.
3. But how did she get to Pescara, which is 56 miles down those winding mountain roads in the foothills of the Appenine Mountains from Montazzoli? None of her relatives would have had an automobile, so she traveled, I assume, by the only means of transportation available in their mountain village: a donkey cart. She had a small wooden chest with her, filled with linen bedsheets edged with her fine crochet, to start her new life in America.
4. In Pescara, my grandmother likely boarded a train on the Terni-Sulmona railway line, which served the Umbria, Lazio, and Abruzzo regions in Central Italy beginning in 1871. From what I can see, it was a short ride to L’Aquila, the capital city of Abruzzo. I hope she didn’t have to change trains, and that the train took her all the way to Le Havre, but I don’t know that for certain.
5. What is startlingly clear, however, in this online map of Italy’s rail system is that my grandmother traveled through more than half of Italy—and all of France—to reach The Rochambeau in Le Havre. What an amazing journey for someone who had never been outside of her village!
6. Finally, her trip took many hours. The trip by car between L’Aquila and Le Havre takes 18 hours today, so I’ll assume that her rail trip in 1920 may have taken a few days.

My grandfather wasn’t the only one with the courage and endurance to make the trip to America. When I looked at the steps that Rachel had to take to reach America, I asked myself the question I’ll ask you:

How far would I be willing to travel, to find a new life?

Do you know the details of how your immigrant ancestor arrived in America? Have you shared their stories with your children and grandchildren?

Tune into the video of my hometown’s Columbus Day celebration on October 14 and listen to the essays written by two middle-school children, Elena Nizzardo and Dominic Soliola, about the grandparents and great-grandparents who started their story in America.