Category: Family Stories

Ancestors, Family Stories, Immigration

The American Immigrant Wall of Honor

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EllisIsland-1For the past month, I’ve been having a wonderful email conversation with Regina (Jean) Branz Daly. Jean is the daughter of Erminia (Erma) Genetti Branz, (Born: 1896 in Castelfondo, Austria; Death: 1971 in Freeland, PA). Erma’s parents were Damiano and Oliva Genetti and she was one of five daughters. As it turns out, Jean is my first cousin, once removed (or in other terms, my father’s first cousin).

Jean has been writing of the many memories she has of her mother, her grandmother Oliva and other family members. She was close in age to my father and they actually played together as children!

EllisIsland-2In her last email, Jean shared something about Ellis Island that I found intriguing. In 1982 Lee Iacocca (the Founding Chairman of The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation) was raising funds to create The Family History Center and The American Immigrant Wall of Honor. Many grandchildren of Oliva and Damiano Genetti were contacted and asked to make a donation. This would entitle the name of a family member who had immigrated to America to be inscribed on the stone wall memorial. Jean believed many of the grandchildren had contributed and knew her mother’s name was there, since two of Erma’s great-granddaughters had visited the wall and taken a photo of the inscription.

I was curious about this wall! What other family names were inscribed there? And did their descendants even know of the memorial?

A visit to the Ellis Island website offered answers. The American Immigrant Wall of Honor contains over 700,000 names “representing all ethnicities, all years of arrival, all points of entry, and all modes of travel … The common element that ties these names together is the celebration of American immigration.” Wow! I had no idea there was a memorial to immigrants. What an incredible tribute since the modern United States was built by our ancestors, who were all immigrants.

Next I did a search for “Genetti” to see who was inscribed on the wall. Here’s what I found:

  1. Albert V. Genetti
  2. Angela Genetti McNelis
  3. Damiano Genetti
  4. Dominic Genetti
  5. Dora Genetti Bott
  6. Enrico Genetti
  7. Erma Genetti Branz (Jean’s mother)
  8. Esther Genetti
  9. Frank and Erminia Yanes Genetti
  10. Gus Genetti
  11. Oliva Zambotti Genetti
  12. Stanley V. Genetti

Almost all of my family – great-grandparents, grandaunts and granduncles – were there plus several Genettis from other families. But I was a little disappointed not to see my grandfather’s name, Leon Genetti, on the list. Then it occurred to me, my grandfather had been the only member of his family who was actually a natural America citizen. Leon was born in 1887 in Lattimer, Pennsylvania. Damiano and Oliva returned to Tyrol when he was still an infant. The rest of their children were born in Castelfondo, Austria. My grandfather had spent his youth in Castelfondo, then returned to the United States with Damiano as a teenager. He could not be a part of the wall since he was officially a US citizen returning the country of his birth – not an immigrant. Another mystery solved!

If you would like to know more about The American Immigrant Wall of Honor, go to: https://www.wallofhonor.org/wall_of_honor.asp

To do a search for a family name, go to: https://www.wallofhonor.org/search.asp

 

 

Family Stories, Pennsylvania

A Story from My Past

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sgabrielTo celebrate Domenica (Sunday), here is a little story from my childhood that might make you smile.

I was born in Hazleton, Pennsylvania and lived there until I was six years old. Every Sunday I went to church with my father at Saint Gabriel’s. My Nonno and Nonna belonged to this church too. And much later in my life, I found out my great-grandmother Oliva Genetti had also worshiped here for years.

From the perspective of a small child, this was a HUGE church. I was in awe of the sights and sounds around me as we walked up the long, long center aisle to our pew every Sunday morning. We always sat in the same place on the left side of the church. Being only a few feet tall, I was never able to see the front altar. The people who sat in the pews in front of us, towered over me blocking my view. The only thing that I could really see were large speakers mounted on the walls high above everyone’s head.

sgabriel2Now being only a child (and one with a very active imagination) I didn’t yet understand the concept of church. My father told me we went there to talk to God and I believed him. When we sat or knelt in our pew I would hear the voice of a man coming through the speakers. The people around me answered him. Usually he was speaking in a strange and beautiful language (for at that time the mass was still spoken in Latin). Because I was too short to see a priest or even understand that there was an actual man somewhere in the front of the church, I reasoned that it must be God talking to me. And he was speaking a magical language! Are you chuckling yet?

In my mind this made St. Gabriel’s a very special place … a place where I could have a conversation with God and he would answer! When I was about six years old we moved away and my father took us to a much smaller church. It was then that I discovered there was an altar in the front with a man dressed in robes who did all of the talking.

Although I’m no longer a practicing Catholic, I still make it a point to visit Catholic churches when I travel. I might light a candle and sit quietly for a few moments … and listen for the voice of my childhood God.