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Tim Pangallo with the help of his father, Anthony Pangallo, wrote this essay in November of 1980 for Tim’s English class
The summer of 1911, my grandfather recalls was a typical summer, while typical for a little town called Roccaforte, within the providence of Reggio Calabria, Italy. Like all southern Italian towns on the Mediterranean Sea, the weather seemed beautiful, as he remembered sitting outside his one room home up in the mountains overlooking the sea. He had a lot on his mind then and a major decision to make. He found himself at sixteen years of age recalling his simple life with some of its memorable moments. Moments few of us will ever experience such as living through an earthquake while destroying his home and killing his sister lying next to him in bed when he as five years of age. Moments like at twelve years of age, finding his way through southern Italy, not by bus in the care of adults, but by walking, hitchhiking, train hopping, and sleeping in ancient catacombs just searching for himself and life’s adventures.
Now at sixteen a new adventure, a new decision, a moment now in his seventy-seven years, which made him stop and wonder. He had a chance to leave Italy and go to America. Leave his home, his mother, his brothers and sisters? Quite a decision for a sixteen year old with a seventh grade education whose world experience as of then was limited to some two hundred miles from where he was born. A chance at America, a new life, a new adventure, how could anyone resist the opportunity? He could not resist. He decided to go. He speaks of it as we talk about going to the corner store. Yet imagine what this simple decision meant.
His world possessions packed in a twenty-four inch by twelve inch box, his family said goodbye to him at the train station. This was his first paid train ride. In Naples he was put upon a ship along with many others whose dreams were packed in similar boxes for America. Oh yes his food also was packed in this box for no arrangements were made for food or lodging on the seventeen day trip across the Atlantic. Yes, he survived the trip, many did not.
In New York his new life started with a line through immigration and an introduction to his American sponsor, someone who at least had survived a similar ordeal and had the courage to offer some hope of a new life to someone else. What was the plan for grandfather’s new life? What part of his new life would come next? These thoughts were in his mind but were subdued by the fact that he was in America and the first hurdle had been cleared.
The next twenty years told the story. There were no choices, only assignments from his sponsor. "I have you a job", his sponsor would say. "You start!" From the mountains of southern Italy, three thousand miles to the coal mines of West Virginia. Twelve to sixteen hours per day, six days a week, fifty cents a day bent over deep in the shafts of the mine was his start. He realized at once that this was not for him. He asked permission to try something else. This decision meant he was on his own. He had to feed, clothe, and house himself in this new country. His decision brought him to Indiana and finally to the sweat shops of the tailor company of Cincinnati.
Now an American citizen he was drafted in the United States Army and sent to France in World War I. His duties were with the Calvary and medic ambulance driver. Yes a simple Italian peasant in five years had traveled to America and wound up in France. He returned to Cincinnati, met and married my Italian grandmother upon passing a thorough Italian inspection, which he failed but persisted until he won his choice.
From Cincinnati to Blanchester, Ohio to Newport, Kentucky. From the coal mines, to tailor shop, to handy man at Chester Park, to serviceman in France, to moon shining and home brewing, to an employee for the city of Newport, is where this sixteen year old Italian’s adventure led. Oh yes, along the way he raised fifteen children. My dad was one of the fifteen and I believe it is from this Italian heritage that I realize who I am. Like the majority of Americans, "Who we are" has escaped us in modern day America. The corner drug store, radio, TV, what we have today came about from men like this. Each one had a part to play and each one played it well. I plan to remember my heritage, cherish it, and carry it on to my children who I am and who they are.
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