Ralph Schiavon - Part Four: Twilight

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Ralph Schiavon


January 27, 1898 - August 16, 1970


Twilight


(Last in a four part series about my wonderful grandfather)

Ralph Schiavon, at train station,
Chicago (date unknown)

My grandmother Alice had lost her eyesight in the early 60s.  Her diabetes worsened, and she died at home on New Year’s Day in 1963.  My parents moved our family to Mexico City the following year.  We stayed there until 1967, when my sister Joyce became ill and we had to leave the high altitude city.  We moved back to the States and settled in  California with its warm Mediterranean like-weather.

Now in his late 60s, Ralph began to think about retiring.  He spent more time with Tom and Angie and their family, as well as meeting old friends for dinner or an evening out.  He enjoyed inviting his brothers Leo and Tony and his cousin Ralph Sannella and their wives and children up to the family cottage, Bunny Rest, in Big Blue Lake, Michigan.  And of course, he continued visiting his mother, Emanuela, and his family back in Massachusetts.  

Emanuela Sannella Schiavone was now in her 90s.  For many years after Vito’s death, she had lived with Filomena’s family, but as she became increasingly bedridden, her children decided it was time to move her into a nursing home.  Ralph and Leo arranged a room for her at the Don Orione Nursing Home in Revere. 

Ralph loved his mother dearly.  He visited her twice a year, taking the train from Chicago to Boston for Mother’s Day in the spring and later in the fall.  He and Leo contributed to the building of a new wing for the nursing home, ever mindful of the loving care she had given them as children.  For these efforts, as well as for their philanthropic contributions to the postwar rebuilding of their native land, the Italian government had awarded Ralph and Leo the Stella della solidarietà italiana, or the Star of Solidarity, and made them Honorary Cavalieri, or Knights, of the Italian Republic.  The Cavaliere, similar to a British knighthood, is regarded as the highest honor that can be bestowed on an individual by the Italian government.

Order of the Italian Star of Solidarity,
originally established in 1947, recognized
expatriates and foreigners for outstanding
contributions to the reconstruction of post-
World War II Italy.

Emanuela, who had never learned English or even to read or write in Italian, had been relegated to a lonely life.  Unlike many immigrant women around her who worked in the factories, she had stayed home to care for her children and was somewhat limited to her Italian neighborhood.  Her granddaughter, Gloria Scicchitani Johnson, Filomena’s daughter, remembered that Emanuela prayed often throughout the day.  Unable to read, she recited from memory Bible stories and stories of the lives of the Saints that the village priest in San Sossio had told her many years ago.  Though she could converse with her own children, many of her grandchildren could not speak Italian and did not understand her.  She could watch TV, but she had no idea what the people on it were saying.  It was no wonder that she looked forward to her sons’ visits and seemed to come more to life when they came.  Pasquale was present during these visits, and the brothers held animated political discussions long after tucking Emanuela into bed for the evening.

Left to right:  Pasquale Schiavone, Emanuella Schiavone,
and Ralph Schiavon, Revere, MA, about 1960

Shortly after his 78^th birthday, Pasquale "Pat" Schiavone fell ill in early December of 1965, just as Ralph was preparing to return home from Boston.  He was diagnosed with uremic poisoning – the final stage of kidney failure.  He died a few days later on December 7^th.   His death came as a shock to Ralph.

Emanuela had been suffering from advanced heart disease, and she died five months later on April 18, 1966.  At the time, no one knew her exact age and believed her to be 103.  In fact, she was just a few months short of her 99^th birthday.  

In the years that followed, Ralph became acutely aware of his own mortality and growing loneliness.  He began to have health challenges of his own, and after being a widower for six years, he realized that he could not go on living alone.  In July of 1969 he married Emily Scheurer, and the newlyweds flew to Italy on honeymoon.

It turned out that for many years, Emily had lived two doors down the street from Ralph in a single-story, red brick Tudor house at 7133 South Luella.  I remember meeting Emily when I was a little girl of about 5, though we didn’t know her name at the time.  With our wild imaginations, my friends and I thought her house looked just like that of the witch in the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale.  Perhaps she unwittingly had perpetuated that impression one Halloween when she greeted all the trick-or-treaters wearing a pointy witch’s hat and stirring a large cauldron filled with steaming black ice. 

One afternoon, we were playing on the sidewalk when Emily appeared at her door and offered us some apple pie she had just finished baking.  To us, this could only confirm that she was a witch, because witches were wily and always used apples as a ruse to trick children so they could eat them.  My friends screamed and ran home, but for some reason I stayed behind.  She beckoned to me, and I found myself walking up the walkway to her door.  

Emily invited me in and gave me a piece of her witch-pie.  Terrified, I took it because I had been taught to be polite.  I gingerly bit into the crust, wondering whether I would be poisoned, eaten, or ever see my parents again.  To my friend’s and my own surprise, I lived!  Although my miraculous survival (not to mention the tastiness of the pie) should have been sufficient evidence for us kids that “the lady in the witch’s house” might just be a nice older lady after all, we continued to keep our distance.  

Ralph and Emily were married for two years, and her companionship surely filled a void during the latter part of his life.  During the summer of 1970, Ralph’s health worsened, and he began losing weight.  A lifelong smoker and recently diagnosed diabetic, he was suffering from emphysema and colon cancer.  

Ralph’s family kept vigil with him during his final stay at Chicago's Wesley Memorial Hospital as he drifted in and out of consciousness.  On the morning of August 16^th, before his family arrived to see him, Ralph asked one of his nurses to turn on the television so he could watch Sunday Mass.  She obliged and noticed a faint smile appear on his face as she left the room.  She returned just as Mass was ending in time to see him close his eyes one last time.  

He was 72 years old.

From what I heard years later, Emily Scheurer Schiavon lived for several years after Ralph’s death, and then her only child, Yvonne Cooksey, brought her to live near her in Madison, New Jersey, where she died a short time later.

Coincidentally, as I write this, it is Ralph Schiavon’s birthday.  How I wish I could tell my dear grandfather - my Baba - that I love him and miss him, but somehow I feel he must know.  I think he would be happy that his memory lives on through his grandchildren and great-grandchildren and that we are grateful for the many blessings he gave us through his legacy of devotedness to his family, strong work ethic, love of learning, unwavering integrity, and pride in his heritage.  Baba, grazie per tutto.  Vivrai sempre nei nostri cuori.  

You will live on forever in our hearts.

Copyright (C) 2011 Linda Huesca Tully

Did you know any of the people in this story, or are you a member of the Schiavon/Schiavone, Sannella, or McGinnis families?  If so, share your memories and comments below.

Ralph Schiavon - Part Three: Halcyon Days

Ralph Schiavon


Halcyon Days


(Third of a four part series about my maternal great-grandfather)

A self-made man, my grandfather, Ralph Schiavon, was not afraid of anyone.  Not even "Scarface" Al Capone.


In the late 1920s, Ralph was working as a supervisor for the Internal Revenue Service and lived on the South Side of Chicago with his wife Alice and their two small children, Tom and Joan (my mother), when two of Capone's henchmen summoned him to the mobster's infamous headquarters in the Windy City at the Lexington Hotel.  There, he was asked to help a paesan, "Mr. Capone" to straighten out the books," for which he would receive a handsome recompense.  As Ralph sat there listening to the men, his mind was racing.


As an employee of the IRS, he surely was aware that Al Capone was under scrutiny for tax evasion.  Though Capone ran a number of illegal gambling and bootlegging operations, he had made sure that all his assets and properties were not in his name but in those of his front men.  He had never filed an income tax return or declared any taxable income or assets.

Ralph knew he was in a delicate situation.  The request for an IRS agent's help was brazen enough, but the thought that he should regard Capone as his paesan might have rankled him, too.  While he knew there could be consequences for saying no to Al Capone or his henchmen, he was a moral man with a strong sense of integrity that was far greater than any fear he might have felt.  Thanking the men for the offer, he tactfully said he could not be of much help and was astounded when he was dismissed summarily.  He hurried home, looking over his shoulder all the way for fear of reprisals against him or his loved ones, but fortunately nothing ever happened.  He must have breathed an enormous sigh of relief in 1932, when Capone was convicted of tax evasion.


Like many Americans at the time, Ralph's job fell victim to the Great Depression, and he and Alice found themselves in dire financial straits.  To ease the burden, they sent my mother, then two years old, to live with Alice's mother and maiden aunt until they were able to get back on their feet some four years later.  It was as though history was repeating itself, as Emanuela Schiavone had sent her own toddler Ralph to live with two maiden ladies so many years before in San Sossio.


Ralph had always been resourceful and was able to find a job at a grocery store.  Though it was a better place than most to work during such hard times when many people were starving, it just helped the family get by.


Still regretting that he had not been able to attend college, Ralph determined to not let this happen to his youngest brother, Leo, who had shown great academic promise.  He mustered enough money to send Leo to college, first to the University of Chicago and then to Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana.  This was no small effort, considering he began the endeavor around 1928 and was somehow able to see it through to Leo's graduation from Notre Dame in 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression.  It must have taken a great deal of sacrifice, but Ralph loved his brother very much and believed Leo was worth it.


It was a proud day for the Schiavones and indeed, the entire town of Revere when Leo graduated from Notre Dame cum laude.  Leo was the first Italian-American from the town to graduate from college, and the mayor threw a party at City Hall and invited everyone to celebrate the accomplishment.  Leo went on to earn an advanced law degree at DePaul University in 1934 and was hired by a Chicago law firm, eventually repaying his brother in full.


Ralph established his own practice as a tax consultant with an office at the Title & Trust Building at 111 West Washington Street in downtown Chicago.  As things improved, he and Alice took a vacation to Cuba.  Upon their return in 1933, they brought Joan, then five years old, back home to live with them again.


On May 4, 1935, Vito Schiavone, Ralph's father, afflicted for several years with arteriosclerosis and kidney disease, suffered a cerebral hemorrhage.  He died exactly one week later at the family home at 33 Eastern Avenue in Revere.  Ralph brought his mother, Emanuela, to live with him and his family for a short time afterward.  She later returned to Revere and moved in with Ralph's sister, Filomena Schiavone  Scicchitani and her husband, Tommasso.  She stayed with them for most of the remainder of her life.  Filomena herself would die an untimely death a few years later on October 23, 1941.  That evening, she had just received an award at an American Legion banquet for her involvement in local Democratic politics and was returning to her seat when she collapsed of a cerebral hemorrhage, as had her father.  Her death came as a terrible shock to her brothers, who loved her dearly.


My mother worshipped her father and fondly remembered his tenderness to her as a child.  In contrast to his own stern upbringing, Ralph never spanked her or Tom.  Not long after Joan had been brought back home, she broke a favorite mirror of her mother's.  Alice was furious and sent Joan to her room to wait for a spanking from her father home when he got home from work.  My mother later described the incident in her autobiography:


"All afternoon, I worried.  My father had such BIG HANDS! 'This will be some spanking,' I thought.  The hours passed, the front door opened, and there was my Daddy...so BIG.  He had a smile on his face, which quickly disappeared as my Mother told him of my misbehavior.  A stern, serious expression crept across his face, and I stood there, grasping my Mother's dress hem, trying to disappear behind her.


"My father grunted, 'Come with me.'  I followed as slowly as possible, cringing inside with fear.  We entered the bathroom; my Father closed the door, turned to me, and asked if I was sorry for what I had done.  In a small voice, I replied that I was very sorry and promised never to do it again.


"In the meantime, my Mother, waiting outside in the hall, was having second thoughts about my punishment.  A smile appeared on my Father's face, and he plotted with me to clap his big hands together, and I would scream as loud as I could. . . My Mother called out for my Father to stop spanking me.  We opened the door with big smiles, I in my Father's arms.  From that time on, there was a special bond between (us), as through my life, (he) tried to shield me from harm."

My great-grandfather, Thomas McGinnis, built this home on
South Drexel Avenue for his family in 1913; after he
and my great-grandmother Mary Jane died, my grandparents
Ralph and Alice Schiavon moved their young family here.

When Alice's mother, Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis died in the summer of 1940, the Schiavons moved into the McGinnis family home on South Drexel Avenue, on Chicago's South Side, where they lived for several years before moving to a larger home on Saint Lawrence Avenue.  Ralph loved these homes with their large gardens, and he spent long hours digging out weeds, planting flowers, and trimming hedges.  He loved working with his hands.  Maybe he felt connected to his roots, especially his Sannella grandparents, who had been gardeners by trade in San Sossio.

Ralph Schiavon in his garden on
Saint Lawrence Avenue, Chicago.

Ralph traveled back to Italy at the end of World War II and was shocked by the poverty and devastation there.  The large numbers of children who had been orphaned during the war especially moved him.  He befriended a young priest, Father Piccinini, who ran an orphanage in Southern Italy, and he began sending funds to assist this and a number of other postwar relief efforts.  


In 1946, the Schiavon's eldest child, Ralph Thomas, known as "Tom," married Angelina Ciliberto, a strikingly lovely brunette from Iacurso, Calabria, Italy.  They went on have four children:  Ralph, Alice, Michele, and Paul.  


Alice had taken up several hobbies that included doll and stamp collecting.  Over the years, she also had become an avid collector of fine antiques.  Ralph supported her in these interests, and he helped her open an antique and gift gallery, Chatham Galleries.  In 1950, he sent Alice and Joan to Europe on the luxury liner Queen Mary on an antique buying trip.


While Alice was delighted at the prospect of going off to Europe to hunt for new treasures, Joan, 21 at the time, balked at the idea.  She envisioned herself trapped for months among a boring melange of older people and even older antiques.  Ralph saw the trip as an opportunity for his sheltered daughter to be exposed to a rich world of culture, tradition, and history.  He arranged for my mother and my grandmother to stay in the finest staterooms and hotels and tour the most beautiful cities on the continent.  It would be the trip of a lifetime for my mother, who returned to New York from Cherbourg, France on the cruise liner Queen Elizabeth I as a wiser and more worldly young woman, thanks in large part to her father's vision and encouragement.


Sometime during the 1950s, the governor of Illinois appointed Ralph as State Bail Bondsman Inspector.  He continued his tax consulting business, commuting by train daily to his office in the Loop downtown. He also joined the American Legion and the Swedish Club, where he held court with colleagues and clients alike and often hosted large banquets for them.


As much as he loved eating out, he was an equally accomplished cook who enjoyed inviting people over for his memorable Italian dishes, which he had learned to cook from his mother.  This was quite a godsend for all concerned, as Alice was uninterested in cooking and gladly relinquished kitchen duties to her gourmet husband while she used her artistic talents to decorate their home lavishly and create elegant table settings.  The house overflowed with family and guests on holidays. Thanksgiving in particular called for Ralph's signature turkey with a rich dressing of mascarpone and other Italian cheeses, Genoa salami, golden raisins, and pine nuts.  His daughter-in-law, Angelina Ciliberto Schiavon (my Uncle Tom's wife - and my godmother), once remarked that on these occasions, it was hard to tell by evening's end which was more stuffed - the turkey or the guests.

My precious mother and grandparents, Joan, Alice, and
Ralph Schiavon, Chicago, Illinois, early 1960s.

One day in 1954, a handsome young man walked through the door of Alice and Joan's shop to buy a birthday card for his mother back in Mexico City.  He and his landlady had been out shopping, and the landlady, having met Joan Schiavon on a previous visit to the store, dared the young man to go inside to ask her for help.  He and Joan were immediately attracted to one another, and they began taking long walks around the block together.  Walks turned into movies and dinners, and soon the young couple's relationship deepened into love.


My grandfather, still protective of his daughter, was not happy when the young man, Gilbert Huesca, came to the house to ask him for Joan's hand on the Fourth of July, her birthday.  He had assumed his daughter would marry an Italian, just as her brother tom had a few years earlier.  He looked down sternly at Gil.  "Do you have any insanity in your family?" he asked.


The man who would become my father looked squarely back.  "No," he smiled.  "Do you?"


Ralph knew he had met his match.  Had he remembered that he, too, had married a non-Italian?  He gave his permission and began planning a large wedding with a guest list that would fill the church with family and all his clients and professional contacts.

Gilbert and Joan Huesca in their first apartment,
Chicago, November 1, 1954.

My mother, who had wanted an intimate wedding, proved to be equally as willful as her father.  She and my father eloped one afternoon during his lunch break.  The date was August 19, 1954.  That evening they sent a telegram to Ralph and Alice, who were vacationing in Florida.  Though they must have been surprised by the news, they took it graciously and sent the happy couple a lovely floral arrangement with their congratulations and best wishes.


In 1959, Ralph and Alice bought a two-story residence on South Luella Avenue.  They moved into the upstairs flat and invited my parents to move our family into the flat below.  I was fairly young at the time but recall being greeted on moving day with a marvelous swing and slide set in the back yard, along with a yellow rectangular wading pool for my sisters and me.


Ralph kept his lawns in pristine condition.  Both front and back lawns were bordered by tidy boxwood shrubs and colorful flowerbeds of snapdragons, roses, petunias, geraniums, and birds-of-paradise (my grandmother's favorite flower).  He also had an herb garden with sweet basil, Italian parsley, and oregano that he used in his wonderful Italian dishes.  He was always telling us to keep off the grass, yet he seemed to understand that as children we needed to run and play, and he indulged us in the way that only a loving grandfather could.


My grandparents doted on our cousins and us.  They bought my sisters and me a large Swiss-made child-size surrey with a pink-and-white fringe on top that seated four.  We used to pedal it down the block or to the park with our parents or lead neighborhood parades on Flag Day and the Fourth of July.  Though he was not one to fuss over children, Ralph loved each of us, his grandchildren, dearly. His letters to my mother during the last decade of his life reflected his pride in all eight of us as we grew into young men and women.

 My grandparents, Alice and Ralph Schiavon, with me (at age 1),
at my parent's apartment, Chicago, Thanksgiving 1956.

I have a vivid memory of one Sunday afternoon, when I ran upstairs after Mass to visit my grandparents.  My Nana Alice, who had been ill of complications from insulin-dependent diabetes, was napping, and my grandfather was sitting in his big leather club chair in the den.  He was watching a Chicago Cubs baseball game on TV and listening to a Notre Dame ball game on a small transistor radio he had up to his ear.  He motioned to me to come in, and I clambered onto his lap. 


We sat there, he and I, in awkward silence together for quite some time, he puffing occasionally on his cigar and I wondering what to say to him.  Unlike Nana, who could be the consummate playmate to her grandchildren, my Baba - that was the closest I could come to as little girl to saying the Italian Babbo, or Grandpa - was not easy to talk to, and at seven years old, I really didn't understand why.  What I did understand in some obscure way, though, was that even on the lap of that silent, enigmatic man, I felt safe and loved.


Copyright ©  2011  Linda Huesca Tully




NEXT:  Part Four - Twilight

Ralph Schiavon - Part Two: Young Immigrant in a New World

Ralph Schiavon


Young Immigrant in a New World

Ralph Schiavon, Boston, about 1910

(Second in a four-part series)


Like most newly-arrived ethnic groups during the turn of the century, Italian immigrants dreamed of becoming successful in America.  This meant owning their own home.  To the former peasants who for decades had endured la miseria - a miserable existence of innumerable indignities and hopelessness and poverty in their native land - home ownership, the ultimate definition of prosperity to the Southern Italians, represented independence, security, prosperity, and self-respect.


Vito Schiavone, who first arrived in America in 1890, had lived for a time with his brothers-in-law in a tenement house at 198 Endicott Street at the heart of Boston's North End.  Living in that crowded, dirty neighborhood had made him determined to buy his own home in another part of town so his family would not have to bear such oppressive conditions.


The dream was not unachievable, but it depended on great sacrifice and effort on the part of everyone in the family.  Vito pulled Ralph out of school as soon as he was old enough to work and sent him to join his brother Pat in a shoe factory in Roxbury. Child labor was commonplace at that time, and boys and girls in the shoe factories made up about seven percent of the total workforce in the Boston boot and shoe industry.


Children were given jobs that required little training, such as stitching shoe uppers or working in the shipping department.  Ralph worked in shipping, putting in 10 hours a day Monday through Friday and half a day on Saturdays, rain or shine.


Shoe leather would arrive at the factory in wooden boxes.  Once the crates were emptied, Ralph would break them down flat and load the wood into a small wagon so he could sell it.  For this he was paid about $6.43 a week, the average wage for a child laborer of the time.  (Men and women, by comparison, earned on average $15.17 and $10.39 a week, respectively.)


The long dreary hours left the boy without much time for a childhood. He never had a toy of his own and had little time for play.  Instead, money took on great importance in his young life as he worked long hours to help support his family.  Like other young boys, he learned to save at an early age and often walked the long distance home rather than take the streetcar, so he could have more money to give to his parents.


One freezing winter day on his way home, young Ralph met a man who gave him some baby chicks that were nearly dead from the cold.  He tucked them into his wool coat to keep them warm and set aside some of the wood from the shipping crates to make coops for them.


Upon entering the kitchen, he removed his coat and proudly showed his new pets to his parents.  While Emanuela cooed at the chicks, Vito flew into a rage at the thought that Ralph had lost money by bringing home the wood instead of selling it.  He rose from his chair and thrust his fist at his son.  Emanuela jumped in between them to block her husband.  Vito's fist, meant for Ralph, struck Emanuela instead, knocking out her front teeth.


Emanuela recovered and nursed the chicks with an eyedropper and a little wine and warmed them on the oven door.  Ralph never forgot his mother's loving sacrifice for him.  Needless to say, the chicks may have been pets for a time but ran the usual course that chicks do and eventually made their inevitable appearance on the dinner table.

Postcard of Wonderland Amusement Park, Revere, MA

Nicholas Schiavone, Boston, 1910

Tragedy struck the family in the spring of 1911 when eight-year-old Nicky Schiavone drowned in the marsh behind Wonderland Amusement Park, a popular Revere landmark in the early 1900s.  He and Ralph had been playing in the marsh with a young neighbor, Leo Dowling, when Leo began flailing his arms.  Nicky managed to rescue Leo but got caught in the marsh himself and began sinking into the muck.  Ralph watched in horror as the thick mud sucked his brother in deeper and deeper, until he drowned.


Some would later say that Ralph's "lucky veil," or caul, had protected him from the same fate as Nicky, but it seems that Ralph was in fact burdened by the fact that he had been spared instead of his brother.  The accident haunted him for the rest of his life, and he never forgave himself for not being able to save his little brother.  His children (my mother Joan and my Uncle Tom Schiavon), as well as my own sisters and I, heard the story over and over as we grew up, along with a coda of instructions on how to save a drowning person.


When Filomena married Tomasso Scicchitani in 1913 and Pasquale (known as "Pat") married Dora Salemme two years later, Ralph became the oldest child of those still living at home.  He took on the role of a third parent to Tony and Leo, sometimes treating them more strictly than their own parents, much to the chagrin of the younger Schiavones.  Perhaps he was overcompensating for his inability to save Nicky.  From what I have heard from my own mother, Joan Schiavon, and my cousins, he saw it it that his youngest brothers would not have to leave school as he did at a young age to work.  Even in his youth he comprehended the value of an education as a path to success, and he encouraged Tony and Leo to continue their studies, making it very clear that he expected them to graduate at the top of their class.

Ralph entered the United States Navy on August 26, 1918, and received his training in Norfolk, Virginia.


Assigned as a Seaman Second Class on the submarine USS Carolina.  The tight quarters of submarine made him feel claustrophobic, and he was relieved when he was later transferred to the battleship USS Kansas.  He was a member of a crew that traveled to Brest, France, at the end of World War I to bring many of the Special Expeditionary Forces home to America.  His jobs entailed standing various forms of watch, such as lookout and security, and his days would have consisted of learning such basic duties as being part of the gun crew; setting up and using rigs for loading fuel, ammunition, and supplies; firefighting; food cleanup; sweeping and swabbing decks; and painting and polishing equipment.


Two months after he enlisted, the Armistice Treaty was signed on November 11, 1918.


In 1919, Ralph was stationed at Great Lakes Naval Station, near Chicago, Illinois.  One day while on leave he met Benita McGinnis, a young artist and member of the Chicago Movie Censorship Board.  After dating her briefly, he was invited to her home, where he noticed her younger sister, a lively, 26-year-old redhead named Alice.  He was smitten immediately by her laughter and sense of adventure and soon began courting her instead of Benita.


Although we do not know for certain how it happened, it seems that the McGinnises did not know Ralph was Italian when they first met him.  He may have deliberately dropped the "e" at the end of Schiavone, which would have put the accent on the last syllable and made it sound French, or maybe it happened some other way.  (In later years he would say that the U.S. Navy had dropped the "e" from his name to make it sound more American.  His service record and his naturalization petition, however, do not show this to be so.)  He apparently was afraid of being found out as Italian and said nothing to change Alice's impression that she was in love with a Frenchman.

Speaking the language of
the Axis powers during
World War II was
considered "Un-American,"
as shown in this poster.

His fear was not unfounded.  For years, Italians, in particular those from the south, had been perceived as gangsters, womanizers, and lower class members of society.  They had been subjected to ethnic jokes and racial slurs such as "goombah," "wop," and "dago."  During both World Wars, Italians were viewed with suspicion and often regarded as Fascists.  Italy being an enemy nation during World War II, the six thousand Italian aliens then living in the United States were required by law to register as "enemy aliens."  This included Ralph's mother, Emanuela, who had never changed her citizenship.  In a lesser-known incident, several hundred Italian-Americans on the West Coast were rounded up and interned in detention camps from 1941-1943, not because of anything they had done but simply because they were Italian.


In later years, Ralph himself would be mistaken for Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator, as well as for the infamous mobster Al Capone.  In the latter case of mistaken identity, the Chicago police actually stopped him for a short time, releasing him only after verifying his identification.


Considering that Italians were at the bottom of the ethnic ladder in those days, it must have been a difficult decision for Ralph to change his last name to something that sounded less Italian.  Some of his family were hurt by this action and believed that he had been disloyal to his heritage.  They may have had valid reasons to feel that way, as they, too, had faced the same prejudice and discrimination - perhaps even more so because they kept their family name.


But the truth is that Ralph was not alone.  Many of his countrymen changed their names to avoid bigotry and discrimination, sometimes even translating their surnames into English.  Ralph was proud to be Italian and would never dishonored his origins, but he, as any other human being, had a right to be treated with dignity and respect.  Though we may never know the depth of the inner struggle he must have experienced over this decision, we can be certain that ultimately he did what he felt he had to do in the climate of the time.


Ralph was granted U.S. citizenship on May 12, 1919, two weeks before he was discharged from the service at Great Lakes Naval Station.  He returned to his parent's home on Eastern Avenue in Revere and began a long-distance correspondence with Alice that would span nearly four years.

Ralph Schiavon, second window from rear,
Cologne, Germany, early 1920s

He found a job selling shoes at a store in Revere.  He soon discovered that he enjoyed working with numbers and solving problems more than selling shoes, and he began taking night school classes in accounting.  He also seems to have returned to Europe after World War I, as the photo above shows.


Alice McGinnis accepted his proposal sometime in early 1923, setting off a short personal crisis for Ralph as he realized that "the jig was up."  He knew it was time to honest about his nationality, even if it meant losing the woman he loved.


He wrote Alice a passionate letter that spring.  In it, he confessed his Italian nationality and apologized for having deceived her, explaining that he had not wanted to lose her. He went on to tell Alice how much he loved her and that he dreamed of opening a small general store in Chicago so he could always take care of her and she would never have to work.  He closed by adding that he would understand if she decided to break off the engagement.


Alice McGinnis was not one to reject someone on the basis of his origins.  She understood prejudice only too well, as she and her family had experienced it first-hand as Irish-Americans.  It had not been that long ago that her grandfather, father, and brothers had been excluded from jobs whose ads warned that "Irish need not apply."  


She wrote back to Ralph right away and forgave him.  The couple were married on June 18, 1923, at Saint Joachim's Church in Chicago and honeymooned at Starved Rock Park, a popular campground not far from Chicago.


Copyright (C) 2011  Linda Huesca Tully




Next:  Part Three - Halcyon Days


Did you know, or are you a member of the Schiavon/Schiavone, Sannella, Schiccitani, or McGinnis families?  If so, share your own stories and comments below.

Ralph Schiavon - Part One: Auspicious Beginnings

Ralph Schiavon

Born January 27, 1898
Died August 16, 1970    



The following is Part One of a four part series on the life of my wonderful Italian grandfather.       


Auspicious Beginnings


My maternal grandfather, Ralph Schiavon, was one of those rare children born with a veil over his head.

The “veil,” known medically as a “caul,” was actually part of the amniotic membrane that covers a child’s face or head.  This occurs in about 1 out of every 80,000 births. Italian superstition viewed this as an omen that such children were destined to be special and do great things, as they had gifts of wisdom and vision (also called "second sight").  The caul itself was seen as a lucky talisman that could protect a person from harm and especially from drowning.  For this reason, it became popular for many seamen to seek these out and purchase them for their personal protection.  However, others viewed the caul as a curse because it supposedly brought with it great challenges and heavy burdens. 

As was tradition for such a special circumstance, the midwife who delivered Ralph rubbed a sheet of paper across his head and face so that the material of the caul would stick to the paper.  She then presented this new treasure to the child's happy mother, who sealed it in a small jar for safekeeping and later carried it across the sea on the ship to America, eventually giving it to her son when he grew old enough to take care of it.  My mother said that Ralph kept the caul with him all his life.

Ralph was the third of six children born to Vito Schiavone and his wife, Emanuela Sannella, on January 27, 1898, in San Sossio Baronia, Avellino Province, just east of Naples, Italy.  Most of San Sossio’s residents were poor and illiterate and were leaving the village in droves, and many families emigrated to Boston and its environs.  Vito Schiavone left for America in 1890, barely three years after Emanuela gave birth to the couple’s first child, Pasquale.  He returned at intervals to San Sossio as daughter Filomena and sons Ralph and Nicholas were born.

Ralph, who was named for his mother’s father, Raffaele Sannella, was born with a “caul,” part of the placental membrane, covering his head.   Italian superstition had it that such children were destined to be special and do great things, as they had gifts of vision and wisdom.  The caul also was said to protect a person from harm and especially from drowning.  For this reason, it became popular for many seamen to seek these out and purchase them for their own protection.  However, others viewed it as a curse because it supposedly brought with it great challenges and heavy burdens.  Emanuela’s midwife placed the caul, also called a “white veil,” into a small jar for safekeeping and gave it to the happy mother, who later passed it on to her son.  My mother said that Ralph kept it with him all his life.

For reasons unknown, Emanuela sent Ralph to live with some maiden ladies – possibly relatives? – for the first years of his life.  They were a bit better off and kept him well fed and healthy.  They owned several farm animals, one of them a goat, from which Ralph would drink milk directly and then ride around until he was too big to carry.    

San Sossio had a rivalry with San Nicola Baronia, a village on a neighboring mountaintop.  One night before Christmas, as the Sossians prepared for their annual saints procession through the village, some of the rival townspeople sneaked into the village and stole the statues for their own procession.  A rock-throwing war between the villages ensued until the culprits returned the statues. 

In her 1987 autobiography, my mother wrote of one of Ralph’s earliest adventures:

When Daddy was five or six, he and some of his friends met on the Church steps in the village square, and planned to undertake a hunting adventure.  One boy would bring a gun, another the ammunition, another some spaghetti, and still another, some tomatoes for sauce, and they would go out into the woods to catch their dinner.  Off they went, but to their dismay, all they could catch were some little birds.  They decided to make the best of their spoils.  Cook dinner they did, and when it came time to add the “meat,” they threw in the birds – complete – feathers and all!  Needless to say, dinner was not a success!

In 1902, Vito declared that 15-year-old Pasquale was ready to go to America, and he took him along to New York on the ship S.S. Washington that May.  By then he had rented a house on Tapley Avenue in Revere, determined that the family would not live in the Boston tenements that housed so many other Italian arrivals.  Even so, Revere was a working class town, and rents were relatively expensive.  So, like many of his fellow villagers and cousins, son Pasquale (known as “Pat” in America) went to work at a shoe factory in the Boston area.  Father and son saved their earnings carefully until they were able to send for the rest of the family.

It took four years, but finally in 1906, Vito sent Emanuela the money she needed to buy passage in the steerage compartment for herself and children Maria Filomena, 16, Ralph, 8 and Nicholas, 4.  The little group departed Naples on October 6, 1906, on the S.S. Republic.  The trip took 48 days, with the Republic arriving in Boston Harbor just before Thanksgiving on November 23^rd. 

Times were hard, and like many newly arrived immigrant families, the Schiavones expected those children who were old enough to work to help bring in enough money to house, feed, and clothe their growing family, especially as Anthony and Leo were born in Revere in 1908 and 1910, respectively.  Vito and Emanuela were frugal and in a few years managed to save enough money to buy a house just around the corner at 33 Eastern Avenue.  It was not far from Saint Anthony of Padua Church, where Ralph would serve as an altar boy for many years.

The Schiavone Family, about 1910
Left to right, back row:  Pasquale, Ralph, and Filomena
Front row:  Vito, Emanuela, Anthony, and Nicky
Photo by Fotografia Italiana, Hanover Street, Boston

Not long after arriving in America, Ralph began selling newspapers after school. He also worked for a time helping load pianos on freight cars.  Though his jobs left him little time for homework, he was a natural student and a quick study.  His principal at the Shurtleff School, Miss Adams, called him “brilliant” and “very businesslike.”  Perhaps the latter descriptionwas more revealing than at first glance, as it is clear that Ralph had to grow up quickly.  Unfortunately, Vito, who like many of his fellow immigrants had never learned to read or write in the old country, decided at some point during 1908 that Ralph had spent enough time at school and he should be working full time to help support the family.  Over Miss Adams’ loud protests, he pulled his young son out of the third grade and sent him to work in Roxbury at the same leather shoe factory as his brother Pat.  Ralph, who loved school, was devastated, but he had no other choice but to obey his father.  He was barely 10 years old, but the greatness for which he had seemed destined at birth was waning in his eyes.


Copyright (C) 2011 Linda Huesca Tully 

Next:  Part Two - Young Immigrant in a New World

Did you know, or are you a member of the Schiavon/Schiavone or Sannella family?  If so, share your memories and comments below.