Prohibition was a boon for Tacoma character Sabatino "Sam" Spadoni

When I first signed up for a two-week trial subscription to Ancestry.com in the spring of 2009, I spent many hours taking notes on Spadonis from Ponte Buggianese who had come to America around the turn of the century. One entry I found for Samuel Spadoni in the 1930 Tacoma census baffled me, though, and I eventually gave up and filed it under impossible to solve mysteries. In the past month, however, while looking for something else, I stumbled across the answer to the enigmatic Samuel.

I first noted Samuel Spadoni listed in the 1930 census as residing in the Pierce County Jail. I had been aware of a Guido Spadoni living in Tacoma at that time, but I had never heard of Sam, nor could I find any Samuel, Sam or Samuele Spadoni coming through Ellis Island in the early 1900s. I couldn’t find a World War 1 draft card with that name, nor any Sam Spadoni in the 1920 census. He just seemed to appear in Tacoma, get arrested and then disappear.

To add to the puzzle, I also found a Victoria Spadoni in the 1930 census, age 10, living as a boarder with a Tacoma family, William and Amalia Benigni, but I never found another reference to her in the Ancestry database either. It appeared likely that she was Samuel’s daughter, being watched over by friends of the family, but I had no other evidence to corroborate this or tell me what became of her.

Skipping ahead three years, I recently decided to find out more about other Spadonis who lived in Tacoma. Perhaps now I’ve just become a better researcher, or perhaps Ancestry has added more Tacoma information to its database, but this time I found plenty of Tacoma entries about a Sabatino Spadoni, who was a brother to Guido. The key breakthrough came when I gradually realized that Sam and Sabatino were the same person. Italians routinely Americanized their names, and since there is no American equivalent to Sabatino, he had to get creative and pick something that at least started with the same two letters.

Once I made this connection, the facts started pouring forth. Here is a brief summary. Sabatino came to the United States in 1910 at age 16. He had cousins in Chicago and his brother Guido in Tacoma. He shows up in the Tacoma directory in 1915, though I suspect he arrived here earlier. In his World War I draft card, he was living in Seattle, just a block away from the house of Michele “Michael” Spadoni, and both were working at the same steel mill, strong evidence that the two knew they were cousins. Sam was inducted into the army in October of 1917 and received an honorable discharge in January of 1919.

In October of same year, Sam married 14-year-old Maria Morini in Bellingham, and the couple was back in Tacoma by 1920. Around that time, Maria gave birth to Vittoria, whose name was Americanized to Victoria. In 1926, Sam filed for divorce from Maria, who by then was known as Mary. The legal filing says that both wanted out of the marriage and that Mary had already left Sam. He asked for and was granted custody of Victoria, but he landed in jail in 1930 and Victoria had to lodge with another family.

At this point, my research may have come to a dead end had I not stumbled across a marriage record that eluded me previously. In Yakima, Washington, Victoria married Donald Felts in 1936, when she was 16 and Donald 20. Now she had a new last name, and knowing that gave me a better chance to find out what happened to her. Also, within the last year, name data from the 1940 census has been released, and much of it is now in the Ancestry files.

Armed with new information, I found Donald and Victoria living between Fife and Federal Way, King County, in 1940. Further, I found that they had a 2-year-old son, also named Donald, in their home. If he was born in 1938, he might still be alive and living in Washington, so I set to work tracking him down. It looked like he moved around a bit, but it seemed like the most recent address was in Olympia. I gave the number a try, and bingo, there he was on the other end of the phone line.

Sabatino looks like a real sweet guy and a loving
father to Victoria in this photo sent to me by
his grandson, Donald Felts.

I asked if his grandfather was Sabatino Spadoni, and he said no, it was Sam, but then he remembered that Sam was not his actual name, and his real name could have been Sabatino. His mother had been Victoria, so I knew I had the right person.

“Victoria was a very beautiful lady who was mistaken for my sister many times,” Donald said. “Her hair was so black that many thought she dyed it, but she never did.  She was happy and laughed a lot but was somewhat mistrustful of people, probably because her mother walked away from her on a street corner near their home in Tacoma to go to Alaska.”

Mary, Victoria's mother, later married James Hansen and ran the Black Rapids Lodge in Alaska. Donald sent me a copy of a postcard from the lodge which shows Mary with her team of huskies. He said he only saw his grandmother twice.

Mary Morini Hansen in Alaska. James Hansen was her
third husband. Between her marriage to Sabatino and James,
she was married to Eugene Morris.

Donald told me that he spent the early years of his childhood in Spring Valley, a neighborhood between Federal Way and Fife, and that his grandfather Sam lived about a half mile away. He said the relationship between Sam and Victoria was cordial, but they were more like neighbors than father and daughter. This is probably because Victoria, according to Donald, “boarded with several Italian families while growing up.”

“My take on Sam and Victoria’s relationship is that she lived apart from him during her growing up years, so she was not as close as she might have been if living with him,” Donald said. “Also, she and my father did not approve of his life style of gambling and staying out late.”

He remembers his grandfather as a serious man whom he rarely saw smiling or laughing.  “I recall him always dressed in a suit, tie, overcoat, and fedora,” Donald said. When Sam’s wife left, she remarried and moved to Alaska. Mary became an Alaska pioneer and is mentioned in some historical accounts, Donald said, adding that he has seen her pictured with her dog sled team.

Sam’s life underwent major changes during the 12 months of late 1919 and early 1920. He had been discharged from the army, married and had a child, but of equal impact was the official start of Prohibition on Jan. 16, 1920. He most likely used his connections in the Italian community to obtain and sell alcohol, and he quickly found it highly profitable. Donald said that Sam ran at least one very successful speakeasy in Tacoma during the 1920s, and it was frequented by the mayor and many police officers. Donald recalled that Sam once bragged he could buy out any of the wealthy families in Spring Valley and that he always carried large wads of cash in his pockets.

“Mom and I rode into Tacoma with him occasionally, and policemen greeted him like he was their friend,” Donald said. “Sometimes they’d pull him over and say, ‘You have any money for me, Sam?’ And he’d pull out a roll of bills and hand over $20 or so. There was no expectation of him getting repaid.”

Not only did Sam profit from selling alcohol but he also ran gambling operations in the back of his businesses. Donald inherited seven one-armed bandits from Sam, and now he regrets very much that he gave them away over the years without realizing their historical value.

From the Tacoma Daily Ledger,
September 1932

Apparently, Sam didn’t have all the policemen in his pockets, though. A 1932 newspaper clipping describes a police raid in a back room of one of Sam’s businesses. Apparently this happened fairly regularly, because the article quotes police officers as saying Sam was “a fool for punishment,” since he had already had “several previous liquor violation convictions on records against him.” The article also says Sam may be charged with being a “jointist,” and I had to look that up. Wiktionary says it is an “operator of an illegal drinking place or joint,” but it also says the word became obsolete in 1933, the year which marked the end of Prohibition.

Donald remembers Sam as owning several restaurants in the 1940s and 1950s, including the Toscano Cafe. City records also show he operated The New Lido and that he owned Sam’s Parking Garage.

The finish of Prohibition didn’t end Sam’s battles with the law, though, as he continued to cross the line of legality by cheating on his taxes. Donald recalls that after his mom was married,  “Sam went to prison for tax evasion twice in the late 30s or early 40s.”

His niece, Ida (Spadoni) Holts, thinks that after being released from one of his stays in prison, his friends from Tacoma were avoiding him and he wanted to get away to make a fresh start. He moved to Eureka, California, in the mid-1950s, and he worked as a restaurant cook until his death there in 1958.

Donald has positive memories of Sam as well. “Sam was always cooking something, with a big pot on the stove,” he said, “and being used to cooking for crowds, he always made too much, which he sent our way.  I still remember those wonderful dishes, including head cheese and smoked tongue that I might not be able to keep down now. Even though Victoria did not cook Italian often, I gained my love of Italian cuisine from Sam.”

Victoria Spadoni at age 14.

And despite Sam’s tendency to stray from the law, Victoria grew up to lead an upstanding life. Her husband was a carpenter and they operated a family farm. Donald graduated from college with a degree in pharmacy. He worked for a small pharmacy in Seattle and retired from Group Health in 2000 after 33 years.

“She was a stay-at-home mother,” Donald said, “but she did work occasionally to supplement the family budget.  She worked several Christmas seasons at Rhodes department store in Tacoma, worked for several years during the fall canning season at the Hunts cannery in Puyallup, and did housework for several of those well-to-do families in Spring Valley for a few years.

“She milked our cow for years. When my father was drafted into WW II, my mother was stuck caring for 1,500 laying chickens with me as helper until she could dispose of them. She was very financially conservative and never purchased anything she couldn’t pay cash for and didn’t have a checking account or credit card until late in life. After my father’s death in 1983, she did a lot of volunteer work at the Sumner Senior Center. She died of ovarian cancer at Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup on Jan. 2, 1996. She was my biggest cheerleader and probably responsible for me getting a college education.”

Who were those Tacoma Spadonis?

After making contact with Spadoni relatives in California and Chicago, it seemed appropriate to me that I should explore the Spadoni families who lived just across the Narrows Bridge from us starting in the early 1900s to . . . well, I didn’t know. Maybe there are still some of their descendants around, I wondered. It turns out that indeed there are, and very pleasant and gracious distant cousins they have turned out to be!

I was vaguely aware that there had been some Spadonis unfamiliar to our family in the Tacoma phone book in the early half of the 1900s, but when I asked older family members about this, I was always told, “They weren’t related to us.” Sometimes it also was added that our family didn’t associate with the Tacoma families because they had a bad reputation.

Guido "Frank" Spadoni on Jefferson Street in Tacoma in the 1920s, across from where the Old Spaghetti Factory was later located. According to his granddaughter Kathy Holt, Guido bought and sold workhorses.

Tacoma and Gig Harbor are separated by less than 10 miles, although until the middle of this century, the only way to commute was by ferry or private boat across the Narrows. However, my nonno Michele Spadoni lived in South Tacoma and then Ruston for a time before moving the Gig Harbor around 1915, so all these Spadonis actually would have been in the same city. Even after moving to Gig Harbor, Nonno commuted by boat to Tacoma, where he worked at the smelter in Ruston until his retirement.

The Tacoma City Directory also shows that Nonno’s nephews Adolfo and Alfredo lived and worked in and near Tacoma during part of the 1920s, so I have to think that at some time, members of the two Spadoni branches must have encountered each other in person. There is perhaps no way to confirm this, but with help from Greg Spadoni, Alfredo’s grandson, I decided to explore what I could about these Tacoma Spadoni families.

Records from Ellis Island show that Guido Spadoni was the first to arrive, coming across Nov. 24, 1906. The ship log says he was going to Chicago to stay with a cousin, Gioberto Giuntoli, but he didn’t stay there long. By January of 1907, he is already listed in documents as living in Tacoma, where he found a job as a laborer with Lister Construction Company.

These early documents provide other clues about Guido: He is married, but his wife, Armida, has remained behind in Ponte Buggianese. This location ties him closely to our own branch of the Spadoni family. My great grandfather was born there, and when he married, he moved about five miles away to Pescia.

I have been assured by a family historian in Italy that all the Spadonis from Ponte Buggianese are descendants of Francesco Spadoni, who moved to Stignano in the mid-1400s. During the 1600s, most of the Spadonis moved from Stignano to Ponte Buggianese to take advantage of lush farming land that had previously been flooded. So despite denials by older Gig Harbor family members, we are related to the Tacoma family. They must have suspected at least a distant relationship, given that both families came from the same region. I hope that the next time I go to Italy, I can trace Guido’s family line back to the point where it intersects with Michele’s.

From 1912-14, Guido is listed as working at a saloon. A most interesting entry occurs in 1915. His brother, Sabatino, who arrived in the states in 1910, is listed as Guido’s partner in Spadoni Brothers Fuel on Market Street. This pre-dates the Gig Harbor Spadoni Brothers, a partnership of Michele’s four sons, by 31 years. The Gig Harbor brothers also sold coal and oil as fuel, although their main focus was on land clearing and road construction.

Guido and Sabatino’s partnership was brief, as by 1917, the company is listed as Market Fuel, solely under Guido’s proprietorship, and it continued that way until the 1930s. Sabatino went into the restaurant and saloon business, but I’ll get back to him in a later blog entry.

1919 was an important year for Guido: He divorced his Italian wife and remarried an American. Thanks to Greg’s research, I have found the Pierce County legal record in which Guido filed for divorce from Armida. In it, I find the surprising news that Guido and Armida married in 1902 had four children in Italy before he left for America four years later. Now Guido is claiming that Armida abandoned him and the children in 1906 and that his parents are taking care of the kids.

It’s not easy to determine the truth of who left whom, though. In the lawsuit, Guido says nothing about the fact that his parents, wife and children are actually in Italy, only that “since the year 1906, the plaintiff has never heard from her and does not know her whereabouts or whether she is living or dead.” Armida, obviously, would have had no opportunity to contest his account of the facts.

Guido had good reason to file for the divorce, because he wanted to marry Iva Bisbee, a 29-year-old woman originally from Oregon. They married in November of 1919, although the marriage lasted only until 1921, when Iva filed for divorce, claiming she had been mistreated.

Matilda Pezzolo, Guido's third wife.

Guido married again in 1923, this time to Italian immigrant Matilde Pezzolo, who Americanized her name to Matilda. This marriage resulted in the birth of daughters Ida in 1925 and six years later to Giovanna, who went by the name of Joan. Guido himself informally changed his name to Frank in the 1930s, and he continues to show up in city records as living near Fife until his death at the age of 78 in 1960.

What became of Ida and Joan, I wondered? I found a file showing Ida married Frank Holt in 1945, and through a little more research, I found an Ida Holt listed in Brown’s Point, Tacoma. Could it be the same person? If true, she would be 87 years old. Perhaps it was an out-of-date listing.

I gave the number a try, and a recorded message told me the number had been changed, but it gave me a new number. When I called again, Ida herself answered the phone. Yes, her father had been Frank Spadoni, and yes, he used to have a fuel business in Tacoma. I tried a few more questions, and she suggested that I come to see her and ask my questions in person. She said her daughter was in town for a visit and had gone out for a couple of hours, but if I called back later, I could talk to Ida’s daughter and make arrangements for a visit.

Ida in her home, September 2012

Ida seemed to have some problems with her short-term memory, as she asked me numerous times who I was, but in my experience interviewing older relatives, I find they often can remember childhood events with great accuracy and detail. When I called back later, I spoke with Ida’s daughter Odessa, and we arranged a meeting in Ida’s Federal Way assisted living facility with Odessa, Ida, myself, Greg and my wife Lucy.

Before we hang up, Odessa tells me that Ida at one time lived in Gig Harbor. In fact, she lived on Raft Island, which is about a half mile from my home. I tell Odessa that I am looking out my window at Raft Island as we speak.

Despite Guido’s somewhat turbulent early background, his daughter and granddaughter--who are delightful, warm, gracious and welcoming distant cousins and hostesses--had many good things to say about Guido.

“He was a fantastic grandfather,” Odessa said. “He was just a warm individual, a gentle soul.” She remembers him as a great cook who always had broth or pasta warming on the stove. He loved his leather chair, and she remembers him asking her to get up and stir his broth, especially the time she took off the lid and found the pot full of fish heads.

“He was a very easy-going person,” said Ida, who as expected had a good memory of events of long ago. “I always felt really loved.”

That’s not to say that she thought her dad was a perfect angel, though. She remembers one time when he was gambling in a card room located in the back of a downtown Tacoma barbershop. “Police raided the card room and he was in the group,” she said. “It made the front page of the newspaper. Dad read the newspaper story to me and boasted that he was famous.” As she recalls the event, nothing happened to Guido; the police just told him to go home.

When Ida was 6, though, her life took a difficult turn of events. After the birth of Joan, Matilda went into a deep depression and had to be committed to Western State Hospital. Ida doesn’t recall her mom ever returning, although there is some inconclusive evidence that she came back briefly in 1936.

Ida recalls Guido declaring in frustration, “I try to be a mother, I try to be a father, but I can’t do it all.” At first, he hired housekeepers, but he didn’t like the way they cooked, and they spent too much money on food, Ida said. She ended up going to live with another Italian family, Amadeo and Lina Lucchesi, while Joan lived with Matilda’s sister and her husband, Maria and Benedetto Bini.

Just as in the Gig Harbor Spadoni family, Ida and Joan grew up speaking Italian at home. “I stayed in first grade for two years because I had to learn to speak English,” Ida explained. She and Joan returned to live with their dad when Ida was around 11.

She became aware over the years that her dad may have had other children he was supporting in Italy. When he died and the family was cleaning up his belongings, Odessa remembers finding photos of a boy and girl. On the back of the photos were inscriptions in Italian that indicated that they were Guido’s children.

In Ida’s bedroom are photos of Guido and Matilda, and we snapped a few photos of our own, both of Ida and Odessa and also of the photos on the walls. Our visit was refreshing for all. For us, Ida is living history, a chance for us to hear from someone who lived nearby during the era of our grandparents. For Ida, most of her old friends are dead, and she welcomed the chance to talk about things with which she is familiar.

Odessa, Paul, Ida, Greg

A couple of weeks after our visit, Odessa sent me an e-mail upon her return to California, saying, “Probably one of the best parts of this stay was to meet all three of you. My sisters Laura and Kathy and brother Fred hope to meet you all in the future also.”

She added an intriguing promise as well: “I think I came across a picture of my grandfather’s first wife and four children. There are a few words on the back of the picture. I will go to my husband’s barber tomorrow to see if he can figure it out. When I get the time I will e-mail you.”

I hope she will send me a copy of this photo, as I would like to see how old the children are. What happened between Guido and Armida is still a mystery. If the children are no older than 4, it will validate Guido’s claim that he has not seen his wife since 1906, but if they are older, then it would offer evidence that Armida did not abandon her husband and children before Guido came to America.

Finding out what happened to Ida’s half brothers and sisters is also something I may explore this winter and spring in Italy, though my family tree to-do list is growing long and the likelihood that I can accomplish all my goals is slim. But half the fun is in the pursuit, so I am looking forward to continuing the chase.

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Footnote: One year later, I discovered the connection between the Tacoma and Gig Harbor Spadoni families. And two years later, I found information about Guido’s wife and children in Italy.

More relatives found through the web

Not every new relative I have discovered results in a face-to-face meeting. I now have established online contact with distant cousins in Minnesota and California on the Seghieri side, and from Seattle, Olympia, Chicago, California and Wisconsin on the Spadoni side. Many, like me, are also exploring their family origins and are excited to establish contact and share information.

The gravestone for Narciso Spadoni and his wife
Giuseppina Bonacorsi, located in Chicago.

Most have found me after seeing that we have a family tree on Ancestry.com or after reading my blog. One of the first to contact me was Wendy Manganiello, who is a descendant of Narciso Spadoni, an immigrant to Chicago. Narciso was born in 1877, just six months after my nonno Michele Spadoni, and in the town of Borgo a Buggiano, less than three miles from Michele’s place of birth in Pescia. Wendy and I don’t know how they were related, and we are not even sure they knew, given the hundreds of years that the extended family had already lived in this area. But we have enough information from Italian sources to assure me that all the Spadonis from that little area of Italy are related.

I happened to be in Italy when Wendy first wrote me, so I was able to do a little research on her behalf at the Borgo a Buggiano municipio. I obtained the “stato di famiglia” document for Narciso’s father, which I mailed to Wendy when I returned to the states in May. This document traces Narciso’s line back three more generations to Francesco, born around 1775. If I am able to pick up the trail in the church archives on my next trip to Italy, I may be able to jump back another 100 or more years and find out where Narciso’s line fits into Carlo Spadoni’s Stignano family tree, and that would establish a definite tie to our Gig Harbor and Seattle branches of the family.

Thanks again to the power of the Internet, Diane Rinella of California also contacted me after reading my blog entry about the connection between the Gig Harbor and Seattle families. Her grandfather was Guido Spadoni, who made his way to San Francisco shortly after his U.S. arrival in 1903. He was born in 1885 in Ponte Buggianese, only a few miles from Borgo a Buggiano and Pescia. Now I have promised Diane that I will dig more deeply into her ancestry as well.

She shared with me the fascinating fact that her grandfather’s brother was Italo Spadoni, who achieved fame when he was brutally assassinated in Ponte Buggianese in 1924 for opposing fascism. A street in town is now named after him and a plaque has been mounted in the main piazza in his honor.

Trying to puzzle together the missing pieces that connect the various branches of the Spadoni family has become a passion for me, and it is great to find other family members like Diane and Wendy who share the pleasures of this hobby.

That's Manon (May) Spadoni on the left, on
the day of her wedding to Francesco Niccolai.
I received this photo through my online
correspondence with their granddaughter
Wendy.

I was able to help Wendy by referring her to Italian archivist Andrea Mandroni. For a reasonable fee, he traced the line of her grandfather, Francesco Niccolai, back to the 1500s. Wendy’s excitement over this demonstrates our shared enthusiasm for the ancestry obsession. She e-mailed me in August: “I got my family tree results from Andrea about a week ago and he did an AMAZING job!  I was in tears when I got the package from him!!”

Another magical moment occurred when Wendy (who lives in Wisconsin) read some information that Diane from California left on my blog and realized that she and Diane are doubly related. The mother of Diane’s grandfather Guido was Maria Gioconda Niccolai, a sister to Wendy’s great great grandfather Antonio Niccolai. That means Wendy and Diane are related on both the Niccolai side and the Spadoni side.

Wendy had heard her grandmother talking about visiting family in California many years ago, but that connection had been lost. When Wendy saw on the blog comments that Diane’s grandmother was a Niccolai, she put the pieces together and left an ecstatic comment on my blog: “Oh. My. Goodness. I am so excited right now that I’m not even sure I can put together a sentence.”

Now Wendy and Diane have established on online relationship as well, sharing information, photos and enthusiasm. Diane posted this comment on my blog: “This is all very exciting. Thank you, Paul, for this magic.”

Are there any more Spadonis and Seghieris from Tuscany out there looking to make a family connection? Or even a Capocchi or Marchi (my great grandmothers)? If your ancestors came from Ponte Buggianese, Montecarlo, Pescia or any of the other little towns between Lucca and Montecatini, we are probably related, and I will do my best to find out how.

Finding a lost Seghieri and solving questions of mysterious visits

My older Gig Harbor cousins can remember hearing stories about trips our grandparents took to San Francisco to visit cousins. One trip was taken perhaps in the 1920s, when our parents were relatively young, and there was another trip in the 1940s when our Nonno—Michele Spadoni—and my dad and some of his siblings went to San Francisco to visit cousins.

With everyone from my dad’s generation now gone, no one from my generation could tell me who these California cousins were, and it has been a mystery for many years.  Since there are numerous Spadonis in California, some cousins think maybe Nonno went to see a Spadoni family that only he knew about, but other cousins think they remember that the trip was to see Nonna’s cousins, in which case it would either be a Seghieri family or possibly even a Capocchi family, as the mother of our Nonna, Anita Seghieri, was Ines Capocchi before she married Torello Seghieri. Anita passed away in 1941, so she didn’t make the trip in the 1940s.

Donald Seghieri

This mystery has recently been solved. It started with a letter that came to my sister-in-law Rosemary’s ancestry account on March 28 of this year: “My name is Donald Seghieri. My father was Tristano Seghieri and grandfather was Egidio Seghieri whom I believe was Torello's nephew. Our side of the family lived in San Francisco, CA. I'm researching the family name and would appreciate any info or photos you may have.”

This message opened up a correspondence, followed by a visit and now a friendship between Donald and me, and it has solved the mystery about those visits to San Francisco. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Egidio Seghieri

In checking ship records, we found that Don’s grandfather Egidio came to the states in 1905, two years after Michele came here. On the same boat with Egidio were his cousins Ruggero Seghieri and Alfonso Seghieri. It is known that Michele was well acquainted with the Seghieri family back in San Salvatore, Italy, prior to his coming to America.  Initially, Michele and the Seghieri cousins all went to Chicago, but Egidio eventually made his way to Washington state, where he worked for a railroad company in Easton on the east side of Snoqualmie Pass. Don was told that Egidio came to Washington because he had family there, and indeed he did: records show that by 1909, Ruggero and his brother Seghiero are living in the Tacoma area, and their sister Anita and her new husband Michele Spadoni—my grandparents—are as well. There is also a record of a Francesco Seghieri in the 1910 census, though just how he is related is another mystery to explore. It is not clear when Egidio came to Washington, but he shows up in the 1910 census in Easton. It is unknown who came to Washington first, but undoubtedly family ties were involved in making this a popular destination for both Seghieris and Spadonis.

And it was family ties that brought Don Seghieri back to Washington for a visit this August. I invited him to attend a Spadoni-Seghieri family reunion at my brother Roger’s house on August 4, and he not only accepted but came a few days early to get in some extra visiting time. My sister hosted him at her house, and he turned out to be a delightful guest. We all concurred that we were proud to call Don our cousin.

“He was easy to talk to and he had such interesting life stories to share,” Linda said. “The thing I enjoyed most about meeting and talking with Don was finding out that the cousin Nonna Anita and some of my aunts and uncles drove down to San Francisco to visit long ago was Don’s grandfather and his family, and that those visits were part of Don’s family history lore, too.”

Not only is Don a great guy, but he is a cousin who shares my enthusiasm for family history. We spent an evening together delightfully sharing stories, photos and genealogical information. I confess to being a little jealous because Don grew up in a close-knit Italian community. Don’s grandfather moved to San Francisco around 1920. When my grandparents moved to Gig Harbor around 1915, they were one of the only Italian families around, and it became a priority for them to learn English and blend in as Americans. Their Gig Harbor friends were immigrants from Croatia, Scandinavia and various European locations. Every one of their seven children married non-Italians, whereas in Don’s San Francisco neighborhood, his dad married an Italian and many of Don’s friends and relatives were Italian-Americans.

Back: Alfonso, Ruggero, Torello.
Front: Egidio, Seghiero.

Egidio Seghieri, according to my research in Italy, indeed was a first cousin to Anita and her brothers Ruggero and Seghiero and sister Rosina. I found an old picture taken in Italy that shows Ruggero and Seghiero together with their father Torello. Also in the photo are two previously unknown persons about the same age as Ruggero and Seghiero. One is no longer unknown, though. Don compared him to photos he has of his grandfather and positively identified him as Egidio. The other person is very likely cousin Alfonso Seghieri, who went to Chicago on the same ship with Ruggero and Egidio in 1905. Probably it was a group photo showing the four cousins who were planning to leave for America soon. I have since discovered that Alfonso spent some time in Chicago, but then he returned to live out the rest of his life in Italy. He married Ida Carmignani and they had two daughters. His sister, Quinta, also came to America, and she married Ferruccio Di Vita, and they made their family in the San Francisco area.

Don verifies that our family came to visit his family. After the reunion, he wrote me: “I spoke with my Mom this week about last weekend’s Washington trip. She said that several Spadonis came down in the 1940s (after the war) to visit with the Seghieris in San Francisco. She said that she and dad were married (1939) and that my brother (1940) and I (1943) were already born. She also told me that Alfonso Seghieri had contacted the family in San Francisco several times and was coming out from Chicago to visit, but he never made the trip.” Don also said he remembers his Uncle Fiory (known to friends as Bud), who was a professional musician, giving our family an impromptu accordion concert.

Finding my Italian cousins in America

Sometimes I wonder about the strange interest I have in my family history and in discovering previously unknown relatives. Why does it make a difference what my ancestors’ names were or where they came from? Why do I feel an unusual affinity—a kinship, one might say—for a man who is my fifth cousin but otherwise a complete stranger?

A group photo taken August 4, 2012, at the Spadoni-Seghieri family reunion at the home of Roger and Rosemary Spadoni.

One need only to read a few of the heartwarming stories about siblings separated in their youth who have later reunited to see how the bonds of family remain strong through time. Another example is adoptees who feel compelled to seek out their birth parents, or vice versa. Granted, this drive varies in strength from person to person. I am reminded of the potential cousin I met in San Salvatore who cut off our conversation about our possible common ancestor by saying, “I’m not interested in these things at all.” However, I have found this man to be the exception in my search for family ties.

Andrew Holmes, while studying kin recognition in animals for his PhD in the United Kingdom, wrote in 2010 for newscientist.com, “There is evidence that many different animals can recognise their relatives, despite never having encountered them before. Indeed, there is evidence of kin recognition in all the major groups, from mammals to fish, birds to amphibians, as well as insects, plants and single-celled organisms.” He further explains the benefits of this in the animal kingdom: “In non-humans, kin can group together for protection or foraging, can cooperatively care for young, or can simply choose not to fight one another . . . (and) being able to recognise your relatives helps prevent matings between close kin. Certain animals are able to recognise unfamiliar kin and change their behaviour towards them accordingly, choosing not to fight, not to breed, to nest or group together or simply to avoid each other.”

This trait obviously carries over to humans as well. Most of us instinctively feel closer to people with whom we share a common genetic make-up, even if the relationship is rather ancient. Holmes cites an Arabic saying: “I against my brother, I and my brother against our cousin, I, my brother and our cousin against the neighbors, all of us against the foreigner.”

On one level, logic questions why this should be. Why should I go out of my way to meet an unknown distant cousin when I have plenty of friends nearby, and I already have trouble enough finding time to spend with my friends? Yet this is the way God made us—at least many of us—and I find that most of my relatives feel the same way. My conclusion is to leave the mystery of why this is so to the scientists and just enjoy my extended family. I accept that kinship is an important part of our primal nature.

With that stated, I am going to devote some time to writing about relatives that I have discovered and met in the United States within the last six months. Some I have met face to face and others, so far, only by correspondence, though I hope to someday meet them in person. I have found relatives in Wisconsin, Chicago, Texas, Minnesota and all over California. Some have been living as close as Seattle and Tacoma, but we never realized before that we were related. Admittedly, I haven’t found the final pieces that show how all of us are related, but that’s just a matter of time and research. We are all descendants of the Spadoni and Seghieri families of the small geographical region in Italy that contains Ponte Buggianese, Stignano, Montecarlo and other small villages within a 15-mile radius. These families have occupied this region since at least the 13th century and recognize that they are genetically connected. Any Spadoni from this region who immigrated to the United States is related in some way, even if only extremely distantly, and the same is true for any Seghieri. More to come soon on these relative discoveries . . .

The final installment in our Italian adventure . . . or to be continued?

May 7, 2012

Our six-month experiment in Italian living has ended. We fly back today. Lucy and I have held many discussions in the last month about our conclusions and what will come next. From the start, we knew we could have three possible outcomes.

First, we could decide that we want to live in Italy more or less full time. Granted, we still need to work at least five months a year to support ourselves, but we could spend the other seven months in Italy, in which case we would need to sell something in the United States and buy a house or apartment in Italy. We have looked at several places near San Salvatore that we really like, one in the heart of Montecarlo and another just outside Altopascio.

Or we could conclude that we have spent enough time here already, and it is time to focus our free time in another direction—other hobbies, other countries. I have, after all, already exceeded my expectations in discovering family roots, I have discovered the tie with the West Seattle Spadoni family and we have re-opened the connection with our Seghieri relatives.

The third alternative is to continue to come to Italy for about three months a year, in which case it would make the most sense to rent a room as we have done the past two years. If we take this route, it probably is best to keep coming back to our room at the Casolare.

Option two doesn’t seem likely, as our initial infatuation with Italy has turned into an abiding relationship. Like all good romances, we have become aware of our paramour’s flaws, but we are willing to overlook them for the sake of our love. We can’t see turning our backs on this place.

But should we commit our entire future to Italy? We have been leaning away from this idea in our conversations. Sometimes I say it would be easier to make this decision if we didn’t have such comfortable and satisfying lives in Gig Harbor. Our house has a beautiful view of Puget Sound and the Olympic mountains, and I enjoy my work. We live surrounded by American cugini, fratelli, figli and nipoti already, and we have no language barrier to overcome in communicating with them.

Claudia's mom and one of Luca and Claudia's twins.

It was actually during an Easter dinner at the Casolare that I realized beyond a doubt that Gig Harbor should remain our primary home. While enjoying the multiple-course feast of Italian delicacies and conversing as best we could with Claudia and her parents, we watched all the extended families engage in long, loud conversations. It was pleasant to watch, but it made me miss my family. One of the most important aspects of being Italian is keeping one’s family close, and ironically, I can’t do that if I am in Italy.

So we are taking the middle road. While keeping our feet planted in America, we will continue to come to Italy for about three months per year, renting, not buying. We will encourage family members and friends to visit while we are there. We will keep learning Italian and use the time to renew connections with our Italian relatives. We will try not to be frustrated at the slowness of the latter two goals. It’s hard enough trying to keep current with everyone on the American side—while also earning a living—so we just want to relax in Italy and develop relationships as opportunities arise. We will keep on collecting information on family history and trying to see if we can find more relatives in both countries. In this way, we hope to get the best of both worlds.

Thus, my blog entries will be infrequent in the coming months, as I focus on work and other more mundane activities of my U.S. life, but I may add an occasional update on family matters. We are planning a Gig Harbor-based Spadoni-Seghieri family reunion potluck for August 4. I am hereby issuing an open invitation to anyone of the Natucci, Donati or Capocchi families who have ties to a Spadoni or Seghieri, or anyone else who attended our family 4^th of July parties in the past. Thanks for reading . . . and maybe I’ll see you in August.

More serious reflections on our cruise

Saturday, May 5

We were warned beforehand to buy a cruise from an American company, a Dutch company, a British company—anything but an Italian company. But we had a good rate on a ship leaving from an Italian port not far from where we were living, so we went with Costa Cruises. We signed up in January, paying only $527 per person for our five-day itinerary. Mandatory tips would add another $45 per person.

Looking inside Vesuvius, we saw a wiff of smoke coming out of this
little dome.

At about $115 per day per person, we found this to be an incredible bargain. If we were taking a round-trip ferry between each of the five destinations, we would pay almost that much just for transportation—and that wouldn’t include the cabin, complete meals, entertainment and the free spa service we received. We would give our experience a 5-star rating.

This is our first cruise ever, so we find it hard to make comparisons, but before the trip, we read some online reviews about Costa, and while the Italians generally gave high ratings, many of the reviews written in English were not as enthusiastic. Critics were mostly people who had taken cruises with other lines and found Costa lacking in customer service and organization, though they still praised the food in the restaurants. Some said the Italian passengers and crew members were standoffish or even rude.

We are in our final day of the cruise, and we have absolutely no complaints, although I can see why some would say it is a drawback to be a foreigner aboard a ship in which the majority of the passengers are Italian. One of the reasons people take cruises is to meet like-minded travelers. That is not likely to happen if one can’t speak the main language of the ship, so we can see why English-speaking passengers might be disappointed in this respect. Even though we speak enough Italian to get by, it is an effort for us to maintain a casual conversation with Italians. We met a nice Italian mother/daughter pair on our tour of Vesuvius, but other than that, our conversations with Italian speakers have been minimal.

A long-necked turtle. That not its name, but I forgot its actual name.

Another drawback is that the on-shore excursions offered by Costa are more limited for non-Italians. For example, of the 10 excursions available in Napoli, only two were offered with English-speaking guides. We went to Vesuvius anyway, even though the guides only spoke Italian. We just count that as part of our daily language lessons. We took only one other official Costa excursion, to the tortoise park in Corsica. Our bus had guides who spoke English and German, and we discovered a lot about the 130 different species of tortoises and turtles in the park. We learned that some rare turtles sell for 20,000 euro, that the oldest turtle was 255 years old, and that turtles were around in the age of dinosaurs. We even heard two of them barking. 

So we peered into the smoking crater of Vesuvius, explored Malta with a taxi driving tour guide, hiked up the hill in Cagliari, Sardegna, to visit an archeological museum, and saw turtles and tortoises of every size and description in Corsica. But still my strongest impression of the cruise is that we were treated almost like royalty, especially in our nearly private restaurant.

Without paying any additional fee, we somehow were assigned a Samsara suite, which gave us free use of the spa, two free massages (or one massage and a facial for Lucy), a free body metabolism test and consultation, and use of the Samsara dining room. I would say that maybe only 10 other couples had Samsara privileges, so we sometimes had the whole dining room to ourselves, with three attendants waiting to put our napkins in our laps, make sure we had enough antipasto, refill our drinks or brush bread crumbs off the table (I’m not exaggerating). In any other restaurant, the four-course meals we received would have cost in excess of $60 each, I have no doubt. Of course, we had a window seat each time and could watch the cities, islands and other boats slip by.

We were lucky enough to sit right next to a very pleasant American couple, two of only four Americans we met the entire week. Orlando was actually born in Italy but added American to his citizenship about 30 years ago, and Joy is a mixture of Thai, Portuguese and American. We went with them in Malta and Cagliari, and I’d have to say we would have felt a little lonely if we hadn’t met them—one of the drawbacks of going on an Italian ship to mostly Italian ports.

Overall, I’d have to agree that Americans would be best served by going with a cruise line that caters to Americans, with all the tours in English and the majority of the passengers English-speaking. For us, though, it was a great opportunity to continue our study of the language and culture while being totally pampered for a bargain price. I wouldn’t have minded if it lasted a couple more days.

Going on a Costa cruise . . . and I’m not scared

Friday, May 4

Some people have asked me if we had any fears about this trip, since it was a Costa ship, captained by Francesco Schettino, that famously foundered just off the island of Giglio in January, killing 32 people. We passed Giglio on our first day, but not surprisingly, we didn’t come very close.

If you haven’t read the accounts of that accident, you may not understand the following story, which I found by googling “captain schettino jokes.” It’s probably in poor taste to joke about such a tragedy, but I can’t resist repeating this account of a last-minute announcement made by the captain:  “This is Captain Schettino speaking on behalf of my crew. I’d like to welcome you aboard Costa Concordia from Rome.  We are currently crossing the Mediterranean Sea by Giglio Island. If you look out of the windows on the starboard side, you will observe a gaping hole. If you look out of the windows on the port side, you will observe that the ship is listing badly. If you look down towards the Mediterranean Sea, you will see a little yellow life raft with three people in it, waving at you. That’s me, Captain Schettino , the co-pilot, and my personal attendant. Arrivederci!”

Taxi driver/guide helps make white island of historical Malta memorable

Wednesday, May 2

Italy has a long history of foreign occupations, but located just south of Sicilia, the island nation of Malta may top Italy in that category. The known list, starting from around 700 BC, goes Greece, Phoenicia, Carthage, Rome, Byzantium. Then Goths and Vandals invaded and briefly took control before the Byzantines regained power, only to lose it to the Arabs. Then the Norman empire expelled the Arabs and Malta became part of the Kingdom of Sicily. Periods of German and Spanish rule followed. In 1530, the island was given to a military religious order which later became known as the Knights of Malta, but they were overcome by Napoleon’s French troops. The British helped toss the French out, and Malta asked Britain to provide protection and governance thereafter. Malta finally negotiated its independence from Britain in 1964.

While we are eating lunch with Orlando and Joy, our cruise ship docks at Malta’s main port, Valletta. With maps in hand, the four of us disembark with only a vague plan of attack. We could take the double-decker tour buses for 20 euro each, but we decide instead to share a 10-euro taxi ride to the other side of town and then walk back toward the ship. Once in the taxi, our driver, Patrick, tries to change our minds. For another 50 euro, he will take us to all the best spots on the island, each time waiting to take us to the next stop. At the end, he will take us back to the dock, and only then will we pay him.

At first we resist, but gradually we realize the logic of his explanation.  We had planned to go first to a one-hour movie called the Malta Experience, located on the other end of the city, but Patrick points out that two cruise ships have just landed, and everyone will be going to the movie. We might have to wait an hour and a half to get in. He recommends going to the 4 p.m. showing, when everyone else will be thinking about getting back to the ship. Meanwhile, he knows all the best tourist sites and can show us around. We talk it over and agree.

Big twisted trees and Lucy.

He takes us first to the upper presidential gardens, where we photograph flowers, trees, ducks and swans. Then we are off to Mdina, a walled city founded by the Phoenicians in 700 BC and for many years Malta’s capital. It sits on a hill overlooking Valletta. It is the highest location on the island, and during the ride, we see quite a bit of the landscape.

Valletta, where we are docked.

White is the first word that comes to mind when I think of how to describe Malta. The stone used as the primary building material is soft off-white sandstone that wears down more quickly than the marble and pietra serena usually used in Italy. The light color can be a bit glaring, but the finish is soft and porous and weathers unevenly, absorbing some light in its rugged surfaces.

Between locations, Patrick fills us in with more details about his island state. Children learn both Maltese and English at school, as both are official languages. Maltese is an amalgamation of many languages, mainly Italian, French, English and Arab. As it is located right in the middle of the Mediterranean, Malta has always been a key stopover for ships, and it once had a strong industrial base. Now, however, tourism is the far and away the top domestic product.

Saint Paul's Cathedral in Medina.

Catholicism in the main religion, and Malta has a Christian tradition that started in the first century, when the Apostle Paul’s prison ship foundered on the beach during a storm. He stayed on for three months, during which time he was bitten by a snake and preached the gospel, leading to the conversion of one of the island’s principle leaders. St. Paul’s Bay, though, is on the other side of the island, and Patrick says we don’t have time to go there. However, it is believed that Paul lived in Mdina, so we have come close to seeing his footprints.

We stop off briefly to watch some Phoenician glass blowers at work. Supposedly they use different methods than the glass workers of Venezia, but our expertise ends with the knowledge that it is one hot job, and we are clueless of the fine points of technique.

Then we are off to the Malta experience, a movie that we watch using headphones, because it is offered in about 15 different languages. It is here that I discover the historical information I cited earlier about the various civilizations that have coveted and occupied Malta, which actually consists of five islands, with Malta and Gozo being the largest. One particularly brutal event occurred in 1551, when invading Barbary corsairs enslaved the entire population of Gozo, deporting 5,000 of the healthiest inhabitants to the Barbary Coast.

Patrick returns to our ship and collects his well-earned pay. This is an example of a time it is worthwhile having a personal guide, because we have seen much in a short time, and with four us to share the cost, it was only 15 euro per person for the guide and transportation (the movie was extra).

Cruising with Costa

Monday, April 30

We’ve never been on a cruise before, but in January, we responded to a discount offer from American Airlines to sign up for a five-day Mediterranean trip with Costa, an Italian cruise line. The day after we signed up, Captain Francesco Schettino ran the Costa Concordia aground, killing 32 people. He added to his disgrace by abandoning ship before all the survivors were evacuated.

This is NOT our ship.

According to the accounts, he had altered course to bring the ship close to the island of Giglio to salute the family of his ship’s head chef, who lived on the island—sort of the marine equivalent of a “fly-by.” As I write this, he is under house arrest, waiting his day in court. But we are undaunted, as are 2,000 others who join us on a trip that begins in Savona, near the home of Christopher Columbus in Genova, and will take us to Napoli, Malta, Sardegna and Corsica before returning to Savona.

Before we board the luxurious new Costa Deliziosa, we had to take a run-down, dirty ferry from Olbia, Sardegna, to Genova, marking the end of our week in Sardegna’s Costa Smeralda. The Tirrenia ferry left Olbia at 10:30 p.m. and chugged northward for 15 hours. We did not spend the extra euros to book a cabin, but we did reserve airline-like seats so that we could lean back and sleep. As it turned out, many of the seats were empty, and all who dared could lie down, spreading themselves over three or four ragged and stained cloth-covered seats. I tried a spot on the floor in a corner, thinking it would be better for my back, but even fully clothed and with carpet underneath me, it was too cold and I had to move to the seats.

In the morning, we found an unoccupied table, where we read, played cards and Scrabble (Lucy won), and munched on food we had brought with us. The windows were so dirty we could barely see outside, but there is not much to see between Olbia and Genova anyway.

After overnighting in the cheap but clean Hotel Le Tre Stazioni in Genova, we hop a train for a 55- minute trip to Savona. Once we board our cruise ship, we have entered other world altogether. Our luggage is delivered to our sparkling modern cabin, and we are greeted by smiling employees everywhere, al l of whom want to help us find our way and answer our questions. Food is abundant, free and delicious. We attend an orientation session offered for English-speaking guests, most of whom are from other European countries or Asia.

One of our swimming pools.

Our dinner is a full-course Italian meal, and the serving sizes are just the right proportion so we can make it through the full meal without feeling uncomfortable. We dine next to Orlando and Joy, a couple about our age who live in New York but have foreign roots. Orlando grew up in Italy but moved to the states about 30 years ago, and Joy originally hailed from Thailand. Orlando also has dual citizenship, and he is able to give me some advice about obtaining Italian medical benefits that may someday come in handy.

Afterwards we sit through a performance by an Italian entertainer who is also able to sing in English, French and German. He does a nice job singing some Frank Sinatra songs, but his impression of Elvis Presley is laughable. It doesn’t help that he is about 50 years old and looks unnatural trying to swing his hips Elvis-style. I think he would have done much better with Dean Martin. But it’s hard to be critical of anything when we get three full meals a day, free spa service and are treated like royalty everywhere we turn.