Grandpa in Louisville

Italian Diaspora

Book-ended by the French Revolution and WWII are the stories of millions of Europeans whose lives were transformed during the age of industrialization and scientific advances. These years resulted in massive change upending the quiet rural existence of my family which had been living in Gromignana, Italy since arriving there in the 1400s, likely escaping a plague ravishing the Italian port city of Livorno. The plagues pushed populations to disperse. Will modern pandemics spur a similar exit from our cities and/or eventually from the planet? My two grandfathers were born in Gromignana in the late 1800s into an opposite type of crisis. Medical advances during this time period resulted in the acceleration of population growth. The results of declining infant mortality and rising fertility rates were an overabundance of people. During the 1800s, Gromignana, a small mountain village in the Tuscan Apennines Mountains, experienced a population explosion. The families of Paolo Mattei (1775-1858) and Jacobo Grisanti (1770-1852), combined, had a double digit number of children living into adulthood. These individuals then spawned larger and larger families of their own. Not death, but life, and too much of it, became the challenge. What a strange turn of events! The crisis became: How would all these children be clothed and fed? Whom would they marry? Where would they live and work in adulthood? Their community would change as the young began an exodus unabated throughout the twentieth century.

Just A Few Too Many!

One Ventures Out

Pellegrino Mattei, born April 15, 1889, is a great grandson of Jacobo Grisanti and Paolo Mattei. He first stepped foot in America at the age of 15. According to the Lombardia ship manifest Pellegrino arrived on January 13, 1905 in the company of his uncle Clemente Grisanti (a son of the Domenico pictured above). The manifest states that Pellegrino would live with “his brother, Inocenzo at 154 West Houston St, NYC; however, Inocenzo was actually a maternal uncle and a business partner with Pellegrino’s father Giovacchino. This is all very complicated as specific Mattei and Grisanti families were closely related due to the two Grisanti sisters marrying two Mattei cousins (noted above). Over time I’ll unravel the relationship puzzle, but for now, the focus is Pellegrino.

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Family Business

My grandfather, along with his other Mattei-Grisanti relatives, worked for the GCJ Mattei Company in NYC. The company was established in New York City in 1892 by my two great grandfathers, Innocente and Giovacchino, (who were cousins) and Casmiro, maybe Innocente’s brother. My Uncle Dominic told me their business location was close to the Cable Building, which makes sense as they all lodged at 154 West Houston St and the iconic Cable Building was located at  611 Broadway at the northwest corner with Houston Street in NoHo and Greenwich Village. Like many, including the three CGJ founders, Pellegrino would come and go from Gromignana to America. We know from oral history that Pellegrino returned to Italy to become a cook in the army during the Italian occupation of Libya prior to WWI. Later ship manifests prior to the war show his American arrivals in 1911 and 1913. These trips show his destination as Louisville, KY to live along side a cousin Giovacchino (1889-1964), who, according to the 1913 Carson Directory, worked as a caster for Ziffero (Jake) Grisanti at his Statuary in Louisville (much more to come on this business). Pellegrino would finally settled in Louisville in March, 1920. In April, 1921, Mary Amerisa Mattei (CLICK HERE to view her profile) became his wife. Pellegrino and Mary would reestablish the NYC GCJ Mattei Company in Louisville with equipment my grandfather received as compensation for his work at the Grisanti Statuary Company. Right before the outbreak of WWI many former NYC GCJ Mattei Company employees would move to Louisville to live and work for Zeffiro (Jake) Grisanti. Among them, my great uncle Constantino (Amerisa’s brother), Vincenzo Mattei and many others. (AGAIN, much more on the Mattei and Grisanti businesses in future posts).

Dreams Come True

Like many young men of his generation, my grandfather traveled the world even before reaching what we would now consider adulthood. He left his small village to work for his family’s well-being. He then found himself in foreign lands due to the “rekindling of the notion of mare nostrum” after the unification of Italy. The hope of a “New Roman Empire” collapsed after WWII, yet one lasting effect was a generation of fearless and curious travelers. As a youth, it is unlikely that my grandfather ever had overarching dreams. He followed the needs of his family, joining his father in the plaster business, providing income for his family back home and supporting his country when called upon. This is an immigrant story for all the ages. Crisis, change, calm. REPEAT! The dreams begin when the crisis passes, change becomes the new normal and there is a moment of calm to take a breath and wonder. According to my mother, Della, her father began dreaming as he approached his retirement in the early 1940s. The family business had survived the Great Depression, and GCJ Mattei boomed during and after WWII. Pellegrino’s dream of a small farm outside the city became a reality (CLICK HERE to view Shelbyville Rd Memories.) Then he envisioned travel. According the ship manifests in the 1950s, he and my grandmother, along with other close family made extended trips, usually 6 to 8 months, to Italy.

A Dream Unfulfilled

The big dream Pellegrino started planning in the late fifties, after the death of his son, Jack (1922-1957), would never come to fruition. My grandfather loved to read and had a collection of travel magazines he kept in a pile on his Shelbyville Rd living room desk. I remember the magazines vividly from my childhood, as he would let me read them when I visited. Each of the pamphlet-type books had pictures in the back that were suppose to be glued into the boxes on the pages. While I read, flipping to the back to see the pictures proved annoying. One day I asked grandpa if I could paste the pictures in their designated place but he briskly said, “no, the books are for reading.” This scared me and I never read the magazine after that incident. A warm and cuddly grandpa, he wasn’t. He did buy my brother, Mike, and me a soda from a machine once on a shopping trip, and we were both amazed at his uncharacteristic kindness. Pellegrino, died unexpectedly on February 4, 1960. I was 10 years old. He never realized his dream of going around the world with my grandmother. Eventually, my brother, Mike, who is Pellegrino’s oldest grandson, circumvented the globe with his wife Theresa in 2016. On that occasion I felt that Grandpa would have been happy that a descendant succeeded where he had not. Theresa and Mike followed the path of T’s great grandmother, Zorayda Welsh Cochran (1868-1956) and her great aunt Katherine Cochran Dow (1912-1997).

I would love to hear from my Louisville cousins about any of their memories of Grandpa Pellegrino, the shop and/or life on Shelbyville Rd. Contact me at [email protected]