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The Patitucci Family Story:
Dominico Annunziato Patitucci was born in 1879 in the village of Marano
Principato in the province of Calabria in Southern Italy. He was the son of Gaspare
Patitucci and Anna Presta born in the same village. His father’s profession is listed
on his Italian birth record as ‘contadino’ or tenant farmer and his mother’s as
‘filatrice’ or spinner.
Italy and especially Southern Italy was going thru some very hard times in the
1800’s. Dominico’s father being a tenant famer meant that the family did not own
the farm but worked the land for a landlord. The chances of them saving enough
money out of their meager earnings meant that each succeeding generation had
little opportunity to improve their lives.
In 1899 he enlisted in the Italian Army as was the requirement in Italy. During that
time his job was as an aide to a general. In 1901 he was discharged and returned
to Marano Principato to marry Saveria Morrone. In 1903 his firstborn Gaspare
(Charles) Patitucci was born. (It is the custom in Italy at the time to name the
firstborn son after the paternal grandfather.)
In 1904 he along with thousands of others from Europe traveled to the United
States of America seeking a better life for himself and his family. He went by
himself and like many may have intended to work in the U.S. for a few years and
then return to Italy with the money he saved. Many immigrants during that period
did just that and were given the name ‘Birds Of Passage’. He worked many
manual labor jobs during that time mostly in the cities around the Great Lakes. He
decided to stay in America and in 1907 he sent for his wife Saveria (Sara) and his
son Gaspare (Charles) to join him.
They settled in Kenosha Wisconsin on the shore of Lake Michigan between
Milwaukee and Chicago where a large number of Italian’s from the same region of
Italy had come seeking work in the rapidly expanding industries there. He worked
for many years at the Simmons mattress factory. His son Charles worked there as
a teenager but later found work as a furnace builder at the American Brass
Company in Kenosha where he was employed for 37 years.
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Living and working in Kenosha Dominico was able to purchase a two story house
near the local Catholic Church and Columbus Park the center of the ethnic Italian
neighborhood. According to the 1920 and 1930 Federal Census he rented out
rooms on the second floor of his home to single men who had come to live and
work in Kenosha from the same southern region of Italy.
In 1908 Dominico and Saveria’s second child Anne Virginia was born. The family
continued to live in the same house until 1950. In 1926 Saveria (Morrone)
Patitucci passed away after a prolonged illness at the age of 55. It was in the
same house that daughter Anne Patitucci married Giovanni (John) Spizzirri in
1926. Anne and John Spizzirri lived with Dominico Patitucci until he passed away
in 1943. John and Anne (Patitucci) Spizzirri’s three children, Sara, Ellen and Mary
Ann lived in this house. It was in this house that Charles Patitucci married Irene
Stella in 1930. In 1937 their first son Dominic (Donald) Patitucci was born. (At
that time Dominic was named after his paternal grandfather but after his
grandfather passed away in 1943 his name was legally changed to Donald so as
to sound more American.) In 1941 Charles and Irene’s second son Ronald was
born. By 1950 both the Patitucci and Spizzirri families had moved and the house
was sold. That home no longer exists and the place where the house was located
is now an empty lot. By that time Charles Patitucci had a new home built on a lot
he purchased on the south side of Kenosha. A few months later Peter Stella his
wife Dora and two of their sons Savi and George purchased the house next door
to their son-in-law Charles and their daughter Irene. Both homes are still there
today.