As Italian-Americans, most of us have grown up hearing the stories of our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents “coming over” from the old country.
After years of hearing the same stories over and over, the memories become our own. We can name all the family villages, the family members left behind, and the names of the ships that brought our families to America.
Growing up in the Carolinas, Jeffrey Briley had his own family stories. His great-grandparents, Salvatore and Francesca De Caro left southeastern Sicily in 1913 aboard the S.S. Europa, landing at Ellis Island. The young couple moved to the lower eastside of Manhattan and started their family. In the following decades there would be moves to Bensonhurst and then to Central Islip before the family eventually settled in South Carolina on the edge of the Atlantic.
Jeffrey never met his great-grandfather – Salvatore died before he was born – but the stories told by his family raised his curiosity; curiosity led to research, and research led to a family goal. Several of the second and third generation family members decided to go to Ellis Island and trace their great-grandparent’s footsteps through New York. The trip would celebrate the 100-year anniversary of their arrival in America.
“My goal was to understand what the Italian experience really was for my great grandparents,” Jeffrey says. “And they weren’t even Italian, they were Sicilian. They weren’t told they were Italian until they got to the United States.”
Everyone wanted in on the trip but some health issues made it impossible for any of the older generations to join in. When the time came to leave for New York, Jeffrey made the trip with two cousins, Louisa De Caro and Lea Harvey.
Setting out on Columbus Day weekend, they experienced a setback from the start when the US government shut down, shuttering Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Undeterred, Jeffrey got them on a boat that took them around New York harbor. The experience of sailing past the Statue of Liberty was an unforgettable moment.
“I thought about the sepia videos clips we’ve all seen of the immigrants, seeing the Statue of Liberty as they’re coming in and then Ellis Island,” Jeffrey recalls. “They didn’t see it in sepia or black and white. They saw it in bright sunshine, with immense fear and great joy, all while bobbing up and down in the harbor.”
Finding the old neighborhood on E. 16th Street in lower Manhattan proved impossible, as an urban renewal project in the 1940’s had replaced aging tenements with Stuyvesant Town. However, the trio was able to find the approximate location of the family home, now a community park.
Jeffrey’s grandfather, also named Salvatore, and his siblings were born on E. 16th Street. “My family would always say, ‘You’re look so much like Sal’,” Jeffrey laughs in his best Brooklyn accent.
After searching for the family parish, Mary Help of Christians Catholic Church in the East Village, and finding it recently demolished, the cousins continued on to the family brownstone in Bensonhurst. Jeffrey recognized it immediately from old family photos.
“This was the brownstone where everyone lived,” Jeffrey explains. “This place was the epicenter of their lives.”
After stopping at St. Finbar Catholic Church, where Jeffrey’s cousin Mike was baptized, the trio started back down Benson Avenue and ran right into the middle of the annual Bensonhurst Columbus Day parade.
“We started seeing hundreds of Italian flags and I knew something was going on. We bought our own flags and stood there listening to the local politicians, all standing up on a trailer wearing their Italian flag sashes, all speaking in Italian. It was very surreal.”
The next morning brought the trio to Long Island’s Central Islip and the storied family bungalow, one of two homes built by his family, where Jeffrey’s mother spent her early childhood. The current resident surprised the cousins by inviting them into the house to have a look around.
Leaving Central Islip, the cousins traveled to the family plot at St. John’s Cemetery in Farmington. A big Italian family dinner followed at another cousin’s home, where everyone wanted to hear about the trip and share more family memories.
The trip to New York has reinforced Jeffrey’s deep-rooted respect for his Sicilian ancestors and he is passionate about rediscovering their stories. “That’s the thing about this whole experience,” he says. “I’ve literally reconstructed details. Because I’m third generation and never knew that first generation, there was so much lost.”
“The trip to New York was the first time I had the opportunity to see with my own eyes these places that I had heard so many stories about as a child,” he smiles. “We were fortunate to be able to relive their journey even just a bit.”
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