Giovanni Marzocchi is born in Succisa, Italy, on April 15th 1891, the second of three brothers. In February 1913, he marries Zita Tonelli, a woman of the same age and coming from the same city. According to the archive of Ellis Island, he reached New York on April 4th, 1914. His wife remains in Succisa, pregnant of their first child whom they will name Gino (he will be known by the nickname Amelio). Similarly to many other wives, she endures the solitude in her home country, hoping for the best for her husband.
It is believed that Giovanni began working in Butte, MN, mines soon after arriving in the USA. He worked as a miner until entering the US Army [footnote 5]. In fact, at the beginning of the First World War, most of the Italians living abroad chose between three different alternatives: going back to Italy and serve in the Italian army, registering in the US Army and exploiting the benefits of this choice after surviving it, or, last but not least, shirking military service [footnote 6]. Among these possibilities, Giovanni chooses the second one, knowing that by the end of the war he would have obtained the American citizenship by naturalization. During the First World War, Giovanni is in France as part of the Engineer Corps. His main activity regards bridge building, even if he often acts as a translator between English and Italian or French (he had learned French as a boy, when, along with his brother Vittorio, he had spent some time in Switzerland with
their father Marco, to help him in carpentry and masonry jobs).
After the end of the First World War, Giovanni leaves the Army and returns to Succisa. In August, 1920, his second child, a daughter named Rina, is born. Giovanni remains in Succisa for a short period, before deciding to return to the USA, to New York [footnote 7], with his American citizenship obtained with so much effort. This time he leaves Succisa with Ermenilda Bergamaschi and Leonida Marzocchi, his brother’s wife and daughter respectively. His brother Vittorio is waiting for them in Bellaire, Ohio. Zita remains in Italy, with the agreement that she would reach Giovanni as soon as he gets a job. A year later Zita leaves Succisa with Amelio and Rina: being all of them relatives of an American citizen, they are not required to be subject to all the checks typically performed on all the immigrants at the time. For this reason, they do not appear in the Ellis Island archive. Nevertheless according to Ellis Island documents, Battista Tonelli, i.e.
Zita’s brother, reaches New York during summer 1922, to live with his brother-in-law, Giovanni Marzocchi, at 340 E 61st St. It is likely that Zita, Amelio and Rina reached New York with the same ship, the “Giuseppe Verdi”, and that Battista helped Zita during the long journey.
Another man from Succisa, Vittorio Antiga, was already living at at 340 E 61st St, possibly with other people from the same city. It is almost certain that Giovanni Marzocchi was hosted by Vittorio Antiga, while waiting for the rest of the family to come. Right after Zita, Amelio and Rina arrived in New York, the whole family leaves for Bellaire, Ohio, where they live for few years. In 1925 their third child, Mary, is born there. During that period the head of the household and breadwinner, Giovanni, is working at “Schick Mine”, a coal mine in activity since 1918 and controlled by the Schick Cooperative Coal Company. The mine was located in Pultney, West of Bellaire [footnote 8], along the railway connecting Baltimore to Ohio, for which it became a kind of stop. Schick mine was a drift mine [footnote 9], with 50 miners in 1918, 100 in 1920, 75 in 1922 and 125 in 1925 [footnote 10]. The work was hard and noxious. The extraction was manually conducted,
and the ore was transported with the
help of mules, donkeys and sometimes even dogs. Mechanization of mining work will begin in 1930, after Giovanni and his family left Ohio. During the years in Ohio, Giovanni lives in close contact with Vittorio’s family. Vittorio is miner as well, and father to two daughters, Leonilde and Nora.
Glimpses of this mine village are available to us, through the pictures of some relatives. For example, in picture 64, Ermenegildo Bergamaschi, Ermenilda’s brother, is pictured with his nephew, Nora, in their house. The wooden wall is background to the pretty child with corkscrew curls and a huge man that seems to have just come out of the mine. In another picture, Ermenegildo, Giovanni Tonelli, Zita’s brother, and another person from Succisa, stand in front of a wooden house, with a fence that seems symbolic rather than protective (photo 65).
Amelio Marzocchi kept his English dictionary, the ‘Webster’s Elementary School Dictionary’ as a memorabilia of this period. He even brought it back to Italy, where it was found in his old house in Succisa. His signature on the dictionary, in neat characters, was Melvin Marzocchi. So, we know that his official name was Gino, but he was nicknamed Amelio by relatives and friends, Melvin in the US and even Men by his nephew. On his dictionary he wrote “11th November, 1926, West Bellaire”: the date might be the day in which he got the book. On the last page, a sentence (in English) advises a possible thief: “Do not steal this book my lad. For hundred pennies it costs my dad”.
It is not clear when the Marzocchis left Ohio. They probably moved from Ohio to Schenley, Pennsylvania, where Giovanni was able to keep working as a miner. After a couple of years they left Schenley for Durham, North Carolina.
During those years, masonry companies across the USA were looking for building workers and skilled stonecutters, to be employed in the numerous construction sites active in many cities. Many building projects required skilled and creative workers. At the time, in Durham, Duke University's West Campus was under construction and in continuous expansion. Giovanni moves to the city to work in the construction of neo-gothic Duke Chapel and Duke Hospital (photo 71).
At the time, Durham was a pleasant town, with a high quality of life. Rina looks back on afternoons spent along with some Italian friends and the house she used to live in: “it was really pretty, the outside of a light color, in a residential area where houses were alike, two by two”, she recalls. The house was at 1206 6th Street, which is now Clarendon Street. The house is still there, and it does not seem to have changed significantly in a recent picture (photo 74)/[footnote 11]. Giovanni was paying a rent of $34 per month, in part paid by two other Italians that were subleasing one room in the house. Giovanni (John) and Zita first appeared in the list of Durham residents in 1929, the year in which their fourth child, a boy named Pino, was born.
It was not by chance that Giovanni came to Durham after spending some time in the Pennsylvanian mines. A significant fraction of stonecutters working on Duke University campus were recruited in that area. Durham was then known as a boom town, a quick expanding city, as clear also from the growing West Campus of Duke University. A reputation that drew people from poor areas in Virginia and around Pittsburgh, PA.
Giovanni was already a skilled worker, thanks to his experiences with his father Marco and in the Engineer Corps. The possibility to work on Duke Chapel was the end of a tiresome mining job and a beginning of a career more architecture oriented. Duke project lasted around 10 years: the most prominent part of West Campus, including Duke Hospital, was completed in 1930, while the Chapel was finished in 1935.
Around one hundred stone masons and twelve stone setters are working at the construction site. The former build the bigger walls, execute the simpler jobs, cut and assemble the blue stone, from the nearby Hillsborough quarry. The latter, selected among the best stone masons, work on more difficult jobs, such as arch and tower building, and use Indiana limestone. The twelve chosen stone setters are mainly Italians, under the supervisions of two Scots [footnote 12]; their work day is ten hours for six days a week, and their hour wage varies between $1.25 and $2.50; conversely, stone masons are paid around 65 cents per hour.
Moving from Pennsylvania mines to the Gothicism of Duke University significantly improved the life quality of the ‘emigrant’ Marzocchis! Somebody conjectures that the choice of have pictures taken in Durham only is not casual, but rather represents the pride of being a skilled worker and having reached the status of almost well-off family. In these pictures, the Marzocchis seem content and fashionable: Rina and Mary wear the latest fashion dresses, Giovanni enjoys smoking his pipe, and Zita shows off a patterned dress while chatting with her neighbor, Mrs. Ferrettino. Zita is very different from the person portrayed in a 15-year old photo, taken during one of Giovanni’s leaves; in such photo she is youthful, unsophisticated and spontaneous.
Right after moving to Durham, Amelio was ready to start the High School: he is already 15-year old and he can enter in the workforce, if he so desires. Rina recalls that he was a ‘bocia’ (kid), but he was also involved in small jobs like milkman and paperboy (photo 75).
Louis Berini, contemporary of Amelio, recounts [footnote 13] that at the time some neighbor kids were enjoying making some money as caddy at the nearby golf course along Hillandale Road. Others, like Louis himself, preferred to spend their free time at the Erwin Auditorium, playing tennis-table with the kids of the mill workers. At the time Erwin Cotton Mill along Duke University construction site was one of the most important employers in Durham. The settlement around Erwin Mill housed the workers’ families, and Erwin Auditorium had a recreational center for after work. Berini also recalls that Rina and Mary attended West Durham School on 9th Street [footnote 14], the nearest to their house and the school attended by the majority of Italian stone setters’ kids. Rina attended that school till 6th grade.
Marzocchis’ new life in Durham transformed them in ‘true Americans’, as they were well integrated in Durham life. Everything was going in the best way, but was bound to change because of the Great Depression, which did not spare North Carolina. In Durham several families were forced out of their houses looking for others with lower rents, or to split it with other tenants to save a few dollars.
Some people recall the times in which the flour sacks were chosen on the basis on their decoration, to reuse the fabric to make shirts, towels and handkerchiefs [footnote 15]; others tells stories about when, in absence of the 10 cents necessary to provide a new shoe sole, a piece of cardboard was used instead, even if it would last just for a single day [footnote 16].
Even if the Marzocchis were not yet having troubles at this time, the Duke Chapel project was reaching an end and Giovanni was already among many others on the list of those whose salary would be reduced soon. In the meanwhile, the New Deal was financing building projects nearby, at which many masons would have easily found a job. Among others, the New Deal was financing the tunnels along the Blue Ridge Parkway, a 496-mile long highway connecting the Shenondoah National Park, in Virginia, to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina.
Giovanni could not stand this situation of uncertainty and decided to go back home, in Succisa. He had some savings and a strong wish to see again his aging parents. Zita does not agree to leave, but she knows that her husband already decided: for this reason, she accepts to leave under the promise that they would not come back to the USA, to avoid a second moving to their kids. During fall 1932 they get ready to leave. Rina says goodbye to her 39 schoolmates, and happily takes their present and the one from her teacher, a bone comb with a silver decoration and a note: “We shall miss you”.
Then, they leave Durham by train to New York, where they embark on “Roma” to Genoa, from which another train brings them to Pontremoli. The train in Italy is the first contact of the young Marzocchis to the great differences between the American and Italian societies. In fact, it was an old and ugly train, and the seats were not padded, something unbelievable to them. After reaching Pontremoli, they stop by the “Osteria di Parodi”. Later on, on a Balilla car they travel to Succisa, along a twisty road, covered in stones and potholes, running among woods, stone buildings and precipices. In Villavecchia, their relatives are waiting for them, looking forwards to seeing them and meeting Mary and Pino, the youngest kids. It was the beginning of a new life in a very different environment. In the US they were living in a single-family house, rather small but with all the comforts, such as the ice box [footnote 17], a large bathroom, a dining room, a
living room with the radio, three bedrooms, a nice front porch and a small back yard. Now in Succisa they live in a house without running water and electric energy. “Coming back to Italy was a shock” Rina frequently says. Giovanni goes back to his work as mason, working on a day-to day basis; his elder son, Amelio, works with him, perfecting the techniques he previously learned in Durham. Rina is back to school, and she sometimes helps her grandmother to put cows out to pasture. Mary too goes to school. Zita is well suited as a peasant as well. Zita and Giovanni’s fifth child, Serafino, is born in January 1933. Since it was less than a year after leaving the US, Serafino can get the American citizenship as well. Giovanni’s father, Marco, dies in January 1935, and Giovanni inherits the family business, a cooperative with other people of Succisa, that gives rise to modest profits. Rina will take care of that.
Life in Succisa was not easy, and another war was coming. A letter from the US invites Giovanni to go back there with the entire family, but the Marzocchis remain in Italy. The breadwinner moves to Germany in 1939, where he works as a contractor with other people from Succisa. Just a few months later, Amelio leaves Succisa to serve in the army; by the time he is back in Succisa, he is 30 year old. In 1945 he marries Vittoria Toma, and becomes door-to-door salesman first in Tuscany, then in Rome. His wife and daughter will move to Rome with him.
In the meanwhile, Rina marries Firmo Argenti, from Grondola, a railway worker first in Borgotaro railway station, later on in Grondola-Guinardi and at last in Aulla.
Pino, exploiting his double citizenship, is the first among Giovanni’s son, to emigrate again. In 1947 he embarks the “Saturnia” in Genoa along with Erino and Gina Toma, brother and sister in law to his own brother Amelio. They reach New York on April 27th. He spends three days with his maternal uncle, Giovanni, before continuing his journey towards Syracuse, New York, where his aunt Inde, his sister Zita and her husband John Fenocchi, from Grondola, were waiting for him. Pino reaches Syracuse on May 1st, during a heavy snowfall, despite the spring.
At the time Pino was an 18 year old youngster, without any knowledge of English, hence he did not have many alternatives regarding job placements: a menial job and evening school to learn English. After searching for three months he finds his first employment at a construction site. The winter cold makes such a job hardly bearable, and thus Pino decides to spend the winter working the night shift as kitchen assistant at Syracuse Hotel, downtown. The following year he finds a job as cabinet-maker, and becomes a skilled craftsman. In February 1951 he is called to arms and deployed for four months in Forth Smith, Arkansas.
After being discharged by the Army, Pino is back looking for a job. He soon finds a job at ‘Marcellus Casket Company’, in need of a carpenter for casket construction. He will end up even building the casket for the Truman’s vice-president Barclay. Being allergic to mahogany sawdust, he is forced to change job again: this time he is hired by a contractor, for interior finishing jobs and in particular kitchen assembly.
It is now 1953. Serafino too, now 23-year old, leaves Succisa for the USA. It is February when he embarks “Andrea Doria” in Genoa, to reach Syracuse, where he soon finds jobs in the construction sector under various employers (photo 80).
In the meanwhile, in 1955, Pino marries Luisa Villani, originally from Molise, whom he met during an evening class.
The two brothers work hard and in 1956 they establish the “Marzocchi Brothers Construction”, beginning a new life as small building contractors, working on their job orders during the day, and on the construction of Pino and Luisa’s house on Woodruff Avenue during the nights. Serafino goes back to Succisa for a vacation in 1958 e gets engaged with Nives Antiga: six months later they get married in Rome, before moving to the USA. They initially share the house with Pino and Luisa in Syracuse.
In the meanwhile, Mary, still in Italy, got married with Gentile Micheli; after their first son, Daniele, is born, they decide to move back to Syracuse, where Gentile becomes part of the Marzocchis’ firm.
The firm grows and a series of favorable events make possible the establishment of a corporation, the “Marzocchi Bros. Construction, Inc” by Pino and Serafino in 1968. The corporation thrives till 1991, when it is dissolved: after so many years of hard work, it was time to quit!
Over the years the Marzocchis sent eleven kids to Syracuse schools: Mary had two, Pino six and Serafino three. None of them follows their fathers’ footsteps in the construction industry, but are now doctors, lawyers, engineers and business managers. All of them, except for Graziella, on of Pino’s daughter, came at least once in Italy, either on summer vacation or in honeymoon. Now it is their grandchildren’s turn: they are sixteen altogether, and some of them had already come to visit Italy.
Footnotes
[5] During the First World War, when Italy was an America ally, Italian immigrants or their descendants made up 12% of the soldiers enlisted in the US Army. After the end of the war, it became clear that 10% of soldiers that died during the Great War were Italians, despite Italians represented only 4% of the US population at the time (Mangione J. and Morreale B., La storia – Five centuries of the Italian American experience, Harper Collins, New York, 1992, p. 340).
[6] Bevilaqua P., De Clementi A., Franzina E., Storia dell’emigrazione italiana – Partenze (History of the Italian emigration – Going away) Donzelli, Roma, 2001, p. 207
[7] Foreigners that fought during the First World War as part of the US Army got the American citizenship directly in the Army. This was a perfect tool for Giovanni to be able to go back to the US without troubles. In fact, right after the war, a feeling against immigration became popular under the motto “America for Americans”, up to the point that the Department of Justice arrested and deported hundreds of foreigners, unfairly accused to be responsible of the development of subversive domestic activities (Mangione J. and Morreale B., La storia – Five centuries of the Italian American experience, Harper Collins, New York, 1992, p. 340-341).
[8] Belmont, the county of Bellaire, has always been a leader in Ohio coal extraction. More than 774 millions of tons were produced since 1816 (Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of the Geological Survey, History of coal mining in Ohio).
[9] Drift mining was generally applied whenever coal was near soil surfaces. The tools pickax, shovel and carthorses. Drift mines were predominant till 1995; afterwards, ground mining gained importance. In general drift mining is the most productive, quick and cheaper way for coal extraction (Coal Mining and Reclamation, Ohio Department of Natural Resources.)
[10] The source of this information is Doug Crowell, geologist and supervisor at Coal & Industrial Minerals Group, USGS Ohio Division.
[11] The photo has been kindly taken by John Schelp, president of the Old West Durham Neighborhood Association (OWDNA) and local historian.
[12] William E. King, The stonesetters – The men who built the University, Duke University Archives.
[13] John Schelp kindly interviewed him.
[14] Today the school is named ‘E.K. Powe’.
[15] Flour producing firms quickly realized that the flour sack was a valuable resource to families, for meeting their material to meet their clothing needs.
[16] Olive B.B., The Depression in West Durham, http://www.owdna.org/history14.htm.
[17] The ice box was based on ice blocks that every family regularly bought on the basis of their needs. The delivering firm provided large carts, one per family, on which a number represented the amount of ice requested by the family. The carts were put by the curb on delivery day, so that it was clear to the delivery man the amount of ice blocks to be delivered to each household.
Captions for related photographs in the book:
64 Bellaire, Ohio, USA, late 1920s. Ermenegildo Bergamaschi, miner, with his nephew Nora Marzocchi.
65 Bellaire, Ohio, USA, early 1930s. Miners from Succisa: from right to left, Ermenegildo Bergamaschi, Giovanni Tonelli, and an unknown person.
70 Zita Tonelli and Giovanni MArzocchi, with their son Gino (nicknamed Amelio). The picture was taken in Succisa, between 1916 and 1917, right before Giovanni left for the USA.
71 Duke Chapel, Durham, built between 1930 and 1932 thanks to the work of many Italians.
72 Durham, North Carolina, USA, circa 1929. Giovanni Marzocchi with his daughters, Mary and Rina.
73 Durham, North Carolina, USA, 1929-1932. Zita Tonelli (right) sitting under the porch of her own house in Durham.
74 Durham, North Carolina, USA. The Marzocchis’ house today (6th St, today’s Clarendon St.). An American family lives there.
75 Durham, North Carolina, USA, circa 1930. The oldest-sibling, Gino (Amelio), holding his brother Pino, is portayed with her sisters, Rina (right) and Mary (left).
76 Gino Marzocchi in France with the US Army during the Second World War.
77 Family shot in Succisa, middle 1940s. First row, from left to right, Mary Marzocchi with her brother Serafino and her father Giovanni, holding his grandson, Silvano Argenti. Further right, Vittoria Pinotti, Zita Tonelli holding her granddaughter Diana Marzocchi, and Pino Marzocchi. In the back row, from left top right, Gino (Amelio) Marzocchi, Vittoria Toma, Firmo Argenti, Rina Marzocchi. The person on the back is Giuditta Tonelli.
78 Muse Pensylvania, late 1940s. From left to right, Lino Tonelli, Inde Tonelli, Battista Tonelli and Pino Marzocchi.
79 Syracuse, Ney York, USA, circa 1948. Pino Marzocchi (right) and John Fenocchi (left).
80 Syracuse, New York, 1950s. The soccer team in which Pino Marzocchi (front row, second from left) and Serafino (front row, third from left) were playing.
81 Syracuse, New York, USA, 1950s. Meeting of the Marzocchis, Tonellis, Fenocchis and Fantis.
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Many thanks to Old West Durham neighbor, Giulia Vico, for taking the time to translate these words from Italian to English.
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"Going Far Away – Leaving Succisa Looking to Make a Fortune"