"A family tree can wither if nobody tends its roots."

May17th2026

From Opi to Opportunity: The Moscati Family’s New York Beginning

by  Phyllis Zeck

Ron Moscati emailed me several years ago with an interesting story about his ancestors. You can read about his amazing career as a decorated photojournalist and Pulitzer finalist at the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame.

Ron’s grandparents were born in Opi, Italy and passed away in Niagara Falls, New York. Michele Cesidio Moscati married Carmina Leone and they had 6 children: Antoniette (1903-1993), Alphonse (1905-1984), Leonora (1907-1990), Lucio Cesidio (1909-1972), Lenna (1912-) and Leonelle (1913-1984). 

The Moscati’s appear to share ancestral ties with the Ursitti family, as does my own line. Filomena Ursitti is my 2nd great grandmother. Michele’s grandmother’s maiden name was Ursitti. Additional research into my Ursitti ancestry is needed before I can connect our dots. 

Ron wrote: “Michele and Carmina Moscati emigrated from Italy around 1901, likely leaving from Naples aboard a ship to New York City. They lived in NYC for about 15 years and the family received citizenship on May 16,1910. 

In 1915 the Moscati family moved to a farm near Silver Creek, N.Y. outside of Buffalo. The farm was owned by Carmina Leone’s family. They eventually left the farm and bought some property which included a large building with two stores and an upstairs apartment in Niagara Falls on Main Street near Ontario Ave.

There for many years they operated the stores which included a music store where they sold piano player roles, records, etc. The second store was a tobacco and grocery store which was connected to the music store by a two step passageway inside.

Michele was a very generous and likable man who became a padrone for the many immigrants arriving in Niagara Falls. Padrone in Italian means owner or in slang “the top guy”.

He did well in business but hit the “jackpot” when the railroad that went across the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge to Canada was forced to buy his property that stood near the tracks. There had been many deaths of people trying to walk across the tracks and public opinion made the railroad decide to build a viaduct at this crossing. Today that viaduct is located on what was the original Moscati property.

Michele then moved his family and opened two stores on Highland Ave. in Niagara Falls. The family lived above the stores until he built a large stone house on Grove Ave., off of Highland Ave. Today that old stone house, two and a half stories high and boarded up, still sits abandoned on Grove Ave off of Highland Ave.

The family was prospering now and Michele became even more generous to the Italian immigrants living in the area. He loaned and gave money outright to those that needed help. He trusted the people and had faith in that they would repay what he would give them.Moscati FamilyUnfortunately, the great depression came along in the 1930’s and he lost most of his fortune when the people he helped were unable to pay back the money he had loaned them. He ended up having a stroke in 1932 that left him without speech and with a shuffle to his walk. He died from a second stroke in 1935.

Antonette and Leonora told of walking across Niagara Falls trying to collect the debts owed to the family, but with little success. Eventually the children went their own ways with their families. Carmina went to live with her daughter Lenna’s family who stayed in Niagara Falls along with Leo and Lucio’s families. Tony, Antonette, and Leonora lived in New York City with their families. The sisters had all married the children of fellow immigrants from the Abruzzi region of Italy.”

Ron is no longer with us but he was very invested in genealogy. Ron pointed me to a document by Graham Millar found in the digital records at Buffalo State University titled “Edison Street Baptist Church, The First Italian Baptist Church In The United States“.  You can download the PDF to read the document. In part Graham discusses the origins of Pescasseroli and Opi, how the village came to be divided into two groups—Roman Catholics and Protestants as well as why so many Italians immigrated to the United States. You’ll see many of our family names in his document. 

One last document you might find interesting is a newspaper article I found from the Buffalo Courier Express 1908. You will need to enlarge the PDF to read the article. A whole page is dedicated Italian immigrants living in Buffalo, among them a large community from the town with “the musical name” of Pescasseroli. The article tells a story of how Pescasseroli’s name originated. Of course, it began with a love story. The first immigrant to the area in 1881 was Cesidio Saltarelli. The next year several other families joined him: Ursitti, Gentile, Notarantonio, Finamore, Sabatin and Daddario. In the Buffalo 1912 directory Cesidio was living at 50 Roma Ave and was a laborer. 

Thank you to the Moscati family for their story and photos. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Click Here to View Current Comments or/and Add Your Own (0)

 

Dec22nd2025

Her Star Shines Brightest on the Holiest Night

by  Phyllis Zeck

Corinne and Phyllis. Sisters and best friends. My mother passed away in 2004. It was especially hard on my Aunt Phyllis as Corinne was her baby sister. When Auntie passed away in 2013 she left instructions that she wanted to be buried at Mount Carmel in Illinois near her mother and father (Bertha and Gilbert). She is buried directly behind Elvira.

When my sister Holly and I were planning our trip to Chicago last October our cousin Rick said he would like to meet us and visit his mother’s grave. We spent a wonderful week together being tourists and reminiscing. One morning I pulled up an audio recording my brother Rob and I had made of an interview with Auntie Phyllis in 2011. In part of this interview Rob asked Auntie Phyl about Christmas Eve in 1939, the evening that Elvira passed away. Our mother would have been 8 and Auntie Phyllis just turned 12. Below is an audio of Auntie’s memory of that night. She recalls it as if it happened yesterday.  

Wishing everyone a joyous and peaceful Christmas!

 

Click Here to View Current Comments or/and Add Your Own (2)

 

Jan20th2022

Researching Pescasseroli Family Names

by  Phyllis Zeck

Abby Skiing on Mt Hood

It’s hard to wrap my mind around the fact that 2021 zipped by without me having much time for genealogy research. This summer I mailed my old VHS tapes, CD disks and Camcorder tapes of family adventures to have them made into digital files. This project has been on my to do list for many years. The last couple of months I’ve had fun going through the digital files to edit them.  I created short videos and saved them to folders which I’ve shared with my siblings, nieces, and nephews. It’s shocking how fast the years have gone by. It was fun to reminisce about our families’ milestones and adventures and to see and hear family members who are no longer with us.

My 8 year old granddaughter Abby went skiing for the first time this weekend. My sisters and I compared a video of Abby skiing to a video I found of Ashley about the same age skiing in our backyard.  Abby looks, sounds, and laughs exactly like her mother. Click on the image below for a 2 minute video of Ashley taken about 1990.

Last fall Michael emailed me to introduce himself.  His paternal grandfather Emidio Finamore and his great grandfather Orazio emigrated from Pescasseroli. Michael wrote “Via Ancestry we have some DNA matches with my Del Principe descendants.  I believe that you and I are 7th cousins, (at least), and are related through your great-grandparents Pietro Del Principe and Elvira Ciolli. There is a common ancestor named Marco Antonio Ciolli b. 1654. I’ve traced Marco to Elvira and also to Maria Scolastica (Saltarelli) Del Principe via Maria’s maternal branch.”

Michael shared a website that I have not yet stumbled across. There are over 16,000 names of family members from Pescasseroli, Italy.  The information is a collaboration from several sources.  The following partial text is a Google translation from the home page:  “This Genealogy research ‘Genealogy of the Pescasseroli families’ contains 16703 individuals and 4640 families. These are the Genealogical Trees of all the Pescasseroli AQ Families from 1716 to the 1920s.

The research is open to the collaboration of all those who wish to report errors or inaccuracies in the data present or communicate other data or photos and documents to be included. It is in fact possible to insert Photographs, Documents and Stories for each Person and for each Family present in the search. With the collaboration of all, it can become a place of memory and memories.

Courtesy of Terre Pesculiasseroli

A particular thanks is due to friend Prof. Tarquinio Gianluca, today unfortunately he is no longer with us, to the parish priests responsible for the Parish Archives of Pescasseroli, for advice, information and great availability. The data entered so far are taken from the Registers of Births, Deaths and Marriages 1866 – 1910, from the Draft Lists from 1866 to 1918 and from the Registers of Births, Deaths and Marriages of the Napoleonic Period 1809-1865.

On the other hand, decisive help came from the Registers of Families or “Status Animarum” of the Parish of Pescasseroli and from the Population Registers of the Parish for the reconstruction of family genealogies throughout the 18th century, up to the beginning of the 20th century, and for the identification of many household nicknames.

The oldest register contains records of baptisms from 1716, marriages from 1754 of the deceased since 1752, unfortunately many have deteriorated and not all the pages of which it is composed have been transcribed. The program then plans to continue the research with the transcription of the registers of the parish of Opi.  Other news in this research, in particular the data of the military visit, come from the State Archives of L’Aquila.”  

To research your family members click on this link: 
https://terrepesculiasseroli.it/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/pescasseroli/default.htm
Click on the image to the right of the home box (top left side of the page).
Click on “C”.  
Click on Ciolli. 
Click on Pietrantonio Amabile Ciolli to see his and Filomena’s Ursitti’s children.

5/24/24: Update.  Unfortuntly this website is no longer active.  I’ll update this post  if another website replaces it.

 

Click Here to View Current Comments or/and Add Your Own (5)

 

May11th2020

National Nurses Week

by  Phyllis Zeck

Week 7 of Oregon’s stay-at-home order. Governor Kate Brown has released a three phase plan for re-opening. Each county must meet specific criteria and then submit their county’s plan to reopen. Our virus cases have to be on a downward trend, we need to increase testing and begin contact tracing before we can enter the first phase.

This week we celebrate our brave and compassionate nurses. We’ve all heard amazing stories of the sacrifices nurses have made during this Covid-19 crisis. It takes a special person to go into this occupation and I hope they feel a lot of extra love from their communities, especially now.

I’ve been sucked into the archives of digitized newspapers in the last few weeks. I never should have pressed the subscribe button for a Newspapers.com membership. I will never learn. There were some interesting articles about the influenza outbreak of 1918. Chicago’s nurses were deployed to military camps and overseas due to WWI. Soon after the outbreak began Chicago found itself with a nurse shortage. The ad above promotes fast track training by learning at home through the Chicago School of Nursing on S. Michigan Blvd.

Click on this link Nurse’s Guidelines for Flu patients to read an article which helps guide families caring for sick people at home. It’s from the Chicago Tribune dated 20 Oct 1918. Item 6 under the “essentials” section suggests that avoiding chattering, nagging or questing is helpful in the patients recovery. 

There were a shocking number of parallel’s with the Covid-19 virus we are experiencing today. To the right is an ad printed in the Sacrament Bee on 29 Oct 1918 requesting that druggists control hoarders who are  buying up all the Vick’s Vaporub.

There was a shortage of gauze for masks and hospital beds. The photo below was taken in the Oakland auditorium (Oakland Tribune dated 24 Oct 1918). Tents for flu patients were also set up at the University of California. The ad for Lysol below suggests you use their product for a cleaning agent and also try their Lysol Toilet Soap and Lysol Shaving Cream. As you can see, it was easy for me to get sucked deeper and deeper into the abyss of fascinating articles and advertisements. 

 

 

Click Here to View Current Comments or/and Add Your Own (2)

 

May3rd2020

Those Before Us

by  Phyllis Zeck

Elvira Ciolli u Teresina before 1939

Elvira Ciolli u Teresina before 1939

A few months ago I was contacted by Maria who had stumbled across this website. I’d like to share some of the email she wrote to me along with some photographs she sent. Maria’s parents are Inelde Vitale and Angelo Del Principe. Angelo emigrated in 1958 to Switzerland where Maria now lives. Inelde’s parents are Marietta Saltarelli & Bartolomeo Vitale (a tailor).  Maria’s great grandmother is Ester Ciolli. Ester and my great grandmother Elivra were sisters. 

I have never seen the photo above of my great grandmother Elvira.  Elvira wrote on the back of the photo “This is Teresina the mother of Lucia. this photo is a reminder for Francesco. I’m waiting for a message of him. from Aunt Elvira.”  My grandfather Gilbert’s handwriting looks like his mother Elvira’s. 

Maria Filomena was born in Pescasseroli in the 1950’s and lived in her grandfather Bartolomeo’s home until 1965. She has two brothers. Franco is a biologist and Claudio is a cook book author. The photo below is of Maria’s grandmother Filomena, Filomena’s sister Anna Maria, and their parents Nunzia and Gabriele Di Pirro. Filomena’s brother Cesidio Di Pirro emigrated to Buffalo, New York.

The following paragraphs are some memories that Maria shared with me in an email.

di pirro, pescasseroli

Filomena Di Pirro, sister Maria, mother Nunzia & father Gabriele.


My grandfather’s home is just opposite Salvatore’s B&B. this house used to belong to a single teacher, Miss Trella. both houses are located in the old part of pescasseroli near the church. you may find something in google view. grandfather’s house belonged to the ciolli’s and he bought the upper apartment. two rooms, screed, a vault with some chicken a goat and wood for heating, and a separate room in the stairwell. the lower apartment belonged to my grandmother’s brother, he was the father of esterina and salvatore’s grandfather. both families had at least seven children, but some of them died as a child. 

During the Second World War, German soldiers occupied this house, and when the Americans arrived, a bomb fell into a house 20m away. during this time they had little to eat and sometimes they had to ask the american garrisons for food.

del principe

Maria’s Grandparents Marietta Saltarelli  (Ester’s Daughter) & Bartolomeo Vitale

When I lived in this house, I was the only child and it was a beautiful time even though we had nothing, no running water, no bathroom, no heating. my matrasse was filled with corn leaves, which were changed every year. the drinking water was brought home in this typical “conca” of copper by the women on their head. the hot water came from a tank in the wood stove. the bread was kneaded kilos by my grandmother in the house and baked in the nearby bakery. everything was transported on a wide wooden board on the head. We also had none of the laundry,

robertocipollone.wordpress.com

Photo courtesy of Robert Cipollone

everything came in the washing pan with boiling water and was knocked and rinsed in the river. I had nailed shoes from our shoemaker, my mother and her sisters had only wooden treaders in summer and winter.

The room in the stairwell was inherited from an American woman, who then came to pescasseroli and was paid out by my grandfather. My mother does not know who she was. the room was later integrated into the upper apartment and now belongs to my cousin Paolo vitale.

Domenico Pandolfi abt 1915?These photos were also sent to me from Maria. The photo to the left is Domenico Pandolfi taken approx. 1915. If you recognize anyone in the 3 photos below, please email me so I can add their name to their photo. There is a sadness that accompanies an photo without a name. It’s so important to preserve and share these photos and stories.

I’m very grateful to Maria for sharing her memories and amazing photos. I have a clearer picture of what life was like in the 50’s and 60’s in Pescasseroli and it was not like the image that I had painted in my mind. 
 

Click Here to View Current Comments or/and Add Your Own (2)