OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - EULOGY: Giuseppi & Fortuna DALCOLMA
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Shorty's Eulogy by Tom Dalcolma, dated December 27, 1997:

Giuseppi left Northern Italy for Argentina. He left behind his wife (who was
pregnant) and his one sone Edward.  Fortuna was warned not to try and cross
the ocean until months after the baby was born.  She ignored the advice and
soon after the birth she left for Argentina to join her husband.  Enroute
the baby died.  They temporarily settled in La Plata, Argentia. There they
had Frank and Shorty.  In 1914, they immigrated to America through Ellis
Island.  They were separated from one another for 1 1/2 days.  They were
separately detained to be checked for sickness.  When they found each other,
they were admitted to America, and then headed to fill jobs that were
available in the mines in Wyoming.  Giuseppi was a brick mason but
immigrants arriving from Northern Italy were known for their mining skills
so he became a miner.

Upon arriving in Wyoming they discovered very harsh conditions.  They soon
found themselves in debt to the company store with no hope of ever repaying
with mining wages.  Guiseppi befriended the company store manager and asked
him to allow his family to leave to get a better paying job back east so he
could pay off the debt. The store manager said all right but he had to leave
his wife and three boys behind to serve as collateral.  He set out for
eastern Ohio to work in the brick and sewer pipe plants building brick
firing filn. He soon made enough to pay off the company store debt and went
back to Wyoming to retrieve his family. He and one other family loaded what
furniture they had and themselves into a boxcar and went to the New
Philadelphia area and started a new life.


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