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    The Little Bull & I
    The Little Bull & I
    The Little Bull & I
    Ebook170 pages1 hour

    The Little Bull & I

    By Louis A Sergio and Christina Sergio-Underwood

    ()

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    About this ebook

    The memoirs of a first-generation Italian-American told through a series of compelling stories that provide the reader a window into how his Italian roots, along with the struggles of his immigrant father, led to the choices made which brought the successes & happiness achieved throughout his lifetime.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChristina Sergio
    Release dateMay 2, 2020
    ISBN9780578688558
    The Little Bull & I

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      Book preview

      The Little Bull & I - Louis A Sergio

      I

      The Little Bull

      1

      The Old Country

      Those who admired him called him strong-minded; those who disliked him called him pig-headed; others less emotional called him obstinate. Francesco Sergio, my paternal grandfather was said to embody stubbornness.  How do I know?  Because my father told us so! And, based on the premise that it takes one to know one, I believed him.

      Born in 1848 in Potenza, Italy (then part of the Kingdom of Naples) Francesco accumulated land and offspring at a satisfying pace, and, by the time my father, Vincenzo Torino Sergio, appeared in 1890 it was firmly established as part of the landed gentry of the province of Basilicata since 1871 part of the newly united Kingdom of Italy. His status was firmly middle class, although within a rather impoverished region of the nation. In addition to the accumulated acreage, he owned a flour mill and was the honorary mayor of Francavilla Sul Sini, the town where my father was born and which, it seems, the Sergio family owned. All in all, my father, Vincent, was born into a relatively affluent and absolutely respectable family.

      Francesco’s wife, Carmela, provided him with between nine and eleven children. My father was vague about the exact number; at least one died in infancy, one or two others may have been born after he left home, province, and country. He was acquainted enough with six of them to provide names and some sketchy personal memories. According to a fairly bare-branched family tree that he sketched for me, he had an older brother, two older sisters, and two younger siblings who were fraternal twins. The twins were named Adamo and Eva. The senior siblings were Giuseppe, Francesca, and Rosa. He was not fond of his older brother, was spoiled rotten by his sisters, and was very close to Adam.

      My father claimed that his father had the means to educate all his sons as well as the determination to see that his ambitions for them not be contradicted. Joseph was to become a doctor, Adam an engineer, and Vincent a priest-Francesco’s gift to the Lord and the Church. Vincent balked. Father did not wish to become a father. He told us that at age sixteen, as a sop to his stubborn father, he attended seminary and discovered the clergy to be hypocritical and corrupt; he wanted no part of the life. At eighteen he served one year with the Alpine troops as part of the new Italy’s universal military training. Part of his duties was cooking for his unit. After his military stint, the question of his future education came to a head – claiming irreconcilable differences, my father left home and headed for Naples where he contacted his cousin, Giuseppe Cappucio, who apprenticed him to be a watchmaker. He took to the craft easily discovering that he had mechanical skills and became quite an expert.

      Vincent was always very authoritarian; he worshiped strength and power and the status quo (much later he would become an admirer of Mussolini). He came by his conservatism naturally. His father had been cool to Garibaldi’s movement to unite Italy – too liberal for his taste. -the status quo was good enough for him. Vincent who despised his father for his stubbornness was definitely a chip off the old block. In any argument, he would stubbornly hold his ground right or wrong as did his old man. One day at the age of 21, while at a local barbershop in Napoli, he engaged a Communist sympathizer in a debate. This was at a time before Communists took power and were little more than small-time anarchists. For Vincent, anarchy was anathema; he loathed the very idea of communism. The debate escalated into violence; Vincent slammed his opponent with a club and left him for dead. He had no choice, he felt, but to leave the country. With the aid of his cousin  Joe, in 1912, Vincent Torino Sergio left Naples for the U.S.A., passed through Ellis Island, and ended up in New York City, over 3000 miles from home.

      Most of the above information I received from my father in March 1950, as part of an elaborate assignment for my Psychology of Personal And Social Adjustment class at U.C.L.A. Until that year I had known virtually nothing about the paternal side of our family. It was the first time ever that father helped me with my homework! As far as the accuracy of this information is concerned, however, that is another matter. Having repeated the details so often, I came to believe them as gospel. In the late 1950s, another cousin, Biace Blaze Donadio, visited my father’s hometown. He told me some things which didn’t gibe with my father’s version. The fabric of my father’s life seems to have been highly embroidered.

      Blaze believed that my father’s military duty may have been a reality but that his seminary retreat amounted to a brief visit rather than a religious experience. Blaze said that if Francesco had insisted on his son becoming a priest, the remaining brothers, my unknown uncles, didn’t seem to be aware of it. What my unknown uncles did remember were his sexual escapades, a facet of his character which my father slighted in the telling. Although he had admitted to an affair with the live-in maid, which produced an illegitimate child. But Blaze insisted that my father’s affairs weren’t singular-that, in fact, he left a trail of little bastards all along the Sini in sunny Italy. That version at least explains the reason his brothers put saltpeter in their brother Vincenzo’s food to make him impotent, if only temporarily. A fact which papa admitted to us even before  Blaze’s  Italian adventure. My unknown uncles also insisted that Vincent lived up to his middle name, Torino – little bull. Vincenzo Torino Sergio was the truly stubborn one in the family.

      I suggest we should offer a paean to Stubbornness. Think about it. If it weren’t for that stubbornness I would not have come to exist. My now-wife Lillian would have met and married a different man; thus my two daughters, Tana and Tina, would also never come to be. So, when I’m asked Why don’t you care to examine your roots?, I answer, I know all l want to know. I don’t want it to be different. If we traveled to Italy today, who would still be alive to set the record straight? And what if there are survivors who tell a vividly different story from the version we believe? Would we spend the rest of our lives trying to disentangle the narrative threads of my father’s account? I’d rather let the matter rest.

      The few facts we do know about the Sergios of Italy are comforting. Adam Sergio became an engineer and helped create electrical power for the area, and in the 1960s natural gas was discovered on Sergio land. I believe they are all affluent and couldn’t care less about the black sheep who deserted the flock and who couldn’t be induced to return. As far as we know, not any other member of the Sergio family came to the United States or even had the desire to leave home.

      2

      Coming To America

      Chi lascia la vita vecchia

      Per prenda la nuova

      Sa quella che lascia

      Ma non sa quella che trova

      ——————

      He who seeks a new life

      And leaves the old behind

      Knows well what he is leaving

      But knows not what he’ll find

      If Vincent pined for his homeland, he never let on. He said he had the opportunity to return but never seriously considered the move. In 1922 his father died leaving a cash settlement for each of his children, the equivalent of 20 thousand dollars American, a significant sum in those days.  To claim it, he was required to return and remain in Italy. He refused the offer. I asked him why; he couldn’t explain. In 1922 he knew that the man he thought he killed had survived; he was unattached, unemployed had few prospects, and had never professed a deep love for America or things American. He did, however, respect the power and strength and sheer industrial might of the United States. He had been impressed with America’s role in World War I. He considered his homeland, particularly his province, to be backward industrially and, culturally, still living in the 18th century.

      That was a sound assessment of the Basilicata he had left in 1912, and there was no evidence that anything had changed by 1922. After passing through Ellis Island, Vincent moved in with the people to whom he had been referred by Joe Cappucio. These were the Donadios, Blaze, and Jimmy’s parents. They were instrumental in getting father odd jobs during the remainder of 1912 and into 1913.

      Vincenzo Sergio’s employment experiences were adventures in acculturation during those first few months in Manhattan. Father’s first job in America was making glass chandeliers for gas lamps; at this metier, he lasted six months. In 1913 he snagged a position in a watch-making factory on Park Row. He did well until he had a major disagreement with a colleague, threw a watchmaker’s anvil at him, hit him in the temple, and thought; I’ve done it again!  He left. New York City for Passaic, New Jersey.  He was next employed as a tinsmith in a canning factory where he lasted over three years. He said it was good money.

      In late 1916 or early 1917, he was called to military service and dodged by not completing his citizenship requirements. At that time aliens were not required

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