Luigi Desiderio came from Scafati, Italy to Branford, CT in 1912. He and Elizabeth Kate Mansolf are my husband's paternal grandparents.
My husband's grandfather, Luigi Desiderio, was a barber (as were his two brothers and I believe both his brothers-in-law, there must have been a lot of hair to cut in Branford, CT!). Luigi married another Italian immigrant and had a child. Their small family group appears in the 1930 U.S. Federal Census in Branford, CT. But that is the only way I even know this first wife and child exist. Luigi's second wife, my husband's grandmother, was quite American. Her father came from Germany/Prussia according to census records, probably from a town now in Poland. Her mother had mixed ancestry, each generation marrying one of the common immigrant nationalities for that time period (Irish, English, Swiss, and probably more). You can't get much more American than that, but no Italian ancestry for Kate.
Whether her different ancestry had anything to do with it is unknown but Luigi, already or soon to be Louis Dondero, and Kate left CT for FL. According to family lore, before they arrived Louis learned a barber's license was required in FL. So they stopped where they were, Walterboro, SC, where a license wasn't required. And that is where my father-in-law's family knowledge begins.
Louis died while my father-in-law was still a child. Consequently he knew nothing about his father's family. He did know a little of his mother's family. He had even met some of her relatives and knew they were from CT (she was from Meriden). I began researching my husband's Italian roots with the following information, courtesy of my husband's only uncle...
Louis came to the U.S. either when he was 12 in 1916 or 16 in 1912.
Thankfully I knew he was 16 in 1912! I even found the names of Louis's siblings and some family members in a box of old papers at my in-laws. Unfortunately it didn't mention the name change. We still don't know why or how Louis changed his name from Desiderio to Dondero. Friends always like to say they must have been in, or had problems with, the mob (what, the barber mob? Did he cut someone's hair too short?).
Here's to another family mystery with no family story attached!
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