I'm Still Here!

 

 Just a quick post to keep this blog from disappearing into cyber space. 

 If you want to get in touch with me, leave a comment. I will not publish it if you include contact information.

Found my Grandmother's Grave

My niece, last summer, was able to find the cemetery were my grandmother was most likely buried. A historian in Grandville, IL said a lot of people who died in the Great Flu Epidemic from the hospital where she died were buried in unmarked graves in this part of their cemetery.

Here's the pictures she took of the area where the unmarked graves are well maintained. Decades and decades after her death my dad and uncle had bought a marker for her grave, drove down south to place it but they left it outside of Catholic church's cemetery where a priest told them to because there was no record of her being there. And no one in the family could find the stone since.

Memories of my Father and Grandfather

In my entire life I’ve never met a man as honorable and honest as my dad. He was a good-natured and soft spoken guy with a clear vision of humanity that included compassion for everyone, in every circumstance. For example, one time my cousin and my brother took Dad to a strip club, hoping to shock my dad for a few laughs and prove how grown up they were now that they were old enough to get into places like that. When my cousin asked Dad what he thought about a woman who’d take her clothes off and dance like that, my dad answered, “She probably has babies at home that need to be fed.” When my cousin told me this story years after it happened he said what started out to be a joke on my dad ended up being a life lesson on learning to walk in other people’s shoes. That was my dad---always caring, always seeing the best in others, always teaching without preaching.


My dad’s formal education ended in the lower grades as did his association with the Catholic Church. His parents were Italian immigrants and he was the youngest of three kids. He lost his mother in the Great Flu Epidemic of 1918/19 and at age eleven he became a latch-key kid in a coal mining town in southern Illinois where one of his jobs each day was to go to the tavern to fetch a pail of beer for his dad when he came home from working underground picking coal in the mines. At the tavern my dad also played the piano by ear to earn a few coins before he was even old enough to wear long pants but even with that background, he wasn’t much of a drinker. At a party here and there but that was it. He was a good, hard working man who always put his family’s needs first, but he gave Mom credit for them being able to build the financial security my folks enjoyed later in life.


My grandfather died when I was a toddler but I heard lots of stories about how he’d sit on the porch singing opera and playing the accordion in the evenings. Like my dad, he was also a good-natured and fair-minded man and he allowed my dad to drop out of going to church on Sundays with the rest of the family when a priest picked him up by the seat of his pants and his shirt collar and pretended he was going to throw him into an open door on a pot belly stove to teach him about the fires of hell. My grandfather, though, told my dad he still had to go to church just not to same church so every Sunday dad walked alone to the only other church in town. There, Dad learned that “Jesus loves all the little children of the world, red and yellow, black and white.” And he got to build things with a hammer and nails and he spent the rest of his life teaching himself how to build and remodel things. My grandfather didn’t want his sons to work in the mines so he devised a plan. He raised potatoes and sold them to the local grocery store owner he had befriended. When he’d saved up enough money to buy a bus ticket he sent my uncle up north to Michigan---still a teenager---to work in the factories and between the two of them they saved up a ‘nest egg’ to move the whole family up north.

And that’s how my dad ended up working for a quarter an hour crawling inside of hot machines to pull wood veneer sheets out. Somewhere along his work life, Dad learned how to be a tool and die maker and he was so good at it that the draft board during WWII wouldn’t let him sign up. He was deemed an essential worker in an essential industry. So he spent the entire war working 14-16 hour shifts making patterns and prototypes for airplane parts and munitions. But what I remember most about dad’s working years is when he’d come home from the factory he carried one of those black lunch boxes with the rounded top and he always had a few squares of a Hersey Candy Bar inside for my brother and me. And it just occurred to me why each night I have two squares of dark chocolate and I’m never attempted to eat any more.


I don’t know how my dad picked up his respect for knowledge and education. Except for the newspaper, he wasn’t a reader yet when I was in college and taking classes in philosophy, world religion and logic we could discuss those topics and he held his own talking about Socrates, Plato, mythical utopian cities and the origins of our values and laws. Life was his teacher, I guess. He’d witnessed Ku Klux Klan hangings while hiding in the woods when he was a kid. He saw the unfairness of the blacks, Italian and Irish getting paid less than whites in the coal mines while they all worked side by side. And I’ll never forget the look of horror and disgust on his face on Bloody Sunday 1963 when the nightly news showed the fire hoses and attack dogs that were turned on the black marchers in Selma, Alabama. I’ll also never forget the look of shear happiness that lit up his face when Tiger Woods won his first PGA in 1999. He was proud of Tiger for breaking the color barrier in a game that dad loved his entire life. Dad was the most fair-minded and ethical person I’ve ever known and I know I got the luck of the draw to have him as my father, my teacher and the person who I’ve most admired and loved my entire life. I hope I made him half as proud as he made me. ©

The Immigration Suitcase

 When my grandfather immigrated to the United States from Italy in 1895 he carried all his earthly possessions in the wicker suitcase below. When my uncle died it was offered to my dad and it came with a treasure trove of papers inside, all of which have been posted on in this blog.  The suitcase itself now has a new home with my oldest niece who has it on displace at the family cottage. Her mission, I told her, is to figure out who should get it next when the time comes---who, in the newest crop of babies in the family grows up caring the most about genealogy and family trees. I need to put a note inside with a list of those of us who the suitcase has passed through. It will contain the names of my grandfather, my uncle, my dad (for about a minute and a half) then me and now my niece.

 

1900 U.S. Census

Certificate of Competency of Coal Miner Illinois 1916

Update

My niece had a wonderful time in Italy last summer and she was able to find Case Riva to visit. She met a woman there and showed her a photo of my grandfather and the women thought he looked just like her grandfather. The best they could figure out is that her line and our line have common ancestors. One day I'd like to post the photos of Case Riva here but we couldn't figure out, yet, how to get them off her new iPod and on to my computer. It's a tiny place.

Update

I'm so excited! One of my relatives is going to Italy this summer, to the exact location of our ancestors. Hopefully, she'll be able to find more information to take our family tree back even farther.

WWI Registration, Coal Country - 1918

On September 12th, 1918, three Riva's walked into the Putman County local draft board office in Granville, Illinois, to register. WWI was going on and the month before President Wilson had agreed to co-operate with the Allies by sending "volunteer" troops. Those Riva's were James/Giacomo Riva (age 45), John Riva (35) and another John Riva, (35). James, we know from crossing checking information on various documents, is OUR James. The other two Riva's we have no documented proof that they are related but we believe they are.

One of the John's lived in Granville and worked for the St. Paul Coal Co. James and the other John (John #1 below) both lived in near-by Standard, Illinois, and worked at the B.F. Berry Coal Co. James and John #1 are also recorded on the 1910 Census as both living in Greenfield Township, Grundy County,IL---both on Sixth Avenue right next door to each other.

James Riva's Registration, Click to enlarge

Birthday: March 25, 1873 – age 45
James is listed as have black hair and blue eyes
Josie Riva (his wife) is listed as his nearest relative
Living in Standard, IL


#1 John Riva's Registration, Click to enlarge

Birthday: June 11, 1884 – age 35
Wife: Minnie Riva
Living in Standard, IL


#2 John Riva's Registration, Click to enlarge

Birthday: August 1, 1883 – age 35
Living in Granville, IL
Nearest Relative: father Bertolomeo Riva in St Ponsio Canavese Italy, Torino Province

So far, I haven't been able to find a St Ponsio. It's possible the above registration document should read San Ponzio or that the village of St. Ponsio no longer exists. Either way it's an interesting mystery because San Ponzio is a village in the same province where James/Giacomo was born. (If anyone has any information on how these two John's might fit into the James Riva family tree please leave a comment.) J.E. Riva © 2008

EDIT TO ADD: Since writing this, I've been told that the "St. Ponsio" is probably San Ponso in the Piedmont region of Torino. (See comment below.)

Christopher, IL & Coal Mining 1920

Christopher, IL, 1928

Josephine (Alaria) Riva died in northern Illinois in 1919 and by the following year her husband Giacomo/James Riva and their three children had moved to the southern part of the state. The 1920 U.S. Federal Census places them in Franklin County, Tyrone Township. More specifically, they moved to a house at 247 Snider Street in Christopher, Illinois. The C.B.& Q. Railroad and four large mining companies had recently transformed the village of Christopher into one of the nations' most productive coal regions.

My generation of Riva's probably all remembers our fathers, John and Peter, talk about their early years in Christopher. We heard stories about how the town was a "company town" with company stores and the mine owners kept people living on credit to stores when the mines were closed seasonally. When they were open, the miners would struggle to pay down their debt. The story goes that there was only one guarded road in and out of the town and no one could leave if you owed money to the company store. According to oral history, James Riva planed his "great escape" from Christopher by growing
potatoes for a store keeper he had befriended thus allowing him to build up a nest egg to send his oldest son north to work in a factory. That son, John D. Riva---so the story goes---was able to accumulate enough money up north to move the rest of the family out of the coal mining community up to Michigan.

Franklin County Miners, 1920

Years ago, Peter Riva gave a taped interview where he talked about his father, James Riva. This is what he said: "My dad worked in the coal mines a lot of years and he was stooped over quite a bit 'cause he worked in the mines where you had to be stooped over. In the mines my dad wore white pants. Figure that one out! They were special heavy canvas bib overalls. They were tough to wear, but besides that, they didn't want no color in them 'cause they'd get poisoned from the dye on the skin. They changed them overalls once a week."

Family folklore also says that James picked and loaded coal for eighty-two cents a ton, and he was almost buried in a cave-in. I've tried to match up cave-in accidents from 1890 through 1930 with the towns that James lived without much success---not all the cave-in accidents are documented on-line at this point in time. One of the worse coal mine accident in history, however, took place near-by where he worked in northern Illinois in 1909. 259 men and boys out of the 481 who worked in the mine died. There is an interesting article about that Cherry accident here. It gives a good description of what it was like to be down in the mines during that time frame.

Another mine accident happened in Christopher just three years before the Riva's moved there and 18 men were trapped in Old Ben. You can read the newspaper account here. There was a second mine accident that occurred in Christopher in the 1920s and that may have been the one our grandfather was involved in but other than the date, I've found no on-line mention of that accident.

Click to enlarge

One of the most interesting articles I've found that gives a good flavor of coal mining in the 1920s is about the Herrin Massacre. It was a time in history when The United Mine Workers was first organizing and striking and many times they came face-to-face with strike breakers hired by the companies. That bloody day of the Herrin Massacre many people were killed. There is no proof that our ancestor was involved in any of the sit-downs except a vague memory of a story I heard in my childhood about a mine owner who had a machine gun aimed at sit-down strikers who refused to go down in the mine. But James lived in the same county when and where the United Mine Workers were forming, so the bad working conditions and low wages reported in the Herrin article would have applied to him as well as those directly involved in the massacre. J. Riva ©2008

The Riva Family, circa 1920s
Maggie, James/Giacomo, John and Peter


Reference for the Census:
Year: 1920 State: Illinois County: Franklin ED: 43 Page No: 026
Reel No: T625-365 Division: Tyrone Township SD: 17 Sheet No: 37B; 226A
Incorporated Place: Snider Addition to Christopher Illinois (lined out) Ward: X Institution: X
Enumerated on: January 14th, 1920 by: Scott McGlasson
Transcribed by Delores Wolos for USGenWeb,
http://www.usgwcensus.org/. Copyright: 2006

1920 Federal Census Franklin County, Illinois (ED 43: File 9 of 34)

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1910 Census and the Riva Family

Coal miners, colorized postcards, 1910


The "13^th Census of the United States -1910 Population" establishes that Giacomo (36) and Josephine Riva (26) were living at 80 Sixth Avenue in South Wilmington, Illinois, Grundy County, Greenfield Township. Living with them are their three young children: John four, Maggie two, and Eurelia one. Eurelia we know from other documents died not too long after this census was taken and Peter would be born the next year. This document also establishes that by 1910 Giacomo was using the Americanized version of his Italian name---James---and his occupation is listed as coal mining.


Josephine Riva with two children, circa 1905 -08

Another family of Riva's was also living South Wilmington on Sixth Avenue: John 26 a coal miner, Minnie his wife 24 and Maggie two. We strongly believe he is related to our family. He could be a brother or cousin to James. I plan to to research him and a second, older John Riva, because they both show up on the Draft Registration Records for 1918, Putman County, Illinois. The older John I'm hoping is James' father. (We know from oral history that his name is Giovanni, Italian for John.) If it can be established that Giovanni did immigrate, the 1918 draft registration will provide us with the first name and home town of James' grandfather, giving us yet another generation back in time. (If anyone reading this knows anything about these two John's please leave a comment.) J.Riva 2008 ©

South Wilmington is located in Grundy County at the bottom of the map. (Click to enlarge.)

Click to enlarge census

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The 1919 Flu Epidemic Takes Josephine

Josephine (Alaria) Riva died on February 2, 1919 after having bronchi pneumonia for six days and influenza for three. Statistically, she was a victim of the Great Flu Epidemic of 1918-1919. But on the human side our 33 year old ancestor left behind a husband and three children, the youngest of which was eight year old Peter. It's estimated that between 20 to 40 million people died of the flu in those two years nation wide and 32 thousand just in the state of Illinois.

Her Death Certificate reveals a few interesting details like the fact that her father's family name is spelled the same way as it was on the 1900 U.S. Federal Census---"Olario"---and that she was buried at the Granville Cemetery in Granville, Illinois. This latter fact is interesting because her oldest son, John, had her marble grave marker in his garage for many years. The family couldn't afford to buy one when she died so decades later Josie's three kids had one made. The stone made at least two trips down to Illinois from Michigan but the cemetery location couldn't be found. From my understanding, it was finally left at a cemetery adjunct to a catholic church but the cemetery keeper didn't have any record of her being there. "But," he said, "They'd find a place for the marker."

Click to enlarge

Town listed on the Death Certificate:

* Standard where Josephine Riva lived Putnam County

* Granville where she was buried
Putnam County

* Spring Valley where she died
Bureau County

This whole area of Illinois was involved heavily in coal mining. Spring Valley alone was over 6,000 people at the turn of the century and it was one huge mining camp. Saint Margaret's Hospital, where Josephine died, was built by seven French sisters to service those miners. J.Riva © 2008

Click to enlarge map above and below.


The pins on the bottom map shows where all the Granville cemeteries are located today.

Granville, IL coal yards and trains on their way to Chicago, circa ?


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Philadelphia Passenger List 1888 - Alaria

Click to enlarge

Philadelphia Passenger Lists, 1800-1945
Name: Aurelia Alaria
Arrival Date: 27 Jun 1888
Age: 25 Years
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1863
Gender: Female
Port of Departure: Antwerp, Belgium
Ship Name: Nederland
Port of Arrival: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Last Residence: Belgium ?
Birthplace: France
Microfilm Roll Number: T840_11

The Philadelphia Passenger Lists of 1800-1945 establishes that Aurelia Alaria arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on June 27, 1888, just two days after there was a huge fire in the city that started in a kindling factory and spread to a near-by coal yard and school house. She was twenty-five years old and her husband, Pietro Alaria, had come to America the year before. Her birthplace is listed as 'France' and Belgium is named as her last place of residence---but with a question mark.

Milk Woman 1890
Antwerp, Belguim

Also in the index for the Philadelphia Passengers Lists of 1800-1945 was another Alaria: Josef Alaria is listed on the line below Aurelia as a male two year old child. I strongly suspect that the 'Josef' is probably Josephine Alaria and the 'male' was a clerical error. We know from the U.S. Census records that Josephine immigrated the same year as her mother when Josie was very young. J.E. Riva © 2008


Philadelphia, 1800s


1888 Philadelphia (click to enlarge)

Alaria's and Copper Mining - 1907

The Quincy Mining Company, Hancock, Michigan




We knew from oral history that the Alaria family at some point in time had moved from the Illinois coal mining communities to Michigan where they worked in the copper mines. But it took finding a passenger listing for my great-grandfather "Pietro Allaria" to pinpoint the exact location in Michigan and to establish that the move took place some time in between 1900 and 1907.

The 1907 passenger list for the French ship, the LaTouraine, lists Pietro as a "non immigrant alien" returning to his home at Box 19, Hancock, Michigan. Traveling with him is his sister's son and daughter-in-law (Maria and Massimo Allaria) and another niece, Angela Giulio. Two other passengers are of interest, one being Francesco Milano who was going to join her brother Giuseppe at Box 19, Hancock, Michigan. The other passenger of interest was Domenica Rogis-?oila who was going to join her husband, Giovanni, at Box 306 Hancock. That makes at least six people on the ship who appear to be traveling together. Pietro also named his place of birth as San Giorgio Canavese, Italy.

This document also establishes that Pietro had at least one sister living back in Italy because he named her as his nearest relative in the country he just left and she was living in the same place that he listed as his birth home---San Giorgio Canavese in Torino Province, Piedmont Region. (This is the same province and region as where the Riva side of the family comes from.) J. Riva © 2008



Medieval Castle at San Giorgio Canavese


Side one of the passenger list, click to enlarge.



Side two of the list.



Reference:
New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957
Name: Pietro Allaria
Search Ship Database: View the La Touraine in the 'Passenger Ships and Images' database
Port of Departure: Havre
Port of Arrival: New York, New York
Nativity: Italy
Line: 7
Microfilm Serial: T715
Microfilm Roll: T715_1015
Birth Location: Italy
Birth Location Other: s giorgio
Page Number: 182

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Our Riva and the Alaria Ancestors

The first Riva in our family to come to America was Giacomo Riva. He immigrated in 1897. The first Alaria in our family to come to America was Pietro Alaria. He came over in 1885 and he was the father to Josephine Alaria who later married Giacomo in August 19, 1905 bonding these two families together forever. This blog site is an attempt to follow their paper trail across time.

The Riva Family, Circa early 1920s
Margaret J, Giacomo (father), John D, and Peter M

Giacomo Riva was born in Pertusio, Italy, March 26, 1873 to parents Giovanni Riva and Margherita Faletto both of Italy. He died in Kent County, MI, in November of 1944.

Riva Siblings:
-John Dominick Riva
Born Sept. 21, 1906 South Wilmington, IL
Married to Margaret Kane
Died July 14, 1989, Kent County, MI
- Margaret J. Riva - Unmarried (known as Maggie)
Born July 7, 1908
Died June 28, 1994
- Aurelia Riva - Died as infant
- Baby - Died as an infant
(also named Aurelia according to oral history)
- Peter Riva
Born June 5, 1911 Standard, IL (Putman County)
Married to Doris Latimer April 15, 1937
Died Dec. 25, 1999 Kent County, MI

Known Siblings to Giacomo Riva:
- Frank Riva
- Mathew Riva
- Dominick Riva
- Joseph Riva
- Margaret Riva - Married Tony Mandoni

Wife to Giacomo Riva: Josephine Alaria



The Alaria Family, circa 1902-04
Standing: John, Joe, Josephine, Rose; Center: Peter and Rome;
Seated: Peter (the father) Frank, Aurelia (the mother)

Pietro Alaria was born Nov. 1859 in San Giogrio Canavese, Italy, and he married Aurelia Masoero in 1884. He died January 11, 1931, in Kent County, MI.

Aurelia Masoero was born in Italy in January 1862 and died in 1928 in Kent County, MI.

Alaria Siblings:
- Josephine Alaria
Born Dec. 1885 France (near the Italian border)
Married Giacomo Riva on Aug. 19, 1905
Died Feb. 2, 1919, Bureau County, IL
- Romellio Alaria
Born June 8, 1899, Lagrange, IL
Died Sept. 10, 1963
Married Margaret Jane Dyer on Dec. 29, 1926
- John Alaria
Born: Feb. 2, 1891, Coal City, IL
Died May 24, 1965, Kent County, MI
Married Elizabeth Gorden, May 9, 1917
- Joseph Alaria
Born:
Died:
Married Mary Ellen Renn (?)
- Rosa Alaria
Born: Feb. 13, 1895, Coal City, IL
Married August Koepnick, married August Koepnick, Jan. 1913
- Peter Alaria
Married Mabel Marie Harkins
- Frank Alaria
Died: 29 Dec, 1926
Married Laila M. Milthaler


Spelling Variations

Spelling on older records for ancestors don't always match. It happened for several reasons. 1) Immigrants often couldn't read or write and they depended on clerks or others to sound names out. 2) If they did know a name was Americanized or spelled wrong by a clerk they would hesitate to challenge authority. 3) Census records are subject to mistakes in the way the information was gathered word-of-mouth from who ever was home at the time the the census taker called, including guesses from neighbors. Below are the spelling variations I've found in our ancestor's records.

Pietro
Pietre
Peter

Allaria - Used on a passenger list and Josephine's wedding license
Olerio - Used on the 1900 U.S. Census
Alaria - Currently used spelling of the family name

Faletto
Falletti

Josephine
Josie
Jossie

Aurelia
Orelia
Amelia
Ourellia
Eurelia

Masoero - Family used this spelling in later years
Mosvero - Found on older records

James (English)
Giacomo (Italian)

John (English)
Giovanni (Italian)

Margaret (English)
Margherita (Italian)

Romellio
Romer
Rome


J.Riva © 2008

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Alaria Family - 1900 U.S. Census

The 1900 United States Federal Census records reveal a lot of information about fourteen year old Josephine Alaria and her parents, Petre and Aurelia Alaria. One thing we learn from this document is that Josie was born in France in December of 1885 and she immigrated to America as a baby in her mother's arms the following year. Her father, however, immigrated to America in 1885, the year before his wife and first born child, Josie, came over. It's a good guess to imagine that Aurelia was pregnant in 1885 and unable to travel so he went on ahead to get settled so his wife could join him after the baby was born. It should be noted here that despite the fact that Josie was born in France we know from documents and oral history that her parents were from the same northern mountainous Piedmont Region in Italy as the Riva family. (Five years after this census was taken, Josephine marries Giacomo Riva.)

At the time of this census the Alaria family was living in Grundy County, Illinois, in Felix Township. Within Felix Township were the villages of Carbon Hill, Coal City and Diamond. In addition to Josie, the census shows five other children in the family: Romellio, John, Joseph, Rosa, and Peter who ranged in ages from "11 or 12" to four years old.

Below is the exact information found on the 1900 census including all the misspellings. Don't let the misspelling of Alaria or Aurelia throw you. On a 1920 census the spelling for Romellio and Rosa are different as well. The Alaria name has changed over the years as often happened with immigrant families either through clerical errors or Americanization of the names. Several of the earlier documents found show our Alaria ancestors it with two L's. I will note here that I remember my great-uncles and aunt---John, Joe, Rose and Peter---from my childhood days so at some point they had moved up to Kent County, Michigan. © J. Riva 2008

1900 United States Federal Census
about Petre Olerio
Name: Petre Olerio
Home in 1900: Felix, Grundy, Illinois
Age: 39
Occupation: Coal miner
Birth Date: Nov 1860
Birthplace: Italy
Race: White
Ethnicity: American
Immigration Year: 1885
Relationship to head-of-house: Head
Father's Birthplace: Italy
Mother's Birthplace: Italy

Spouse's Name: Orelia
Marriage Year: 1884
Marital Status: Married
Years Married: 16
Residence : Carbon Hill, Coal City, Diamond Parts of Villages, Grundy, Illinois
Occupation: View Image
Neighbors: View others on page
Household Members: Name Age
Petre Olerio 39 head, born in Italy, year of imm. 1885
Orelia Olerio 38 wife, born in Italy, year of imm. 1886
Josie Olerio 14 daughter, born in France on Dec. 1885, year of imm. 1886
John Olerio 10 son, born in ILL
Joseph Olerio 8 son, born in ILL
Rosa Olerio 6 daughter, born in ILL
Peter Olerio 4 son, born in ILL
Romellio Olerio 11.12 son, born in ILL

You can click on this census image and it will enlarge the handwriting for easy reading.



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A Riva and Alaria Get Married, 1905

Groom: Giacomo Riva
(also known as James Riva)
From: South Wilmington
Grundy County, Illinois

Bride: Josephine Alaria
(also known as Josie)
From: Coal City, Grundy County

Date: August 5, 1905






At the turn of the century Coal City, Illinois, where Josie lived before getting married was an important coal mining region with a growing population. In 1890 the population was 1,672; in 1900 it had grown to 2,607; 1903 it was about 3,000. For a good overview of the area's history see the History and Genealogy of Grundy County.


Below is a copy of the Marriage Certificate for Giacomo Riva and Josie Allaria. Giacomo and Josephine were married by a judge at the county seat court house in Morris, Grundy County, Illinois. At the time of their marriage he was thirty-one years old and she would turn twenty on her next birthday coming up in December.

Click to enlarge


NOTE: Spellings for 'Josephine', 'Alaria', 'Aurelia,' and 'Pietre' varies from document to document which I've read was common for immigrants who either didn't know themselves how to write their names or were afraid to correct officials when they spelled something wrong or Americanized their names. Living relatives, however, spell Alaria with one 'L'. The 1900 census records spells the Alaria household name as "Olerio" but all the other information on the form lines up correctly. So that spelling must have been a "sounds like" guest on the part of the census taker.

As a place marker in case you're trying to figure out how or if Giacomo and Josephine fit into your family tree, the couple went on to have five children: John, Maggie, Peter and two infant daughters who died (one at fifteen months and the other at six months of age). John, Maggie and Peter lived most of their adult lives in Kent County, Michigan. John was married to Margaret Kane and they had five children: Marge Ann, James, John R. (known as Jack), Joesph and Nancy. Maggie never married. Peter married Doris Iona Latimer and they had two children: Gerald (Jerry) and Jean.

© J. Riva 2008

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Ancestral Home - Pertusio, Italy

Giacomo Riva is listed on his 1896 army discharge paper as being from the town of Pertusio, Italy. Italy is a Southern European country in the shape of a boot that extends
out into the Mediterranean Sea. It's divided into twenty regions and Pertusio can be found in the Piedmont Region which is located in the north-west part of the country. Piedmont is surrounded on three sides by the Alps Mountains and it borders with France and Switzerland.

The Piedmont Region (illustrated in red to the left) is divided into eight provinces and one of those provinces is called Torino. Its territory is mostly high mountains and its capital city is Turin. It's within the province of Torino that the town of Pertusio can be found.

The first known humans to inhabit Torino were Celtics tribes (200BC) who lived there until they where replaced by expansion from the Roman Empire coming northward. By the first century the area was a Roman settlement. During Renaissance Time the French army under Napoleon occupied the area followed by the Austrians who ruled until 1861. The 18th and 19th centuries in Italy were often unstable and violent.

It's important to our family history to note that Pertusio has two hamlets near by---one called "Case Riva" and the other "Case Faletto." Hamlets, I'm told by people who live in the area, took their names from the people living there. So it's safe to assume that the Riva side of Giacomo's family (his father's ancestors) and the Faletto side (his mother's ancestors) are well entrenched in these hamlets. It was from this area of Italy that twenty-three year old Giacomo Riva set off across France to the port at LeHavre where he got on a steamer ship named the LaBourgne. Seven to eight days later he had crossed the Atlantic Ocean, arriving at Ellis Island, New York City, on January 18, 1897. (See his passenger listing here.)

© J. Riva 2008


Ellis Island

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Coming to America!

My grandfather Giacomo---James in English---Riva left his home in Pertusio, Italy (in the province of Torino) when he was twenty-three years old. He became part of the surge of European immigrants that processed through Ellis Island, forming what historians later dubbed the era of the Great Melting Pot. The passengers' list from the steamer ship the LaBourgne places his arrival in New York City on January 18, 1897. He boarded the ship at LeHavre, France, which was a common departure port for immigrants from the northern mountainous border region of Italy. According to the ship's passenger list his destination was Spring Valley, Illinois.

As a side note, the LaBourgne was built by Chantliers de le Mediterranee in 1886. It was 7,395 tons, 495 feet long and 52 feet wide. Service speed was 17.5 knots. The ship could hold 500 passengers and 200 crew members. It flew a French flag and serviced a line between LeHavre and New York until it sunk following a collision off Newfoundland. 549 lives were lost on July 4, 1898---that was approximately six months after Giacomo Riva hopped on that steamer to come to America.

For more information on this ship, check the New York Times where many LaBourgne articles are archived, and also see this link for a thumbnail on the steamer.



Giacomo came to the United States eleven-and-a-half years after the Statue of Liberty was dedicated. The hundred-and-fifty-one foot copper structure impressed him so much that, according to oral history, he spoke about it often. When I was a teenager in the 1950s my family went to New York City and I'll never forget how disappointed my dad (Peter Riva) was at the sight of raw garbage floating in the statue's harbor and at the tarnished-green color of Miss. Liberty.

"I wish I'd never sent it," he said. "I wish I'd never seen it!" Dad had expected to find the same pristine statue that had greeted the LaBourgne, the welcoming statue that Giacomo Riva loved and respected his entire life as a symbol of freedom.

This would be a good point to mention that Giacomo became a nationalized citizen on October 29, 1898 at the Marshall County Court in Illinois. View the document here. We may never know why exactly he was headed towards Spring Valley, Illinois (Bureau County) but we do know it was a booming coal mining region at the time and it's a good guess that he already had relatives living there who told him a job would be easy to get. Recruiters, back then, used to go to New York to bring back immigrants to work in the state's coal mines which ended up to be his life's work.

© J.E. Riva 2008


Inspection Room, Ellis Island


(Data on Giacomo above found on an Ellis Island passenger list.)

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