Papa Dom

In Italy, the first male child is named after the paternal grandfather. The second son is named after the maternal grandfather and the third son is named after the father. The same goes for females.

So Dom's father was Leo, and Dom was named after Leo's father Dom. Dom then had several cousins named Dom. (Leo's half brother Severio had a son named Dom.) Rose and Frances were half sisters of Leo.

Working on a blueprint Watering the garden

In 1936, Papa Dom went to work in the Canal Zone of Panama. Soon after, Chicken and the girls followed. This is the story that Papa Dom wrote about the trip:

Our Tropical Adventure in Construction

with Avan & Ronnie Orchid Orchid Great Uncle Paul

At far right is Great Uncle Paul in his marble studio in Sicily. Dom's father was Leo, and Paul was Leo's brother, a sculptor who made all of these statues. His final work was the 'Last Supper' at right in the photo.

We don't know who first emigrated to the United States, but Grandpa Leo made several trips back to Italy to bring relatives to Boston. Leo met Katie Denny Stopford at a street car stop in Everett, Massachusetts. Grandma Nancy and Granpa Leo owned a 'Martino's Flower Shop' and a block of greenhouses. They hired all the neighborhood kids to work in the greenhouses.

Gertrude made bunches of sweet peas, but included too many blossoms. Grandma Nancy balled her out for it, but Great Uncle Paul told her 'Don't yell at Gertie, some day she's going to be your daughter in law.' They lost the shop and greenhouses in the depression.

Leo and Nancy were married as teenagers. We don't know where or when. They had each lost a parent, and the remaining parents met and married. Those parents then had three more children, Rose, Severio (Sam) and Frances.

When Paul was a little boy, he, his half sister Rose, and his father (also Paul) travelled to Sicily and Mount Etna erupted. Paul was trapped under debris for three days. After his rescue, he had a scar on his cheek from then on.

The Queen of Italy made all of the orphans of the disaster wards of the court. Rose, half sister of Leo and Paul, was 7 years old She was included with the orphans because her father was lost, and sent to a convent in Egypt. There she learned to do beautiful needle work and crocheted a table cloth now at my parent's house. With much difficulty, the family eventually proved Rose had a mother in Boston and she was returned to the states.

Leo also became a marble sculptor, and was once paid $10,000 for a lifesize statue of a famous racehorse. That was an enormous amount of money back then, and Leo bought a city block with it. There were apartments, the flower shop, a tavern, and a shoe cobbler.