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# 73 •nOvemBER 30 , 2015
Serendipity: Francesco’s
son, my father, Carmine,
met Michele’s daughter,
Louise, my mother, and
they married.
All came to Waterbury because of the factories that
were begging for workers
at that time. Waterbury’s
population total was maybe 30,000 people. In the
course of twenty to thirty
years about 10,000 emigrants came from Italy,
just to Waterbury. It was
a phenomenal attraction
here, perhaps, led by poverty in southern Italy and
emerging industry here in
the States. Francesco became a butcher, Michele
became a school custodian, and they had their
children, my mother and
father.
University. He enjoyed his
whole career there, until
he retired. Upon retirement, the University memorialized him, naming
“Donnarumma Hall”, the
faculty office building. Almost all the other buildings are named after saints,
so it was really a wonderful honor.
The coincidence is, again,
Giordano and Donnarumma were from the same
little mountain top: in Italy,
they did not know each
other and, yet, their lives
intersected, somehow.
At the beginning of the
mass emigration, Americans had a very low consideration of the Italians
immigrated to the US.
Now we have two Italian
Americans Judges in the
Supreme Court,