Since the end of 1800 up to the 1960 a lot
of inhabitants of Fontanarossa emigrated towards the United States,
looking for a better life. In 1900 the village counted a thousand
of inhabitants and the life was not easy: it was so that a lot
of people left for America looking for fortune.
They were above all young people which, once found a job and an
accommodation, were reached by families, wives and fiancées.
At that time many chances were offered by the United States and
all our emigrants had the opportunity to show their value and
almost all of them succeeded in building a new comfortable life.
The most numerous community of fontanarossinis is based in California,
primarily in San Francisco and in the surrounding areas. Most
of them however never forgot the country of origin and their relatives
in Italy; their love for Fontanarossa was handed down to sons
and nephews; this is why their descendants still wish to keep
a strict contact with Italy and with the origins of their grandparents.
In fact in the first three years of life of our website we were
contacted by many of them asking about their relatives.
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For instance
in November 2001 we received an e-mail from Jackie Repetti,
who asked after the family of her husband’s grandfather,
Nino Repetti. The grandfather of Nino was called Giovanni
Angelo Repetti, a son of Rosa Campi. We made some searches
and we found that at Fontanarossa he was known under the nickname
of “Chiodo” (nail). After his departure, nobody
had news from him. We succeeded in reconstructing his genealogical
tree, which was sent to his nephews in the U.S.A. |
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| Antonio Repetti |
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Jackie and Nino Repetti |
In the 2002 Donna Lynn Chappelone Salomon sent us an interesting
book written by herself about the origins of her family: "The
history of our Italian family."
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Helped by a cousin,
Julie Holland Looney, after a series of detailed searches
(and after having asked all her relatives a lot of questions)
Donna Chappelone Salomon succeeded in reconstructing the history
of her family, from her grandfather’s departure from
Fontanarossa towards America up to our days. In the book Donna
tells the difficulties her ancestors had to meet for succeeding
in building a new life: the hard job, the earthquake in San
Francisco, the Great Depression, the family misfortunes. |
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| Donna Chappelone
Salomon |
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Julie Holland Looney |
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