Sepia Saturday – Baby in the Middle

Sepia Saturday provides bloggers with an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs.

A photograph from my husband’s family features a woman wearing a dark hat with feathers and a white suit with vertical stripes. There is a baby in the middle, but without a hat.

Louis Parlati, Tenna Mamola, Angela Parlati

The photo is of my husband’s great-grandparents and his grandmother – Luigi (Louis) Parlati, his wife Gaetana (Tenna) Mamola, and baby Angela Parlati. Louis immigrated from Italy. Tenna is said to have been the first baby of Italian descent born in the Denison, Texas area. Angela was born in April of 1911 in Houston, Texas, which gives us an approximate date and location. As an adult, Angela worked in the millinery department of a store, yet I don’t recall any photographs of her wearing a hat. Well … probably in wedding photos, but nothing like the above.

In a photograph featuring five generations, the baby above is grandmother to the baby below.

Angela Parlati, Tenna Mamola, Martin, Angelina Siragusa, Joan Loverde (back)

All of the women are looking adoringly at the baby – my husband.

This photograph accompanied an article in a newspaper. Unfortunately, all we have is a photocopy of the article that does not include the photograph; it is undated; and the newspaper is not identified. It was written in 1953, but I can’t find an online copy of the article in full. I wish I could because parts of the copy are unreadable.

The Mamola Family Saga
Tale of Texas Pioneers

 Dallas – The story of the Frank Mamola family of Denison, Dallas and Houston is the story of pioneering, both as immigrants and as Texans.

Frank Mamola came to this country from Italy when he was 18 years of age – back in 1888. He worked a little while in New York and Chicago, in the latter city at a restaurant for 50 cents a day and board, then traveled to the South.

One day when he was in New Orleans, about 3 years after he came to America, he met a ship from Italy and on it were a pretty young 16-year-old girl and her brother, both fresh from Italy. The brother he had known in the old country – the sister he had seen in a photograph supplied by that same brother – so he was introduced to Angelina and in about 3? minutes they were married! Of course, the wedding had family blessings before hand on both sides.

So the Mamola family came to Denison – the first Italians ever to move into that city. When their daughter Tenna was born, she was the first Italian child born in that part of the state.

Mr. Mamola ran a little fruit stand and some of his constant customers were the Indians from across the line of “Indian Territory” as Oklahoma was then called. There were no sidewalks and there wasn’t even a floor in the little shop, the tables sitting on the ground. There were streetcars though, dawn by oxen!

Mrs. Magnolia remembers when P??? Tobin, railroad engineer, drove the first Katy engine out of Denison, making railroad history. She remembers when Carrie Nation visited the town – a wide-open, raw, boom town – and smashed saloon windows up and down the street, her method of direct action again Demon Rum.

She remembers Dr. Acheson of Denison, first mayor and the owner of the first automobile – Model T Ford, of course.

And with all that remembering, Mrs. Magnolia is still well under 60 years of age.

[I interrupt this news article to explain who Mrs. Magnolia is and to add a photograph. Mrs. Magnolia is Lena Mamola Magnolia – sister of Tenna and daughter of Frank Mamola and Angelina Siragusa (the 16-year-old bride). Lena was obviously interviewed for this article and provides much of the detail. Here is a photograph of her wedding to Frank Magnolia. Lena is not wearing a hat. Tenna is seated on the right. Louis is standing right behind his wife Tenna.]

Wedding of Frank Magnolia and Lena Mamola

Mrs. Mamola, who has lived with Mr. and Mrs. Magnolia for more than 20 years – her husband died 20 years ago – also remembers that when she landed in New Orleans, a girl of 16, she saw a Negro for the first time in her life and was panicky for fear Dallas Parrinos, well known in the city, turning people black!

On the ship with Mrs. Mamola – which, by the way took 60 days to make the crossing, while that of Mr. Mamola’s journey took 120 days – were Mr. Sebastian Parrino, father of the Dallas Parrinos well known in the music, restaurant, and ????ing work today. Also on the ???? was Gattuso and F????? ???? – all of whom long ago established families in  Dallas.

The second Italian family to arrive in Denison were the Pasteres and after them Frank Mazzi and his family. Then, Mrs. Magnolia said, they really started coming and she lost count. Denison was growing, ??? building brick stores, sidewalks and paved streets – it was becoming a city.

Nevertheless, when she met Frank Magnolia, she refused to live in Dallas. Her reason?

“They say Dallas is such a big city you could die and your next door neighbor wouldn’t know it. I’m a small town girl.” Frank, who was very much in earnest about marrying his Lena, thereupon went to Denison to live for a time. But having married the gal, he then laid down the law and back to Dallas they came, bringing the whole family with them.

Mrs. Mamola celebrated her ??th birthday recently.

She has three children – Mrs. Magnolia of Dallas and Joe Mamola, also of Dallas, a buyer for 26 years at Sanger Brothers.

Although Mrs. Mamola is now a great-grandmother, her family is not large. The Joe Mamolas have no children, the Magnolias one, Mrs. Ralph Nicosia, Dallas; and Mrs. Parlati has two daughters, Mrs. Joe Loverde and Mrs. Harry Bowles, both of Houston. Between them they have ???? children and Martin Morals (sic) III. This boy begins the 5th generation of the living Mamolas.

Her great-great grandson, is the great-grandson of Mrs. Parlati, the grandson of her daughter, Mrs. Joe Loverde.

A heritage of which anyone can be proud is that of families like this one. From great-great grandfather Frank Mamola, who did not have time to go to school in Italy, but who learned English at night school, to little Martin Morales, III, who some day, who knows, might be President of the United States – or at the very least, a leading Texan, rich in material wealth and in civic service.

Of such is Texas made.

The photo below appears to have been taken on the same day.

Angelina Siragusa Mamola and Mart

Someone wrote on the top left corner of the photo:
Mama Mamola
Mart Morales
5th
Generation in
family

I’ll end with a photograph of the Frank and Angelina Mamola family with their adult children. No one is wearing a hat.

Seated: Frank Mamola and Angelina Siragusa Mamola
Standing: Tenna, Joe, Lena, and John Mamola

This newspaper article provides so many leads for research and back stories! I’m anticipating adding to this story with next week’s prompt.

Whether hot or cold, sunny or raining, it is always hat weather. Put on your traveling hat and visit other participants at Sepia Saturday.

The William/Bill/Pearl Hoskins envelope

Sometimes my blog is a useful backup for my brain and for my lack of organization. That’s what it is today. I have a few photos and other items that were in my mom’s possession and I want to finish scanning and identifying everything so that they can be returned to their home.

William Pearl Hoskins, known apparently by both Bill and Pearl, was the son of William Hoskins and 1st cousin to my grandfather Thomas Hoskins.

Mom had sorted some of the family photos, newspaper clippings, and such into manilla envelopes. The one for Bill (Pearl) Hoskins contained the items above. I know it was Mom who did the sorting because that’s her handwriting on the large envelope.

Inside the envelope was a photo holder containing portraits of Bill (Pearl) Hoskins and his wife Marguirite.

There is also the 1948 high school graduation portrait of their son, William H. Hoskins

A much older photograph is of Bill (Pearl), Marguirite, and their daughter Helen.

My grandmother Eveline’s handwriting identifies the contents of the small white envelope, which held a photo of Bill.

The back of the photo is inscribed:
I thought you might like to have this picture.
Marguirite
Nov 14
1970

The photo was clearly printed in August 1962. Bill died in 1969, so I imagine Marguirite thought my grandfather would like to have this picture of his cousin.

Also in the envelope was a Lincoln postage stamp and a newspaper clipping titled “So We’re Not Worth Much!”

Did Marguirite or Bill send this to my grandparents or did it just end up in the envelope so as not to get lost? Maybe my grandmother intended to send it to Marguirite. Who knows?

There was one more item in the small envelope.

I don’t know who this William Haskins (probably Hoskins) is. It obviously is not William H. Hoskins, son of Pearl and Marguirite because his high school graduation portrait is here.

In my Hoskins line I have:
William Hoskins 1823-1900
His son William Hoskins 1862-1930
His son William Pearl Hoskins 1894-1969
His son William H. Hoskins 1929-1985

I have not found children of William H. Hoskins. So it’s possible that the clipping above is his son. Pearl and his wife Maxine lived in Ottumwa, Iowa. There is a Church St. in Ottumwa, although Google maps does not show this as a residential area today – more of an intersection with a small highway and a strip center. Maybe a cousin who can fill in the blanks will see this.

I can check off this envelope as scanned and saved, although I have research questions to answer.

Another envelope tomorrow sounds like a good plan.

 

Sepia Saturday: Lola – When she was Zsa Zsa the Poodle

 

Sepia Saturday provides bloggers with an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs. (I usually stop here when I copy the description…)

Historical photographs of any age or kind (they don’t have to be sepia) become the launchpad for explorations of family history, local history and social history in fact or fiction, poetry or prose, words or further images. (… but this week, I’m taking that “don’t have to be sepia” and “any age” to heart.)

I’ve been wanting/needing to write about our recently departed pet. After all, she was a part of our family and deserves to have her story told too. So I’ll take advantage of today’s prompt photo and see where it leads. (Non-spoiler alert: I succeeded in not going to the sad place today, so it’s safe to read on.)

Our family’s first dog was a sweet sheltie named Ginger. She died on the night of my son’s high school graduation while he was at the senior lock-in and I was a volunteer mom helping out. In the picture below, you might recognize my mom from last week. The boy holding Ginger is the future graduate.

After Ginger died, we were all so very sad and my husband wasn’t convinced that we should get another dog. Our youngest daughter had already been nagging us for a puppy before Ginger died, so she kept up her online search of rescue puppies. My son said if we were going to get another dog, to please do it before he started college so that he and the dog would have time to know each other. I got onboard, but I kept looking for shelties to rescue because Ginger was such a sweetheart.

My daughter found a young poodle online that looked like a good candidate, so I called the rescue group about him. The rescue group had a “meet the pups” event scheduled, so we went to meet him. Unfortunately, we just didn’t “click” with Freeway. We sat there on the floor with a room full of dogs and people hoping to make a match. Our match was not there.

A volunteer came over and sat with us. She had questions:
Had we had a dog before?
Did I work outside the home resulting in long periods of time with no one at home?
Did we have other pets?
Were there younger children at home?
Yes. No. No. No.

She called to another volunteer to join us and told us that there was another dog that they had not yet made public because she was so young. They were looking for the right family for her. Would we be interested in meeting her?

Why yes, since you think we are the perfect family!

She told us that she was fostering the little puppy in her home. A sixteen-year-old girl bought the puppy for $200 out of the back of a pick up. When she got the puppy home, it wouldn’t eat. The girl and her father took the puppy to a vet who told them that the puppy was too young to have been separated from her mother and needed to be bottle fed. The dad convinced his daughter to relinquish her and that’s how the puppy ended up with the rescue group.

We arranged a time for the foster mom to bring the puppy (a poodle) to our house so we could meet her. We fell in love with her tiny cuteness. The foster mom bragged about how smart she was. She was so young, but had already learned how to use the doggy stairs to get up on their couch! Her husband worked at home, so he spent hours holding the puppy and was really attached to her. They had given her the name Zsa Zsa.

Zsa Zsa sounded like she might already be a wee bit spoiled.

By now, Zsa Zsa could eat solid food so we arranged a two-week trial adoption. My daughter and I drove to the nearby shopping mall where we had agreed to meet the foster mom in the parking lot by Sears.

Zsa Zsa seemed excited to see us, and the foster mom was sad to see her go because she had become so attached to her. She left us with a pink fleece blanket and said maybe it would be a special blanket to her. I vaguely remember meeting up with the foster mom at an emergency vet not long after – I don’t remember the circumstance – and her former mom brought a toy for her.

Zsa Zsa was so tiny (1.6 pounds if I remember correctly), that I went all around the house and yard blocking spaces that she might slip into or out through and get into trouble. The space between the refrigerator and the wall. The space between the gate and the fence. The spaces in the wrought iron gate. The space between the piano and the wall. We kept a close eye on her outside because she could have slipped between the spaces in the chain link fence and I could imagine a big predatory bird flying off with her.

The foster mom told us that Zsa Zsa slept in a crate at night with no problem. I think she lied. Zsa Zsa sure put up a ruckus when we put her in her crate that night, carrying on and on and on. My daughter wanted the puppy to sleep in her room, but when she got no sleep, we put her in our room the second night. My husband couldn’t take it, so he took her out of the crate and put her in bed with us. I was not pleased. We did sleep, though.

The name Zsa Zsa didn’t really fit her personality. Too frou frou, we thought. We tossed around names for a couple of days and finally settled on Lola.

Lola was never reserved or shy. She believed everyone should know and love her. It was her life’s purpose to make it so. She loudly proclaimed her desire to love and be loved every time someone new entered her space.

Lola was so young when we got her that she had not been vaccinated. The first time I took her to the vet there were quite a few people and pets in the waiting room. I did not want her down and exploring since she hadn’t had her shots, so I kept her on my lap. Lola made a lot of noise. It was embarrassing. When we were finally called back, the vet tech said, “She sounds like she is in pain. I should get the vet to check her out.” “No,” I assured her, “She just wanted to get to all of the people in the room. She’ll be fine now.” Lola had stopped wailing and focussed her attention on the vet tech, confirming my diagnosis.

As Lola grew, she began to get shaggy and needed grooming.

I took her to the groomer we had used for Ginger. When I picked her up, the groomer suggested that we be very regular with her grooming so Lola would get accustomed to it. The second time I took her, the groomer called me to come for her before she was even finished. I knew she wanted Lola out the door as soon as possible. Obviously, the groomer was not a fan of Lola’s loud protests at being crated and wanting attention. Also, I said something about Lola being a poodle. “This is no poodle!” she said with disdain in her voice. “I breed poodles and this is no poodle. This is a bichon.”

We never went back to that groomer.

Zsa Zsa the poodle was now Lola the bichon.

And the man who thought we shouldn’t get another dog was smitten.

Just like Zsa Zsa’s foster father before him, my husband spent a lot of time holding Lola and became very attached to her.

We signed the adoption contract on October 28, 2007.

We were a match.

Dog tales, I’m guessing, at Sepia Saturday this week. Walk on over and meet a few more of man’s best friends.