13 Sep Roncalli Family
Roncalli family
I was always interested in my Italian heritage. Even though I am a mix of French Canadian, German and Italian, the Italian part captured my interest the most. During my bachelor’s degree, I studied Italian and spent one semester abroad living on a campus near Castel Gandolfo outside of Rome. It was during that time that I taught English for the first time, as a volunteer tutor at a small primary school in Marino. That was a really special time in my life: living on a vineyard, exploring Italy, drinking lots of espressos and eating every flavor of gelato. It set me on a path to continue traveling the world teaching English.
I knew some people in my family, like my uncle Ed, had done a lot of research on our family history, and I felt proud to know something about where my family came from. Still, until recently, I didn’t know much.
My own Roncalli memories are only of my grandmother, Jean Ann Roncalli Poulin. I remember holidays with her, and how she used to cut out the paper angels from junk mail to paste them on our Christmas and Easter presents. She liked to personalize things for us, and she never let anything go to waste. She also lived with us for a while, and we used to sit on the back deck of our house in the sunshine, enjoying the birds and trees.
Jean Ann Roncalli Poulin – 08/14/1999
Jean’s father was Antonio, and her grandfather was Egisto Roncalli, who was born in Italy. Her grandmother was Pasquina Medarda Tura. Unfortunately, no one in my family was in close contact with any Roncalli’s other than my grandmother, and the connection to any relatives in Italy was lost. There was a persistent story that we might be related to Pope John XXIII, who shares the Roncalli name, and some evidence that pointed towards that, but never a clear link. Still, I think this name made us feel more connected to our Italian heritage.
I asked my dad and my uncle Ed to share their memories and stories about the Roncalli family.
Here’s what my dad, Gerald Poulin, shared:
“Our grandmother Jaqueline was married to Tony Roncalli, Egisto’s son, long enough to bear two children by him – Jean, our mom, and James, our Uncle. I have only one memory of James. He came to visit his mother on Quaker road in East Forest Park, Springfield, while my older brother and I were staying with Jaqueline for a while.
I think that during James’ visit there was an eclipse of the sun – I remember everybody in the neighborhood being outside and looking at the sky. Could have been around 1960 or so, though I might be confusing this with a later visit to Grandma Jackie.
I recall only two visits with Antonio “Tony” Roncalli, one at our house on Dubois Street in Indian Orchard, and one at Tony’s house in Springfield. My memory of Tony’s visit to us is dim; the only thing that I recall from it is that he removed his glass eye and put it on the table. Us kids were very impressed. The visit to his house was somewhat more memorable. Tony was an early electronics buff. He operated a ham radio, by which he could communicate with other radio operators over vast distances. I remember the tall radio antenna attached to the back of his house. He also had a tape recorder, a large reel-to-reel machine which he demonstrated to us kids. I was so impressed with it that I asked for (and got) my own small portable tape recorder for my birthday.
I do remember one other Roncalli [this probably would have been Armando Roncalli] who used to deliver heating oil to our house on Dubois Street. I think he was referred to as my great-Uncle. He worked for the Fox Oil Company.”
An older Antonio Roncalli, probably from the early 1970’s.
My uncle, Ed Poulin, had a longer story about his deep dive into our family history. I’ve shortened it a bit for this archive:
“It all started with Matilda Roncalli. Well, actually, for me it all started back in the late 1990’s when I came across an old bible in my wife’s grandparents’ attic. That set me off on the genealogical journey that has yet to stop. In the bible were written many marriages, births, and deaths for one side of her family and I was hooked by the fact that there was a continuous chain of family events, that someone or some group of people had taken the time to record them. Not having much of a history to my family (or so I believed) I thought that I could pursue my wife’s genealogy because much of her family was New England based. Once I reached a stubborn stopping point, I turned to looking at my side of the family. I knew my mom, Jean Ann Roncalli, and my dad, Kenneth Poulin. That’s about it. I gathered from [my brother] Mike and probably my brother Jerry that our maternal grandfather was Antonio Roncalli and his parents were Egisto Roncalli and Medarda Tura.
In the 1990’s, genealogy online was just beginning, and sources were extremely limited. So, for genealogy, hoof work was the way to get things done. There were some centralized National Archives places where you could go to read the census microfilms, scrolling and scrolling and scrolling until you found, by chance or educated guess, what you were looking for. You were aided by what was known as the Soundex System. Simply, it was a system that turned surnames into a code. For Roncalli, it was R524. You would look up on microfilm for all of the R524 cards and skim through them looking for all instances of Roncalli. You see, it wasn’t a perfect system and R524 would stand for other phonetically similar surnames so there were often a LOT of cards. If you found one that said Roncalli the card would tell you what microfilm to look at to view the census page that had that person on it. It was laborious but it’s all we had. By around 2000 you could look at censuses online through Ancestry.com and they had it indexed so it made it much easier. The latest census available at that time was the 1920 US census.”
The online records led my uncle to more details about Egisto and Medarda Roncalli. Egisto had sailed from Genova, Italy on October 24th, 1901, and arrived at Ellis Island on November 17th. The ticket cost him just $30. His last residence was recorded as Cento, Italy. Egisto first settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts and worked at the cordage factory there. Medarda joined him sometime around 1902, and together they had nine children in all. Their children were Antonio James, Antoinette Veronica, Ferdinando Robert, Vertuno Anthony, Matilda Theresa, Alberto Alphonse, Armando Louis, Olga Marie, and Norma Ida.
Eventually, my uncle Ed somehow got in touch with Egisto’s fifth child, Matilda. “I ended up talking to Matilda on the phone on New Year’s Day of 2001 and she gave me a rundown of the Roncalli family,” recalls Ed. “She was a lively sounding 88-year-old and she was happy to talk about her huge family.” One of Matilda’s sons had already interviewed his mother and written down the family history in a document: “A Narrative History of the Roncalli Family by Matilda Perkins Blumenauer (Roncalli).” This narrative proved to be an invaluable source of history and stories. Regarding Egisto and Medarda’s arrival and settlement in Massachusetts, Ed heard various versions of events:
“As family lore goes, [Egisto] got off the boat, put down his bags, asked someone for directions, turned around, and someone had stolen his luggage – all of his belongings, including his ID papers and passport, were gone! The true details of this story are a little in question, but I imagine it’s not a made-up story and really happened to the unfortunate fellow.
Per Matilda, both of her parents were from well off families in Italy. She said that her mother lived in Italy and met Egisto in Italy and had a big crush on him when she was 10 years old but that nothing came of it until later in America. As she put it, the Roncalli’s and Tura’s immigrated separately and the young Medarda chanced upon Egisto in a Plymouth, Massachusetts cordage factory. They ended up falling in love and marrying after this chance meeting. However, Matilda gave a different version to her biographer. In the biography she said that Medarda did not know Egisto, had a boyfriend in Italy but that she never heard from him, gave up on him, and decided to marry Egisto instead. As the story goes, she got a telegram from this man on the day of her marriage to Egisto and, presumably, ignored it. Whatever the real story, Egisto and Medarda married in Plymouth, Massachusetts on February 7, 1904.
On the marriage certificate Egisto was listed as born in Italy. His mother was Antonietta Merlo and his father was simply listed as Antonio. His occupation was Operator. Italian born Medarda, listed as Pasquina, was also an Operator and her parents were given as Metilde Tonini and Desiderio [Tura].
Desiderio Tura and his wife Matilde Tonini, circa 1899. The daughter (standing) is Medarda. The youngest son is Luigi (aka Louis) and the older one is Roberto. Medarda’s brother Alphonse immigrated to the US in 1893 and would not be in this photo which would have been taken in Italy after he had left.
After their marriage, Egisto and Medarda left Plymouth and moved first to Holyoke, and then to Springfield:
“The couple must not have loved the cordage factory or, perhaps, a better opportunity presented itself in the Springfield area. I found Egisto listed in the 1905 Plymouth Directory at 395 Court (now gone) but by 1908 he was listed at 16 Cabot [St] in Holyoke, Massachusetts. He was listed as a papermaker and, true, Holyoke was a huge paper manufacturing place at that time. There are still some paper companies there along the Connecticut River and there are many large buildings that are still standing that clearly used to be factories. In the 1910 census they were at 18 Cabot Street with their three children. Egisto was still making paper while pregnant Medarda must have had her hands full raising the kids.
Egisto Roncalli with his family circa 1909. The children from left to right are Ferdinando, Antoinette, and Antonio.
Soon after the 1910 census was taken they must have moved to Sprague Street in West Springfield. Matilda said that she had to bus to West Springfield later in life to get a birth certificate. It appears that her older brother Verturno was born in West Springfield in 1910 while she was born there in 1913.
With the ever-expanding family they had moved by 1916 to one story of the two-tenement houses at 76 Lowell [St] in Springfield. Both places still exist today. Matilda did say that the family was initially doing OK but that things got tougher for them later on.
In 1918 he was still on Lowell Street and working at the Powers Paper Co. At this time there were two significant world events. The first was World War I. Egisto, having been born in 1872, would have been too old for the US draft. His daughter Matilda’s Narrative stated that he put his name into a hat in Italy for the draft, but it wasn’t picked. The other event was the Great Influenza epidemic of 1918. Luckily, the whole family survived this particularly gruesome epidemic. And Springfield was a center for its spread because of the factories and its proximity to Fort Devons where WWI helped spread it so vociferously. Keeping your whole family of nine alive was quite the feat.
By 1920 Egisto was listed as a laborer and the family had moved down the street to 92 Lowell St and they were still there according to the 1924 Directory. By 1926, the children Antonio and Antoinette were also listed separately, perhaps because they were over 18. The building they all lived in appears to have been replaced. This is not surprising as Matilda noted that the flood of 1927 had forced them to move to Massasoit St. Sure enough, I found them at 146 Massasoit in the Springfield Directory and in the 1930 census. Sticking to his craft, he was a helper at a paper mill.
Egisto Roncalli and all of his children at Look Park Springfield circa 1940: Top row: Armando, Alberto, Vertunno, Antonio, Ferdinando. Bottom Row: Olga, Norma, Antoinette, Matilda.
In 1931, Egisto was not listed with any occupation. He would have been near 60 by then and likely had retired. Matilda suggested he worked at the Kibbie Candy Company and also did some baling on Lyman Street before retiring. Her mother did sewing jobs for the wealthy in Longmeadow and for the Spaulding Company on tennis balls to help with the family finances. By 1935 the boys were moving out (and presumably some of the girls) and the list of Roncalli’s was growing in America. Sadly, Medarda died suddenly on May 9, 1936, at the early age of 54. Egisto followed many years later on May 9, 1949. They are both buried in St Michael’s Cemetery on State St in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Matilda’s testament to this Roncalli family in America makes for better reading about the trials of living in America as an immigrant. When we talk to the old people in the family, we tend to not think of them as people like ourselves with interesting or varied lives with their own issues. We just think, “they’re old.” Matilda really paints the older generation with a vibrant paintbrush. I think we can all be thankful that her story and, by extension, Egisto’s and Medarda’s stories now exist on paper forever.
After my daughter was born, I felt it was especially a worthwhile mission to find out my origins. She and her younger brother will now be able to know where they came from, what makes them what they are, and not have that somewhat family-less feeling that I used to have all those years ago.”
For my part, reading my family history and talking to my relatives about it, I feel grateful that so many different stories and perspectives have been preserved. Since contacting Cento, I have come to know more about Egisto and Medarda’s relatives in Italy. I learned that Egisto had six siblings: Itala, Vittorio Ulisse, Armando, Ferdinando Francesco, Vertunno Giuolio, and Aida Maria. Medarda also had six siblings: Primo Giuseppe, Alfonso Gaetano, Medardo, Ruggero, Albonea, and Luigi Albano. I also learned that Antoino, Egisto’s father, was a primary school teacher like me.
It seems like the Roncalli’s and Tura’s were large families, and although many of them emigrated abroad, I hope to find more stories from relatives still living in Italy. Hopefully I can go to Cento to reconnect with my roots.
Egisto Roncalli
Amanda Poulin
Great-great granddaughter of Egisto Roncalli
Sources:
A Narrative History of the Roncalli Family by Matilda Perkins Blumenauer (Roncalli).
Multiple document compilations and narratives by Ed Poulin
Personal correspondence from Gerald Poulin
Personal memories
Birth, marriage, and death certificates
Ship’s manifest
US Census records