Ep 10 - Timing is Everything

We are getting to know the Nicolai family - their family has a story to tell - it's just getting started.   The complexities of immigration are on full display in this episode.  Listen in and see why Julia Roberts should listen too!!!  
Reach out with comments to Chasinghazelstales@gmail.com

Transcript

Kim: 0:03

Welcome back to Chasing Hazel's Tales, a family history podcast. And so here we are, 2023 and we are telling tales, and I haven't forgotten about my tea. I don't start a good conversation without a good cup of

Laura: 0:15

tea. And today is a good day for a cup of tea.

Kim: 0:18

Mm-hmm. it is storming in Maine. We don't call it storming. We call it storming. It's storming in Maine. Yeah. I. Some snow and I think Laura's is a little bit different.

Laura: 0:29

I've, I've got something, I'm not sure what it is. I think it's sleet but I'm just kinda looking out the window. We don't have to go anywhere today, so That's right. Let's, you know, let's call it just nasty. Yeah. It's just a yucky day and I just hope we keep power, that's all. That's

Kim: 0:44

right. So basically if we have a nice, smooth podcast, that means the power stayed on. If it's a little bit quirky, that means CMPs got problems. We don't have power, so that. In future, we can always just blame it on the on the power.

Laura: 1:02

Now we've laid that groundwork, so

Kim: 1:04

yeah, we're good. So from here in Maine, I'm Kim McLaughlin. And I'm

Laura: 1:08

Laura Ireland. And. You know, one of our favorite things to talk about is that show Finding Your Roots with Henry Lewis Gates Jr. So did you watch that first episode of the season?

Kim: 1:19

Of course I

Laura: 1:19

did. That was a dumb question. Yeah. Yeah. The one with Julia Roberts. So I just wanted to, just wanted to bring up, you know, she had a big surprise from her d n A results and that was that she's not actually a Roberts. and her her n p e or not parent expected was a few generations back. Her, this was her great, great grandfather who was not, he was not who they thought he was, so she seemed pretty surprised by this. And all I have to say is, Same girl. We, we had a very similar experience, so if you ever want to talk about it, we're here for you. And we can, we can help, I know, we can help That's right. We can help to process this kind of thing. And also we just, we have so much in common because the name of our grandmother, Hazel is the name of Julia's daughter. Just throwing that out there. That's right. So we're available. So if you're ever in Maine, Julia. Hit us up. We'd, we'd love to meet with you,

Kim: 2:20

We know of, we know some places

Laura: 2:22

we could go. That's right. We'll make you a cup of tea and we can talk. Bring

Kim: 2:25

the fam.

Laura: 2:26

That's right. All right. So you know, Just reminding everyone, as we said, Hazel is our grandmother that we never met. And her, her short life is now much clearer to us after learning all the things we did through D n A and going through all of Uncle Carl's stuff and honestly doing this podcast, kind of organizing all of our thoughts and looking through more and, and understanding. So considering that we knew nothing in the beginning you know, I consider this a big win for us. We've,

Kim: 2:56

we've learned a lot. We're doing good. And we, I could say we know a lot about her now.

Laura: 3:01

That's true. And every week here we say, we'll let you know if there's anything new. So this week we are excited to say that there is gonna be something new. This week we're gonna be heading to meet up with some folks. That knew the family way back when. We have somebody, a listener in her nineties who knew our grandmother and knew our aunt, and they wanna meet up and talk with us so that they can tell us some tales. So, you know, fingers crossed this is gonna be a great meeting, right?

Kim: 3:37

Well, I can't wait. I, I want to, I need to like draw a chart for where they fall. they have relatives and everything there too, and I wanna figure it out. So we'll be prepared when we show up. We're gonna That's right. We're gonna, we have questions. That's right. We're gonna prep our questions and, and we're, we're gonna get down to it

Laura: 3:57

and I'm just gonna be so happy to hear what she knows. Right. What the, what they know, Right. And,

Kim: 4:03

and, and talk about her life too. She has a very interesting life as well. Oh, I'm sure. So, yep. Yeah, it's gonna be, it's gonna be a rich weekend. Yes. Even though we didn't win Mega Millions, somebody in Maine won mega million. It wasn't us. Here we are

Laura: 4:17

honestly though they're barely In Maine, it was Lebanon, Maine, which is right on the New Hampshire border. Could've been someone from New Hampshire. Skip it across It could have been. Could have been.

Kim: 4:24

So, but anyway, it happened in Maine. Yeah. And it wasn't us. Yep, that's right. But also, I wanna say we have a listener in Maine that's pretty sure that he could come to any one of our dinners and keep up with all this conversation because he's been pretty loyal to listening. And if anybody could do. That's, that's an accomplishment. So we wanna make a shout out to David, and kudos to

Laura: 4:46

you. So, and, maybe we will invite him.

Kim: 4:49

Yeah. You never know. So now we're gonna kind of talk about Salvador. We're, we're onto a different little story right now. Salvador Nikolai in his life. So he started, of course in Montefiascone, Italy, and he was born on April 18th, 1895. And I may have neglected to say that last week, just that he was from Italy, but it's Montefiascone, Italy. And he was the son of Domenico Nicolai and Lucrezia Scorsino. They had five other children, three sons and two daughters, and Scorsino. Over the, over all the different documents I've seen is pronounced and spelled different ways, but Scorsino is what was listed on Salvador's birth certificate. So I'm going with that. That's source of that spelling. So I don't know. It could be different, but not that I'm aware of.

Laura: 5:36

Okay. And last week we went over Salvador coming to the United States in 1912, and that there was a lot happening in Italy in the early 19 hundreds. As we mentioned, many natural disasters in the forms of earthquakes in the South. Montefiascone. I drank some Italian wine last night, so I'm feeling So Italian It's located about 60 miles north of Rome. It, it's, so, it's probably in the middle really neither north or south. And there's family lore that mentions he came to the US as his family was worried about war on the horizon. He wasn't married and was encouraged to head west to the United States, so they weren't wrong. It wasn't long after he left that war broke out pretty close by. So they saw that writing on the wall and world War I came along, wasn't it 1918? Yeah. Around. Started real close there, right in the Balkans. Yeah. And the town ended up being damaged by a couple of, the town of Montefiascone was damaged by a couple of allied bombs in May of 1944. So I'm sure that was all very difficult for the family that remained. right? Very careful. But apparently the town is amazing and you know, people should go visit if they can or check it out online and but if you can go and visit and enjoy some really good food, great wine, and some awesome people, Yep, I

Kim: 7:08

can. I could attest to that. It was a great place to be. That's

Laura: 7:12

right. So last week we talked about how he came to the US and began his life here, seemingly heading toward the American dream. He is working in the trades, applied for naturalization, and he found a young woman that would become his wife, Ruth Elizabeth Broad, and they were married in 1923. Right. So, and

Kim: 7:33

here's, here's last week we mentioned Salvatore and Ruth had four children from 1924 to 1927. And Laura made a note, well, geez, that's one per year And I thought, darn Tootin, it didn't really set on me, settle on me, but I thought, oh yeah, that's one per year. That's four children under the age of four. You know, in four years af after four years. So that's a busy little household. And the young family, the young family lived at 1 61 Coney Street, East Walpole, Massachusetts. I said last week that they lived in Norwood, which is one place where they, they had lived I think as well. So, and they're a right side by side, but they settled in East Walpole in a small, little family home. And basically if you're headed to Gillette Stadium, You, you drive right by. It's just, it's,

Laura: 8:22

oh, I'll be going this summer. Are you? Yeah. Yeah. I have concert

Kim: 8:26

tickets. All right. So if you're going, if you're going to Gillette Stadium, you go right by and it's just south of Boston, but it's not Southie. I wanna make sure it's not, that would require a totally different accent. yes. Yeah. One that I cannot reproduce.

Laura: 8:43

yeah. And if anybody doesn't know about Southie, it's a heavily Irish. Area of south of

Kim: 8:48

Boston? Very much so. Yeah. Very much so. Yes.

Laura: 8:51

Yeah. So while this was going on in the US around 1923 in Italy, Salvatore's youngest brother Consalvo, just 17 or 18, was also emigrating to a foreign land. But this brother didn't go to the us, he went to Argentina. When I inquired as to the reason he didn't join his brother in the US it is said that his mother hadn't heard from Salvador in a long time and worried what happened to him. So it was decided that Consalvo would go to Argentina with his cousin Jose Burla. Jose's mother was a Nikolai and she was the sister of Salvador's father Domenico. So at least the two of them had each other to navigate Argentine life. So out of the six children, two sons had emigrated to new homes, and the last remained in Italy at that time. We'll get back to Consalvo later. He's pretty important to our story too. Yes.

Kim: 9:50

One thought I when, when I first was looking, looking into this, I thought Consalvo, you know, he was years later coming or immigrating since Salvatore. And so I thought maybe he couldn't get in because of, of

Laura: 10:02

like quotas

Kim: 10:02

or something. Like quotas. They had, they had topped out on their quotas for Italians and they had pretty strict quotas. And if you right, they're coming across that ocean and your boat has too many, you get shipped out to somewhere else and they just take those people either home or to mm-hmm. or back or to another country, probably Argentina. So that was one thing I. Thought about, but I, it turns out that Salvator's mother was worried because she hadn't heard from Salvatore in a long time. Hmm. So she didn't wanna send Consalvo the same way. So she sent him to Argentina with her cousin. Anyway, that's just kind of weird, like, and I'm not, and I'm not so sure it's not a combination of both those things, but anyway. Right. You know, Salvatore went one way. Consalvo went another So life was just beginning for this family of six when an unfortunate illness struck Salvador. He contracted bronchial pneumonia in May of 1928 when his youngest daughter was just eight months old. He later had surgery on May 21st. And on June 10th, 1928 at 11:45 PM. Salvatore passed away from empyema of the lungs. The death certificate said he contracted the disease at home. And empyema is defined by purulent fluid collection in the plural space, which is most commonly caused by pneumonia. And I've seen modern versions of surgery to treat this, and it's just mm-hmm. it's just problematic all the way around. Of course, it's your lungs. It's,

Laura: 11:24

and even today, it makes a person very, very sick.

Kim: 11:27

Very sick. Like I said, it's like the, the modern version is still. problematic, right? And it's not a, it's not a quick and easy cure. So, and basically antibiotics and surgery can be, you know, the way to treatment today. But that's, it's always best, you know, to get it early. And who knows, in 1928, I'm probably sure that

Laura: 11:45

that didn't happen. But yeah, I, I wouldn't know what they would've treated it with then. I don't know. No,

Kim: 11:50

he, well, they tried surgery, so it did say that on May 21st. Oh, that's right. And so it, one of the places that I was reading they said they might do, you know, some sort of thoracentesis, maybe. Mm-hmm. historically, but I don't even know if that's what they did. They just said he had surgery on 5 21. So whatever it was they did. They did, they did attempt to help him. Yeah.

Laura: 12:10

But it just. Couldn't happen. Yep. Hmm. So this was June, 1928 that he passed away from the bronchial pneumonia event in September of 1928 at St. Mary's Hospital in London. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, so that discovery led to the introduction of antibiotics and greatly reduce the number of deaths from infection. but you know, this wasn't antibiotics weren't widely used until the 1940s, but you know, you just imagine if it had been available in 1928 how this young father with all his, his family's growing family, you know, they it life would've been different. Right. And,

Kim: 12:50

Yeah, like timing, right? Timing is everything. Mm-hmm. if he'd just been in, in the antibiotic

Laura: 12:57

era. Right. Different era. Mm-hmm. Right.

Kim: 12:59

So just imagine if you will, a young Ruth Elizabeth mother to four children under four. She just lost her husband, so she had no family near. He had no family nearby, and she buried her husband in St. Francis Cemetery in Walpole, mass. It's a lovely, elegant headstone that looks like it had room for the spouse's name. So did she intend on staying in Walpole, maybe in adding her name with his or did officials assume she was gonna stay? I don't know, but the stone was really pretty and it looked like it had room for more, for more people. So I, I, I don't know. Those circumstances. Yeah.

Laura: 13:39

So, you know, one of the difficult things for her was that she was not, Ruth was not a citizen of the United States, but the children were. So how was she gonna manage four children and pay for it and you know, and where, you know, and with most women of the time, it would probably be important or necessary to remarry. So hard to know all the resources that she might have had, but it seemed as though her best choice was to head back to Canada where there might be help to raise her children in familiar areas and with family. So according to recollections passed on by her son Philip, they moved back in 1928. So they didn't wait long. They, she, yeah, headed right back with her kids. You know, where they lived in Beachwood and Homeville in New Brunswick, and that's just across the border of, with the US near Presque Isle, Maine. Okay, so Ruth's sister Irma lived just across the border in Weston. So, and Ruth went on to remarry twice, first to Edward Kearney in 1929. There's not much known about him or that marriage, but at some point they were no longer married and then she married James Jackson, date unknown, but they were together in the latter half of the thirties and had a daughter, Marilyn Rose, born 8th of July, 1936. Ruth was now a beautiful mother to one son and four daughter. what could go wrong? Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. that's a bad question

Kim: 15:13

to ask. That's what I was gonna say. It. If your heart couldn't break anymore for children, for these children, when they lost their dad, they're now about to lose their mom. So Ruth was under the care of her doctor from July 1st, 1936, and then she gave birth July 8th to Marilyn. But during this time, she was diagnosed with measles. And broncho pneumonia, which on July 21st, 1936, brought about her the immediate cause of her death, which was acute phythsis, which means tuberculosis. How sick. I can't imagine those weeks. How sick she must have been. So she, she was, you know, sick enough that the doctor was treating her, but then she gave birth and then it got worse. And all because of these contributing factors, which were measles which is, I, I wasn't quite sure. Her acute, her immediate cause of death was acute pthisis, which means tuberculosis. But also they mentioned measles as well. So did she have them both or was pthisis another way of saying measles? I don't. Yeah. All I know is there's a lot of stuff going on in there, and that's, that's, she has to be so sick. I just don't, I, and again, timing is everything. Now we have treatments for these things. Mm-hmm. and and vaccinations and whatnot. But these things can be treated, but probably not. Then, you know, there's nothing that they could do but to, to, you know, help her as best they could.

Laura: 16:44

So, you know, this is just another, another thing that we've come to describe as sad facts. Mm-hmm. just the things that make you go, ugh. You know? And your heart aches for their suffering. and knowing now there's ways to prevent and treat these things. It just, it just makes you wonder, you know, what if, what if Salvador had been able to get penicillin? What if Ruth could have been treated for her pneumonia or vaccinated for measles when she was young? You know, we can all lament how different life would be if timing had been better. I think when it's your ancestor, it just hits you different and you really, you really think about it a lot more, I think.

Kim: 17:22

Right? You can connect, you can connect to the, you, you know what measles are, you know what tuberculosis is, and, and mothers dying early in, in childbirth and things like that. And you

Laura: 17:32

understand how hard the lives were of those who. we're still here and had to figure out how to go on without them. Right.

Kim: 17:40

And that's just a big double whammy. Mm-hmm. So so here's a, here's a thought, you know, next week we're gonna talk about the Nicolai children. Okay. You know there's now some young children that don't have parents. So we'll discuss. Their mom and their dad just considered that their father was Italian. Their mother was Canadian, and they were American. You know how to, how to manage all that and get in the right place and where you can be part of the, part of the community or the citizenship. Mm-hmm. right? They had no, you know, they were American

Laura: 18:15

Right? So, so what do you do?

Kim: 18:19

Yep. So one thing, just, this is just a little tidbit. Side note. When I, when I in investigated Italian citizenship The four children because of the timeframe that they were born and because of their father never did reach naturalization. They were considered Italian citizens being born on foreign soil. So they could have been, they, they would've been dual citizens, I believe. And I, I could research it further, but there were some different changes in laws and things that anyway, so those children, were Italian, so they were, but they, but nobody would've known that probably at the time and Right with the dad gone and they didn't know their Italian family. How would they have known that? But for one things for sure they were American, which is just, this is, you know, it's just a, puts a, a heavy twist on everything. So that's next week, that's where we're gonna go cuz there's some really great stories that happen to these children. Once, you know, once they. Have lost their parents. They, they persevered. And let's talk about that perseverance and carry on with that topic next week. So until then, why not give us a shout? Look for us on social media. We're out there and tell all your friends about the family history stories you're hearing here on chasing Hazel's Tales. You can email us at chasinghazelstales@gmail.com. We hope you have a great.

Laura: 19:43

And hope everybody keeps their power, at least at least those in Maine that are listening to us. That's

Kim: 19:49

right. We hope you stay

Laura: 19:50

saved. That's right. All

Kim: 19:52

right. We'll see you next week. All

Laura: 19:54

right. Goodbye. Good bye.