The Cafarellas Arrive

An elderly gentleman in Santa Marina Salina once told me that he remembered my grandmother well. Of course she had been dead for at least ten years at the time and this man was somewhat younger. I really think he was referring to Josephine, still a bit of a stretch, or some other young woman of the family. He did however have enough facts about being sent to Naples to live with an Uncle, that I knew he at least had the right family.
He said that the Cafarellas always had the best wine and honey. Unfortunately we were heading to the ferry to leave and I did not have time to pursue this line of inquiry. He was not there last time I asked for him.

So, I gather from this that the Cafarellas had a shop. They probably produced and also sold honey and Wine. It is probably pretty safe to say that they had capers, olives, almonds and raisins for sale. In looking at the records available so far, I have seen very few notations of ship ownership for the Cafarellas, though some Cafarellas captained ships for others.
We know that Gaetano, my great-great-grandfather was a shoemaker, probably in Capofaro. He could have had other occupations as well, but that is what was listed.

Giuseppe and his family would be the ones facing the rigors of the changes in fortune on the island.

Giuseppe and his wife Rosa(perhaps Maria Rosa) Cusolito Cafarella had six sons and one daughter that we are aware of.

Gaetano(Tom) was the first to arrive in Malden from Salina by way of Ellis Island.
Gaetano arrived in 1898 aboard the He arrived in Malden about one year later. The rest of the brothers arrived over the next few years. Giuseppe and Rosa Cafarella arrived with their daughter Maria Giuseppa in 1913.

Early on, the family home was at 54 Sterling St in Malden. ‘Tom’ and the rest of the family lived upstairs and Bert, Tony, Aunt Joe …and their father and mother lived downstairs.

In 1923, Gaetano built a home on a couple of lots directly behind the Sterling St home, at 54 Chester St. and that became the family home, and still is. Mary, Gaetano's daughter, still lives there as of this writing.

Soon after, Aunt Jo, uncles Tony, Bert and their mother, Rosa, moved to 8 Biltmore St in Malden. Joe, had died in 1923 while at their home on Sterling St. At some point, The house on Biltmore Street was taken for the football stadium and they purchased a house at 38/40 Judson Street., which is now occupied by Col. Joe and his wife Mary(upstairs) and his daughter Rosanne and her family, the Grecos.

Uncle Frank and Uncle Joe lived in their home on 52/54 Judson St in Malden.

Gaetano owned a fruit/variety store at 278 Pleasant St in Malden.(This is approximately at the north end of the parking lot for the MBTA station in Malden where it exits to the street. Gaetano married a distant cousin, Rosa Cincotta, and had six children. Rose, Mary, Col. Joe, Felix(killed in the war), Rudy and Elena.

Uncles Joe and Frank owned a fruit/variety store on the corner of Ferry and Eastern Ave in Malden. Uncles Bert and Tony owned a fruit/variety store at 523 Broadway in Everett. He married a distant cousin, Giovanna Cafarella. Joe was murdered in the store in 1924. Stories vary about this from protection gone wrong, simple robbery to Rosina's rejected lover shooting him in the heart. Uncle Joe had four daughters, Rosina, Jennie, Mary and Annie. Rosina married Jake Cincotta and lived much of their life on Ellis Street in Malden. They had Jennie and Anerio Cincotta.
Mary married Frank Santospirito then Richard Stewart, and had a daughter Joanne Stewart.

Giovanni(John) and Mary Cincotta Cafarella and all their children lived in a one-room cabin at the bottom of property Tom owned (it was called “the mount” on the Malden/Melrose line…adjoining the Middlesex Fells Reservation). The cabin was located on the left, at the bottom of the ”mount”, at the very end of Summer St Ext.
John had a barber shop on Wahington Street. Rosa died in 1942 within one day of her son John, and a wake was held for the two at the same time. Colonel Joe Cafarella tells of returning home on leave to find both his grandmother and his uncle laid out in the parlor.

Uncle Frank had one son by his marriage to Jennie Sangiolo (Her father Luigi was married to Giuseppa Cafarella and was also from Capofaro), Dr. Joseph L. Cafarella(Cardiologist), who had five children. He raised his children in Winchester Ma., and had a home in Falmouth on Cape Cod. His office was just up the street at the intersection of Highland Avenue and Pleasant Street on the south-west corner.

Aunt Jo, Uncles Bert and Tony never married. Bert died at home on Biltmore Street and Tony and Josephine lived into their nineties.