Mahoningtown’s main street, Liberty Avenue, circa 1913 with a trolley rolling down the middle of the street.
By John J. Russo, St. Jude Lodge
Back in the day Italian immigrants established enclaves in cities big and small across the U.S., and the Keystone State was no exception. Smaller cities in Western Pennsylvania, like Jeanette and New Castle, were heavily populated by Italian families. I grew up in New Castle in the 1950s and ‘60s where about half the city’s residents were of Italian descent.
In 1895, my father’s family settled in a borough just south of New Castle known as Mahoningtown, which was established in 1836 and later annexed by New Castle in 1898, making it the city’s seventh ward. Mahoningtown is located on the banks of the Mahoning River, and the Pennsylvania railroad ran directly through the area. The railroad provided employment opportunities for many of the residents. My great-grandfather, grandfather and several great uncles worked on the railroad, all starting at early ages. My grandfather was just 14 when he began on the railroad, and he worked 48 years for it until his death at age 62.
This article first appeared in La Nostra Voce, ISDA’s monthly newspaper that chronicles Italian American news, history, culture and traditions. Subscribe today.
Mahoningtown is about a square mile in size, and many Italian immigrants lived close by. My great-grandparents, Nicola and Maria Russo, emigrated from the province of Caserta in Italy from a very small town known as Baia e Latina. They were married in New Castle in 1895 and were part of the mass migration to America, known as the “Great Arrival,” which took place between the 1880s and 1920s. Typical of the chain migration occurring in that era, many of their family members and friends also migrated from Caserta to Mahoningtown to share language, culture and food, and to seek out work.
I visited Baia e Latina in 2005, a town of about 2,000 residents, and it reminded me of Mahoningtown in terms of the size and ethnicity. While there, my cousins took me to the local cemetery where I saw many of the same last names that can be found today in Mahoningtown’s St. Lucy’s Cemetery.
Mahoningtown, while small even in better days, had its own shopping center several blocks long that featured grocery stores and pharmacies, a movie house (The Crescent), several banquet halls and St. Lucy’s Catholic Church.
My paternal great-grandparents had 11 children, but only three lived to reach adulthood and get married. Several died at childbirth. One drowned at age 6 in 1912 in the nearby Mahoning River. In 1921, my grandfather married my grandmother who grew up just a few blocks away — the two had known each other since their youth.
My grandfather had to support his family of seven. He had a garden and chicken coop in the backyard. Besides using the chickens for eggs, my grandfather also slaughtered them for food during hard times. I recall as a youngster a hook in the backyard where the chickens (and rabbits) were hung to bleed out during the Great Depression. My grandfather worked a second job as a gravedigger in the evenings for the cemetery and bought a plot for 16 graves in 1936 where many of my lineage is buried. The second income was needed to raise and feed the large family, which had grown since he took in his mother and mother-in-law after their husbands died.
While New Castle had a heavy Italian American population, Mahoningtown was commonly known as Little Italy. A fellow paesano, Ralph Lombardo, recalls living in Mahoningtown for several years during the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s.
“I remember many homes where a panoramic picture of what looked like the entire community was sitting at dinner,” Lombardo said. “The social clubs were very important in those days. Both the Columbus Club and the Saint Margherita’s Club were gathering places, mostly for the men, with a bar that served on Sundays (in the days of the blue laws), and a bocce court. Weddings and special dinners were held in the clubs. Both clubs sponsored street carnivals, parades, and fireworks in the summer.”
Resident Robert Stull wrote a poem about the town which starts like this, “In a small city, with two traffic lights, you could walk from end to end, windows wide open, doors never locked. Growing up in this town, with little to fear, we always had something to do, out until dark, and sometimes beyond. But our parents did know who was who. We were among all our family and friends.”
Living in a small Italian community meant everyone knew who you were and who your parents were. My dad had told me years ago that it was hard to stay undiscovered if you did something wrong.
New Castle in the first part of the 19th century did not look favorably upon the Italian residents and their surnames. Many of the wealthier residents lived on the city’s North Hill, where few Italians lived. My grandfather had long aspired to leave Mahoningtown and move on up to the North Hill. He was finally able to do that in 1962, but alas, he died the very next year at age 62.
Italian enclaves of the early 20th century did not have much glamour, as the working-class population struggled to put food on the table and clothe their children. My grandparents had 8th grade educations and always wanted their children as Americans to have a better life than they had. My parents graduated from high school, and like their parents, wanted their children to surpass their own accomplishments.
From a young age, my parents had impressed upon me and my siblings to graduate high school and enter college. I was fortunate to have hard working parents and grandparents to enjoy a good life as a third-generation Italian American and thankful for the blessing of being born into a family with great values. Our roots were based on values found in the Italian American enclaves, such as Mahoningtown.
This is the fourth in a series of articles featuring Little Italies in the United States.
