They Came By Ship

About the Book

They Came By Ship: The Stories of the Calitrani Immigrants in America is the product of the Internet Age which brought together people researching their roots to their ancestral town of Calitri in Southern Italy. They came to know one another and, in many cases, rekindled old friendships and discovered distant relatives in second and third cousins. They began sharing stories on the Net of the good old days, recalling neighborhoods where their parents and grandparents had settled after emigrating from Italy. These communities included Brooklyn, New Rochelle, Tarrytown, Dobbs Ferry, Batavia, Mount Vernon in New York; Montclair, Paterson, Newark in New Jersey; Stamford, Bridgeport, Torrington in Connecticut; Dunmore in Pennsylvania; Washington, DC and Pittsfield, MA. Their recollections proved to be so interesting and poignant to all that they needed to be set down in permanent form and preserved for future generations.

Mario Toglia of New York initiated this book project with Josephine Galgano Gore, Angela Cicoira Moloney, Fred Rabasca, Rick Morris and Mary Margotta Basile, descendents of original immigrants from Calitri. The book contains over 100 personal and biographical stories, which illustrate various aspects of the lives, traditions and customs of the Calitrani community within the Italian immigrant experience. Also included are several newspaper articles and obituaries, as well as a list of more than 4000 Calitrani names who settled in America.

About the Author

MARIO TOGLIA, the son of Calitribornimmigrants Ernest and Josephine (Codella) Toglia, grew up in Brooklyn, NY and attended local Catholic schools, including Fordham University School of Education. He taught Romance languages in the New York City public school system for some 33 years. Researching his family history was an avocation, done initially at a leisurely pace, but one that accelerated in the “Age of Computer Technology” once he retired. The collection of data expanded outward after he connected with fellow Calitrani descendents. Mr. Toglia acknowledged the ties that bound the Calitrani American community. “With all the material that I gathered,” he said, “it became obvious that it was my generation’s mission to honor and preserve the immigrant history and legacy of Calitri.” The end product was his fi rst book, They Came By Ship: The Stories of the Calitrani Immigrants in America. Mr. Toglia is a member of the Calitri American Cultural Group, the Italian American Studies Association and the Italian Genealogical Group. He currently resides on Long Island.