Sepia Saturday 600. Twenty-second in a photo blog series on my maternal Italian ancestors from Gloversville, Fulton Co., N.Y.
By the time the 1920 federal census1FamilySearch requires free login to view records. was taken, my great-grandparents Peter and Mary (Curcio) Laurence/di Lorenzo had moved with their sons Tony and Joe into a newly-built home of their own at 12 Wells St. in Gloversville, Fulton County, N.Y.
They may have moved there as early as 1917, since Peter gave a Wells St. address when he registered, at 45, for the WWI draft.2FamilySearch requires free login to view records.
The large Laurence house was right around the corner from the home of Mary’s parents, Antonio and Antoinette (Del Negro) Curcio, at 128 E. Fulton Street.
A home of their own
How proud Peter and Mary must have been to finally have a home of their own where their teenage sons could grow into adulthood. The Wells St. house even had a barn out back for Peter’s horse and vehicles — and was within walking distance of the junk dealership he took over from Mary’s father.
The wide steps where they posed, above, led to an open side porch to the right. Later owners narrowed the front steps and enclosed the side porch — as shown in the 1992 photo of the house below.
My mom’s Wells St. connection
In 1992, my mom — Peg (Laurence) Charboneau — and I took a family history grand tour of her Gloversville, N.Y., hometown. One of our stops was the former Laurence home at 12 Wells St.
After taking the above photo, I noticed Mom looking wistfully up at the house. That’s when she made an unexpected revelation.
“I was born in that house,” she said. Wow, this was news to me. My siblings and I are from the Baby Boom generation — and we were all born in hospitals.
So, I was astonished to learn my mom had been born at home — and in her grandparents’ house at that. Yet after researching my Italian ancestors, I am no longer surprised at mom’s home birth.
Welcoming extended family
In true Italian fashion, my Laurence ancestors quickly opened their home to extended family — starting with their oldest son.
After my grandfather Tony and my grandmother Elizabeth Stoutner got married in 1924, they set up house with the Laurences at 12 Well St. and lived there for several years, through the 1926 birth of my mother Peggy — their first child and the Laurences’ first grandchild.
By 1930, the federal census shows3FamilySearch requires free login to view recordsthat my grandparents Tony (by then a garage proprietor) and Elizabeth — along with my mom and her younger sister Rita — had moved across the street to 9 Wells St.
The same year, my great-grandmother Mary’s younger sister Millie, her husband Frank Somella (a junk dealer) and their children Anthony and Marie were living with the Laurences at 12 Wells St.4FamilySearch requires free login to view records.
And so it went. House sharing, job sharing, mutual support — that was a way of life for my maternal Italian ancestors as they helped one another make progress for themselves and their children.
And much of it was wrapped up in the Laurence house at 12 Wells St.
Up next, Season’s Greetings and a holiday break for Molly’s Canopy. Meanwhile, please visit the blogs of this week’s other Sepia Saturday participants.
© 2021 Molly Charboneau. All rights reserved.
Wait, you’re wrapping up this series??!!…Noooooo, I absolutely loved following this story! 🙂
You wrapped it up nicely! I love that you included the pic of the house much, much later. P.S., how did you get the link citation subscript numbers in your blog?
Glad you loved the stories. And no worries, I’m only wrapping up this series for now. My maternal ancestors will be back in 2022.
Thank you for sharing your story. Love the photos
Thanks so much Sabine!
This series on your Italian family is fascinating for the wonderful photos but also because of the way it resembles so many other families of this earlier time. Partly it’s how their story is shared by other immigrants to America, both then and now. But it’s also the way the Laurence family was interconnected in businesses and housing like many other families of their generation. I suppose in this era before modern social services and protections, families were more dependent on friends and kin to make a good life.
Thanks, Mike. This series has been a learning experience to me as well. I had no idea how interconnected my grandfather Tony was with his Italian cousins and extended family — but as you point out, it makes sense in the context of the immigrant and first-generation experience.
Your Mom was such a darling little girl. And how lucky she was to have so much family around her as she grew up. 🙂
I also love this photo of my mother. She looks so adorable in her fuzzy winter outfit!
Your mother’s smile and outfit are adorable. I hope you display that photo in your home. It’s so cheerful.
Thanks, Susan. Great idea!
Our standard of living, and size of households/family, has changed a lot over the past 100 years or so, hasn’t it…
It sure has. Writing about my Italian ancestors, I was somewhat envious at the huge extended family that surrounded them growing up — and was there to lend a helping hand in their adulthood.