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Angeline Spadafore from Italy We Weren’t Always Welcome in America B etween 1900 and 1914, hundreds of thousands of Italians, mostly from southern provinces, came to the United States seeking jobs. Already accustomed to seasonal migrations to find work in Italy, southern Italians were among the immigrants mostlikelytoreturnhome.ItalianimmigrationtoMichiganbefore 1900 focused on the mining regions of the Upper Peninsula. The patternshiftedintheearlytwentiethcentury,andby1930about73 percentofthestate’sItalian-bornresidentslivedinWayneCounty. Francis “Bus” Spaniola comes from a long line of Italian storekeepers . His maternal grandfather, Andrew Spadafore, was an immigrant who owned two stores selling ice cream, candy, and tobacco in Corunna, Michigan. His paternal grandfather, Francis Spaniola, was a friend of Andrew Spadafore’s and also emigrated from St. Ippolito, Italy. Bus’s mother, Angeline Spadafore, was born inItalyandemigratedin1919.Hisfather,Anthony(Tony)Spaniola, made and sold his own brand of ice cream at his stores in Owosso, Corunna, Perry, and Lansing. Following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, Bus Spaniola owned and operated Anthony’s Dairy Isle in Owosso for many years. He was teaching history at East Lansing High School when he decided to run for a seat in the Michigan House 98 | ANGELINE SPADAFORE of Representatives. “It wasn’t easy getting elected as a Democrat of Italian heritage in a predominately Republican district,” he remembered about the 1974 election. During his sixteen years in the statehouse, one of Spaniola’s goals was to ensure that immigrants and migrants have an opportunity to share in the American Dream. “That’s the way we fight the battle for decency and social justice and all those other high-sounding things that they taught us about in school—the things that my mother came to America for.” Pictures of his children and grandchildren, as well as his parents and grandparents, adorn the walls of his home and illustrate Spaniola’s contention that “family is everything.” As a former state representative from Shiawassee County, Bus is president of Friends of Michigan History and the vice chair of the Michigan History Foundation Board. Martha Aladjem (Climo) Bloomfield interviewed Bus Spaniola at his home in a quiet neighborhood in Corunna, Michigan on April 30, 1999. His mother, Angeline Spadafore Spaniola, died on October 3, 1998. Passage to America My maternal grandparents, Andrew and Rose Spadafore, were living in Corunna, Michigan, with their son, Carmine (Charles), when Rose became pregnant with their second child. She was a young girl, Old World, couldn’t speak English and yearning to be with her mother and aunts for the birth. Somehow or another, my grandfather scraped together the money to send my grandmother and my uncle back to the little village of St. Ippolito in southern Italy. In January 1909, my mom, Angeline Spadafore, was born in the oldcountryinthehomemygrandfatherhadbuiltandownedthere. Of course, times were tough economically, and grandpa could not afford to bring them back right away. A number of years passed, and about the time he was getting the revenue together to bring them back, World War I broke out. There was a problem traveling Angeline Spadafore, grandfather Palmer Dionese, and Carmine Spadafore. Andrew and Rose Spadafore were living in Corunna, Michigan, with their son, Carmine, when Rose became pregnant with their second child. Yearning to be with her mother and aunts for the birth, she went back to St. Ippolito, Italy, with her son. In January 1909, Angeline Spadafore was born. Andrew Spadafore began saving money for his wife and children to return to Michigan, but World War I made travel unsafe and they remained in Italy. After the war ended, Andrew’s family rejoined him in 1919. COURTESY OF FRANCIS “BUS” SPANIOLA 100 | ANGELINE SPADAFORE during wartime and I am certain he did not want them to. I don’t know if it was not allowed, but I do know that during the war, they did not even think of coming. Andrew Spadafore began saving money for his wife and children to return to Michigan. But World War I made travel unsafe and they remained in Italy. After the war ended, Andrew’s family rejoined him in 1919. The war ended in November 1918 and my mother,whowasthennine,andmyuncle,whowasaboutfourteen at the time, and my grandmother all got on the boat and came to the United States. My paternal grandfather was in Owosso at the time. His name was Francis Spaniola, just like mine. Grandpa Spaniola and Grandpa Spadafore were great friends in the old country, and somehow or another they got together, settled in Corunna, and opened...

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