Out of the Ashes: An Origin Story
The natural phenomenon that changed the destiny of my family
Mt. Vesuvius is a volcano in the Campania region of Italy, a short distance from the Mediterranean Sea and near the town Pompeii. Most people have heard about how Vesuvius famously erupted in 79 AD, resulting in a pyroclastic surge spewing a cloud of stone, ash, molten rock and volcanic gases and ultimately burying all of its inhabitants for a thousand years in the smoking ash. If you go there today, you can see the casts made from impressions of bodies in the ash deposits.
Less famously, it erupted on April 5, 1906 ejecting the most lava ever recorded from a Vesuvius eruption, including the famous 79 AD eruption and still to this day. This natural disaster was preceded by earthquakes and drought and followed by a tsunami and crop-killing disease ultimately leaving once lush farm fields unable to grow wheat, grapes and olives. The wealthy land owners of the north did not provide relief to their southern tenet farmers; instead they raised the rent on the land and enforced payment, under threat of violence.
Facing famine, over population and grinding poverty, the farmers had no way to support their families.
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, the United States was rapidly industrializing and actively recruiting to fill the labor shortage, needing workers that weren’t interested in owning and working land - but instead working in factories and helping to build the transportation infrastructure in America including railroads and subways.
Knowing that the once rich soil of southern Italy would someday return, (and dreaming of having enough money to become landowners in their home country themselves), many Italian men temporarily immigrated to urban areas and the promise of well paying, albeit unskilled, labor jobs within the United States.
Many curious about their family’s past often ask “why would my ancestor have left their home and everyone that they knew to come to America at the precise time that they did?” In my case, for my Italian ancestors, I believe the impetus was the 1906 eruption of Mt. Vesuvius starting with my great-grandaunt Filomena who sailed from Italy to America just one month prior to the eruption. Her seemingly prophetic departure paved the path for her younger siblings including my great-grandmother Guiseppa Corbo.
They believed the family would grow stronger faster by leaving Italy—but always with the intention of returning. As it turned out, Italians more than any other immigrant group, did return to Italy. But not my ancestors.
From the ashes of the 1906 Vesuvius eruption, Italians, like my great-grandparents, rose to the challenge — immigrating to survive, making a life worth living and bequeathing the importance of love and family to the generations that followed.
I’ve shared the story of Filomena who was the first of my ancestors to leave Italy. While her new neighbors in the poor immigrant community in which she lived moved to homes with electricity and plumbing, she sacrificed those comforts so she could save money for her siblings to make the journey. My next story series is titled “Love Across the Ocean: The Story of Guiseppa and Antonio’s Journey Towards la bella vita” and is about one of those siblings — my great-grandmother. Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss it.
WOW, first thing that came to my mind