Maria Barcelona L'Presti (LoPresto)
b. ?
Enna, Sicily
d. Jan. 9, 1957
Perth Amboy, NJ

Great-grandmother, maternal side

All that I know about Maria is what I've been told by my grandmother and my mother. We only recently obtained this photo of Maria as a young mom, and everyone was struck at the similarities been her and my sister. Previously, I had only seen pictures of Maria as an old lady so who would have guessed how much they resembled each other!

It's the discovery of pictures like this that keep me going in my lifelong pursuit of geneaology - how can I not be enamored of a hobby that gives me glimpses into the lives and souls of people whose paths led to my own existence? I wish I had a time machine so I could drop in for a visit.

Maria's daughter-in-law, Rose Bilder LoPresto, remembers:

On May 30th, 1935 I was married to her son Angelo and lived in an apartment over the shoemaker shop which Ang's father repaired sowed and at one time also sold new shoes. Ang & I had to wait until Aunt Sue their daughter and John moved around the corner to a duplex they owned.

I did not go back to work and so spent a lot of time with Marie. She taught me to sew and cook Italian foods and even how to make starch for my husbands shirt. While I was learning how to cook we talked together. She would tell me about her childhood and how she walked her father to church every morning because he was blind. She had one step-brother older than she who lived in Philadelphia. Her mother was married before and her first husband was killed falling off a high scaffold and so she married again and had only one child, Maria.

Getting back to Maria who was the most patient person I ever knew. We did our laundry together down in her kitchen and all the while she would tell me about her childhood in Italy. They lived in a little town outside of Palermo in Sicily. She helped her mother take the laundry to the river and used the rocks along the river as washboards. She went to school the usual number of years and then her folks sent her on to a special school where she learned to sew and tailoring.

When she grew up, and reached the age where she could be courted, Louis LoPresto began to come and play his mandolin under her bedroom window. They married and eventually had a baby girl and named her Pauline. From what she told me all boys in Italy had to spend time in the army. Grandpop (Louis) would have to go into the service. He had two brothers in the Army already and did not want to go.

So they planned that he would come to America. He had a cousin in Perth Amboy who had a shoemaker shop and told him to come to America and join him in his shop. He departed Sicily leaving his wife Maria and baby daughter back home with her parents. Louis (Grandpop) sent her money to follow him but she did not want to leave her elderly blind father. Her father persuaded her to go to her husband.

She began to prepare to make a long trip across the ocean. She told me she baked many Italian biscuits and other treats to have on the boat. They did not have first class tickets and found mostly poor people trying to get to America. The conditions were not the best and many were feeling sick and especially the children. So Maria helped with the other children and used her biscuits to help the children who were sick, probably seasick.

When Grandpop (Louis) arrived at Ellis Island the people checking them for entering American (sic) misspelled his name. It should have been L'Presti. They accepted the misspelled name LoPresto as the American way to spell it.

Maria told me that Grandpop's father owned a sulphur mine in Italy. They had an explosion in the mine and many men were killed. Your great-grandfather settled money on all the families of the men killed in the mine. As a result of this tragedy the family had to accept a much lesser way of living. Maria told me that your great grandmother was always addressed as Donna and that she never saw her without white gloves on her hands.

After grandpop's 2 brothers were finished in the army the oldest one became Chief of Gendarmes in Milan and the younger was a motorcycle policeman in Milan. There were four boys and two girls in grandpop's family.

When grandmom first arrived in Perth Amboy they got a little apartment in the downtown section and she told me about her good neighbors. The neighbors husband worked as a porter on the trains that went across the country. She did not tell me her name but told what a good friend she was. She took her to the bank and help her open an account and also to buy a sewing machine which was a priority for grandmom.

I usually ate lunch with them during the week because Uncle Ang (Ed. Note - she must have forgotten who she was writing to, her daughter) did not come home until evening. We also ate all our meals from June until early September when Aunt Sue could move over to the house around the corner.

One year later in July my first son Robert was born. Grandma was such a help with him. He did not want to eat and it was a chore to get something good into him. Again, she advised me. She wash my baby wash everyday until November when I told her I wanted to do my own baby wash. She kindly let me do it. Later on she offered to mind the baby so I could go to sewing classes at Singer Sewing Machine Shop in downtown Perth Amboy and then offered me her old sewing machine as a trade in.

I never heard Grandmom LoPresto say an unkind thing about anyone and when she heard that someone was ill and needed help she just quietly went and gave them help.

Transcribed from a text written by Rose Bilder LoPresto, written to her daughter, my mother Roseanne

My great-grandmother, Maria Barcelona L'Presti (LoPresto) with her children Asunta (Sue) and my grandfather Angelo (on her lap).
Taken in Perth Amboy, NJ, somewhere around 1910-11.

I just love this picture of Maria in the kitchen...
I can smell garlic and basil when I look at it.

My great grandmother Maria, her daughter-in-law Rose Bilder LoPresto
and my mother Roseanne