Vernante, Italy

Sometime around 1877, Antonio and my great grandmother Mary Catherine Pelissero came to the U.S. from Vernante*, Italy to New York via Ellis Island, like so many other immigrants.  Antonio and Mary Catherine had six children: Stephen Pillow, Nicholas Pelissero, Peter Paul Pelissero, John Baptist Pillow, Amolia Pillow, and Lawrence Antonio Pillow (two years old), all traveling with them from Italy.

*(Vernante was the last home of master illustrator Attilio Mussino, who illustrated Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio. Two Vernante townspeople have reproduced those illustrations on many walls as murals, making Vernante an interesting day trip in Piemonte.)

There are still Pelissero families who live in the Vernante area and neighboring areas, the best known being owners of vineyards and wineries. It's interesting to read the Web pages and know that Giovanni, Luigi and Giorgio are probably distant cousins of my grandfather's brothers and sisters.

Also, like so many immigrants, some of the Pelissero children Americanized their last name to Pillow. Nicholas (Uncle Nick) and Peter Paul (Uncle Pete) homesteaded two pieces of land in New Mexico and were next door to each other... brothers, one last name Pelissero, the other Pillow.

Antonio Pelissero died and Mary Catherine re-married another Italian man from an Italian community in Kansas or Texas (facts are vague, at best).  The name of Mary Catherine's new husband is not known by my mother for certain, but she believes his name was Bertram, Bertrand or Bertolli, but we have no way of knowing for sure.

To this union, a son was born:  Fred (just Fred) February 14, 1887.  While Fred was a baby, rumor has it that the Pelissero boys ran off Fred's father because of his mistreatment of their mother, Mary Catherine.  Fred was never known by his father's last name.  Instead, because he wanted to be like his big brothers, he always referred to himself as Fred Pillow and that's who he grew up to be.

Fred Pillow, living in Montague County, Texas, married Gracie Gertrude Anderson, from Jack County, Texas, on February 12, 1913 and had six children:  baby daughter who died, Floyd Angel (1915), Jennie Catherine (1916), Gertrude Frances (my mother, 1918), Grady Rayburn (1920) and Nella Fay (1927).

Mama remembers Uncle Lawrence's wife, Aunt Henrietta, saying when Fred brought Gracie home, "She was the prettiest woman I had ever seen."

Floyd and Jennie were born in Montague County, Texas and then Fred and Gracie moved to Ringland, Oklahoma, where Fred (Papa) worked in the oil field for a while between 1916 and 1918.  My mama was born in Grady County, Oklahoma on June 26, 1918.  Mama doesn't know exactly when they moved to Grady County, but Papa begin crop farming in Grady County.  Mama Trudy started school "over the hill and around the corner" about a mile from the store at Rocky Ford.  Rocky Ford is south of Cement, Oklahoma.

A memory:  "Before I (Trudy) started school, one of Amolia's (Aunt Molly) son's died in his teens with typhoid fever.  The men of the community built his pine box coffin and the women lined it with cloth.  Papa had a Model T truck that had no cab or doors, had a windshield, had a flat bed with short, wooden side boards.  Papa drove his truck and carried the coffin to a Kichai church near the Oklahoma-Texas border, the Red River.  Another little girl and I sat on the front, right side pew with Papa & Mama a couple of pews back. We, not being old enough to understand what was going on or that we were at a funeral, got to talking, laughing, and playing and the preacher got on to us and called us down.  I can't remember ever being so embarrassed.  When it came time to view the body, the preacher, who I had never seen before, told me to start the procession and begin telling me where to go. I acted like I didn't even hear him and I went straight to my mama and mama didn't tell me that I had to do what the preacher said because she didn't like it that the preacher had embarrassed me in front of everyone instead of asking the parents of these little girls in front to attend to us."

A memory:  "Our family took a trip in that Model T truck to Gageby, Texas to visit my mama's older sister, Aunt Myrtle and Uncle William Pace. Us three kids rode in the back on the flat bed and it sprinkled rain on us once on the way. We would lay in the truck bed watching the stars as we rode along. It was night when we arrived in the Gageby area and not knowing exactly where my aunt lived, we camped at a church or school house we came to.  Papa made a campfire and Mama cooked our supper.  We made pallets in the building (unlocked, imagine that) and went to bed.  The next morning we saw a house up on the hill about a mile away, so Papa decided to drive up there to see if these folks knew where our aunt and uncle lived.  That's where they lived! Aunt Myrtle and Uncle William had fours boys and one girl, all older than me, so I don't remember much about playing with them.  One day at dinner (noon meal) Aunt Myrtle and Audrey made salmon patties and Jennie ate so much she got sick and threw up."

A memory:  "My memories seem to be about us traveling and this memory could have taken place before Papa got the Model T truck because the family went in a wagon pulled by a team of mules to a school or church program.  I was not yet in school.  On the way home, the mules balked (you've heard the saying, 'stubborn as a mule') at the creek bridge and would not cross.  I remember Papa whipping the mules with the reins and trying to get them to cross the wooden bridge, but accomplished only exciting the mules to the point of almost turning over the wagon with everyone in it.  I was so scared and wondered why  Papa kept whipping the mules when it was clear they were not going to cross the bridge.  Mama got us kids out of the wagon and we walked across the bridge while Papa drove the mules down the creek to where the bank wasn't so steep and drove them across the dry creek bed to the other side."

A memory:  "Grandma Anderson (mama's mother) remarried after Grandpa Anderson died, to Grandpa Townsend.  I can't remember seeing him but one time.  But the main thing I remember is that he taught me this poem and it really tickled him to hear me say it as I could say it by memory.  I only remember a line or two of the poem and only remember because he would laugh real big when I recited them:

'I had to take the dogs along,                                    To keep the boys away!'

Grandpa Townsend must have thought I was really cute or something to take the patience and time to teach me a poem.

At a later time, at the Christmas program, they tried to get me to get up on stage to recite this poem and I was just too shy and scared to do it."

(I tried to find this poem on the internet, but had no success.  I understand that these memoirs are probably only meaningful to my family, so feel free to skip over anything that begins with: A memory.)