Phil and His Pigeons

This article originally appeared in the Stamford [Connecticut] Advocate,  Jan 17, 2010, in The Dart, "a weekly feature in which reporters throw a dart at a map of Stamford and then go out in search of a story." 

Note: Phil Tucciarone is the son of Frances Mallozzi (1905-1986) and John Tucciarone (1895-1988), and is a first cousin to my husband, Bill Zarges.

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Phil Tucciarone raises racing pigeons in the backyard of his home on West Main St. and Harvard Ave. in Stamford, Conn. Photo taken on Monday January 11, 2009. He's also a member of the Stamford Racing Pigeon Club which is behind his home on Harvard Ave. Photo: Dru Nadler / Stamford Advocate

The Dart: 'Thoroughbreds of the sky' keep club's connection alive

By Devon Lash, STAFF WRITER

Published: 05:40 p.m., Sunday, January 17, 2010

STAMFORD -- Phil Tucciarone is a ladies man.

"When I walk into the club, some of the guys say, `Here comes Phil and his girls,'" the spry 84-year-old said with twinkling eyes. And while the ladies this lifelong Stamford resident admires have storied pedigrees and finicky diets, you're more likely to find these girls in the sky than on the catwalk. Tucciarone is a pigeon fancier. He breeds, trains and races homing pigeons.

Phil Tucciarone holds the special feed he buys for his racing pigeons that's imported from Belgium. He raises the birds behind his home on West Main St. in Stamford, Conn. Photo taken on Monday January 11, 2009. Photo: Dru Nadler / Stamford Advocate

He's the oldest flier at the Stamford Racing Pigeon Club, nestled on the city's West Side away from the traffic on West Main Street. "I fly mostly girls -- they are more reliable ... smarter," Tucciarone said, standing next to his backyard coop that is in sight of the racing club.

Racing pigeons -- "the thoroughbreds of the sky," Tucciarone will remind you -- is a beloved sport in a city that has esteemed its racing game even before the city club was founded in 1934.

Phil Tucciarone tends to his racing pigeons in the backyard of his home on West Main St. in Stamford, Conn. Photo taken on Monday January 11, 2009. Photo: Dru Nadler / Stamford Advocate

There are the underdogs, the long shots, the losers and the champions in a competition that pits birds against their brethren, the elements and natural predators. After training pigeons with short flights from the New York area, the birds compete in 100-mile to 500-mile races against pigeons from the Stamford club and other area clubs, said William Telesco, a club member who began racing pigeons in 1951 and continues to breed the birds.

The average speed of a pigeon is 42 miles per hour, Telesco said, and it takes it from 2 to 12 hours to return to the home loft.

No one knows for sure how the birds are able to fly home from such far distance, though some have speculated it has to do with the position of the sun or the earth's magnetic fields, he said. The club has seen a downfall in interest and membership since pigeon fever gripped many of the Italian, Polish and German families who kept their birds on the West Side during the 1950s.

"At one time there were 20 lofts within a half mile on the West Side," Telesco said.

The club was founded in 1934, as a certificate on the current clubhouse wall boasts, by Paul Ferrara, a carpenter, who became the club's first president, said his son James Ferrara, now a North Stamford resident.

"Once my mother got mad as heck and locked him out, because he was spending so much time with the pigeons," James Ferrara said, laughing at the memory.

The club met on Finney Lane before the group erected a clubhouse on the land where the current building stands, Ferrara said.

Phil Tucciarone's racing pigeons in the backyard of his home on West Main St. in Stamford, Conn. Photo taken on Monday January 11, 2009. Photo: Dru Nadler / Stamford Advocate

 "A bunch of the club guys were plumbers, electricians, carpenters or masons," he said. "They got together and built it themselves."

When the birds returned to the coops, Paul Ferrara would race to put the birds' leg bands into a German-made clock synchronized with other club members, James said. One turn of the key would register the bird's flight time and output a slip of paper.

"A lot of the races were on a Sunday, and we couldn't eat dinner until the birds came home," he said.

In this area, and across the country, the hobby is dying out, Telesco said.

"There wasn't very much for kids to do -- that's how it evolved," he said. "Now kids have so much to do."

Still, Tucciarone has no plans to stop waking up at 4:30 a.m. to train the birds. He doesn't mind cleaning the lofts, tending to their medical ailments or feeding them twice a day. He proudly points out his fastest flier who has a green sheen along the breast feathers. "That's the winningest bird in the club," he said. Then, he adds as a humble afterthought: "I did my share of winning and I took my share of beatings in this game."

      

A New Cousin Appears, Part 3

Read A New Cousin Appears, Part 1, Part 2 and Part 4.

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Here, in Vinni's own words, is the story of his search for his father's family [my clarifications in brackets]:

My search for you all started with only a very few clues. My name was Mallozzi, the pigeon racers called my father Al, my family once lived on Wilson Street in Stamford, and my grandfather's name was Vincenzo. (I did not know what his last name was). That was it!  

So, I first called my oldest [half] brother, Tom, who lives in Stamford.  I asked "Do you know anyone with the name  Mallozzi?"  He said,  "That name is like Smith. There are hundreds in this town."  Then I asked, "Tell me about Wilson Street."  "That is across town. It's where all the Italians live." he said.  "Yeah, it is, huh?" I replied.  "Why do you want to know that?"  I replied, "I will tell you sometime."

I then called the CIty of Stamford. They were VERY helpful.  Much more than I had hoped. I had been snooping around on Ancestry.com and found a Mallozzi family that lived at 83 Wilson. The lady in vital records told me that Mary and Filippina were the last Mallozzis that lived there. The house was then sold after they passed.  

With this name Filippina I was able to verify a family with 7 children. One's name was Amalio. Amalio. Al. This had to be a match! The head of the household was Vincenzo. The mother's name was Alessandra. I instantly fell in love with those names and the folks who owned them. I was 90% sure this was my family. Those that came before me. The excitement really began to build.  

One night on Thanksgiving my brother's wife, Nancy, called me and said she found an Amalio Mallozzi in the google search.  It was your article you had written about Mary and Amalio. I thank God for you Clair! How would I have found any of you if it were not for your article? Think about it. There are no remaining, related Mallozzis. I would have had the Ancestry.com info and that would be it. I would not have received the pictures, poetry, songs. stories, and guitar.* Thank you Clair and God bless you!  

You know what happened after that. I did not want to upset anyone's life, but I could not wait to email you and get a response. You and Bill [son of Amalio's sister, Delia, thus Vinni's cousin] were so wonderful in your reply. Nothing like what I had feared. I backed off for decades of starting a search because I really did not think anyone would want to hear it or want to meet me. During my search to find you I had the phone slammed down in my ear a few times because I had the wrong  Mallozzi residence.I would even contact anyone with the last name on Facebook, but none of them answered me. I totally understand and felt sorry for those folks I bothered.  

When you started sending me pictures I would immediately send them to my sisters. They were 9 & 10 when they last saw my family. But they both picked Amalio from those wedding pictures every time. Janet even described Gennaro [Amalio's older brother] to me and how he would fall asleep in his chair by the window. OK! Now I am about 95% sure I have the right familia.

Either you or Bill gave me Lori T's [granddaughter of Amalio's sister, Frances] email.  I wrote to her and gave her my #.  She called me right away. I told her what I knew about my father and told her the pigeon racers called him Al. She said her father raced pigeons with him. She asked her father and he verified indeed that all the racers called him Al. I was pretty darn sure now, I had the correct person. Funny how this one little clue was the one that made me so sure that Al was indeed Amalio.

This is when I asked Bill if he would take the DNA test with me. That [waiting for the results] was the longest 8 weeks of my life! One day while driving down the freeway I asked Nancy, "What am I going to do if these folks are not my family?" She replied, "You are going to apologize and keep looking." The relief and fulfillment was nearly indescribable when the results came back.  Now I knew 100% where I came from and who I was.  

I was and still am Vincenzo, son of Amalio.  It is hard to explain what that feels like and why it is so important. I don't expect others to understand. but I can tell you that it is a fantastic feeling! 

P.S. After sleeping on it, there is one more clue my mother told me about Al. He played the accordion. That was another biggie that I asked everyone about him.

Amalio

Vinni

*****

* ...pictures, poetry, songs, stories, and guitar. More about these, coming in Part 4 (to be published soon). 

Miss Brown and the Cherry Brandy

This is the third part of an interview with Amalio Mallozzi, which took place in April 1999, and was transcribed by me, Clair Harris Zarges. You can see the first part here and the second part here.

Amalio has been talking about life in Stamford, Connecticut, once all the family had moved there from Pulcherini, Italy.

Amalio told how his sixth grade teacher came to visit the home and "got drunk as hell" on Mama's homemade liquor. It was during Prohibition, and she drank three or four glasses, and she was "eating those alcohol-laden cherries like they were peanuts." 

Mama made the liquor by using "oxblood cherries" and 40% alcohol in a sugar syrup. The cherries were stemmed and steeped in the liquid in a jar for four or five months. 

Miss Brown had a funny laugh like "hoo, hoo." They had to keep her at the house until she was sober enough to walk home. "Hoo, hoo, hoo."

Mama made anisette, grape brandy, red and white wine, and beer--both regular and root beer--all through the Prohibition years.

Amalio: "The law was against selling liquor, not making it for one's own use."

Mary and Amalio: The Trip to America from Italy

embeddable family tree updated live from WikiTree

The Trip to America

This is continuation of the 1999 interview with Amalio Mallozzi and his sister, Mary Mallozzi.

Amalio: We (Amalio, Alesandra, Mary, Filippina, and Delia Mallozzi) went on the ship, Roma, from Italy to America [when Amalio was seven and a half, so about 1927-1928]. We all slept in the same cabin, with Amalio in the top berth.

On the ship he saw his first toilet, and didn't know what to do with it. He wondered if it held drinking water. (At home in Pulcherini there was no toilet; they had just dug a hole in the backyard, or used the stable. They would put a stone on each side of the hole to sit on, then wipe themselves with grass).

The Roma, which traveled from Italy to Ellis Island in the Twenties
Could this be the very ship they sailed on?
From: http://stevemorse.org/ellis/eipix.php?ship=roma

Amalio [back at the ship]: He "ate every day" on the journey. He didn't get sick. "Mary and Fil were sick the whole trip" - they couldn't eat at all. "Mama didn't throw up too much." He went up to the bow all the time. There was a "bald-headed guy from Rome," another passenger, who acted "like a father" to him during the trip. 

Amalio: The trip took eight days. John (Giovanni Tucciarone, born 1895, Frances Mallozzi's husband) met them in New York in his Model T Ford pickup truck. He "put the trunks and everybody in and went to West Main Street" [Stamford, Connecticut]. The kids rode in back with the trunks. 

Mary and Amalio Talk About Life in an Italian Town in the 1920s

embeddable family tree updated live from WikiTree

I asked Amalio (Uncle Mario) Mallozzi in April 1999 if he could share any memories. He did the talking at first, but eventually his sister Mary Mallozzi chimed in, too. In the first part of the interview they spoke of their life in the 1920s in the village of Pulcherini, a suburb of Minturno, Italy. I took notes and typed up a summary that afternoon while the experience was still fresh in my mind. The only direct quotes are those words in quotations.

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Amalio and his younger sister, Delia
after their arrival in America.
Stamford, Connecticut, 1930

Amalio said he could only remember some of his sisters in Italy--Rose (born 1901), Filippina "Pucci" (born 1906), Mary (born 1912), and later, Delia (born 1922); but not Frances (Maria Francesca, born 1903) or any of his brothers. He "met" them when he moved to Connecticut at the age of seven and a half. He hadn't seen [or didn't remember seeing] Frances, Phil (Philip, born 1907), or Gene (Gennaro, born 1911) before then. 

Mary: Frances was 18 when she went to America. At that time, her son Jimmy (Jimmy Tucciarone) was crawling, and her son Phil (Philip Tucciarone) was two. 

Amalio: Papa (Vincenzo Mallozzi, born 1874) went to America in the 1890s when he was 16, and made eight trips back to Italy. He married Mama (Alesandra Poccia, born 1880) in 1900 on one of those trips. Amalio knows of eight children born who lived, plus two males who died; one a miscarriage and one who died in infancy. The kids hardly knew their father, as he could only stay with them a couple of months at a time. In America, he worked at digging ditches, in railroad construction, and landscaping for "rich people." Eventually, "Papa got disgusted because he had to keep going back to Italy to give away daughters at weddings," so brought the rest of the family over to the U.S.

See a satellite view of Pulcherini and surrounding areas.

Amalio: The house in Pulcherini had three floors and a cellar and was made of "dead stone," not brittle stone. There was a grape arbor across the front for shade, and a cement area for sitting during the day and evening. His father and compadre (Amalio's godfather) built the house around 1924 or 1925. The family had another house in the town that had been left to Vincenzo by his father. They kept animals there. When they lived there they kept the animals (sheep and goats) on the first floor and the family lived on the second floor. They rented the town house out after moving to the new house, and kept both houses until they left for America. Eventually, Tony Pellicione, Rose's son, bought the newer house from the other family members. He still rents it out. 

Mary interjected: He sold it three or four years ago. [Amalio expressed surprise at this].

...just like in Roman houses

Amalio [speaking of the house that Papa built]: There were marble steps inside to the upper floor, just like in Roman houses. Each floor had two big rooms. On the first floor was the kitchen. It had a fireplace, where the cooking was done. There was no stove, and no running water. 

Mary: There was a coal burner standing about as high as a stove along side the fireplace. The water came from a cistern in the cellar. There was a little room like a closet in the kitchen, with a hole down to the cistern. They got the water by letting down a bucket on a rope through the hole. 

Mary: Dishes were washed in a pan, usually outside. When there were a lot of clothes to be washed the laundry was done in the river. It was a forty-five minute to one-hour walk from the house to the river; they carried the clothes in baskets on their heads. The clothes were dried on bushes, then stretched and folded, because they weren't ironed.

Mary: The family's clothing was made by a dressmaker in Santa Maria. They each had two or three outfits, but only one pair of shoes.

A donkey in the cellar

Amalio [continuing the description of the house]: The cellar was divided into a room for the cistern and a room where the animals (a donkey, a couple of sheep, a couple of milk goats, a couple of pigs, some chickens, and pigeons) lived. On the first floor was the kitchen. It had a table and chairs and a closet for dishes. The next room on that floor was used to store hay (homegrown) and animal feed and tools. 

Amalio: The second floor had two bedrooms, and the top floor had two more. He slept in the room above the kitchen, in his parents' room. 

Amalio: The house was on four lots, two on each side of it. The land was probably about 800 feet or 600 feet square. There were prickly pears (cactus, which they also called India pears) growing there. It was a five minute walk to another plot of land owned by the family. It consisted of two acres and was located at the bottom of a hill on a plain with a large stream (but not large enough to use for washing the laundry; for that they had to walk all the way to the river) running through it. There they grew oranges, figs, pears, walnuts, hazelnuts, grapes, and olives. They also grew wheat, beans, and corn.

The snake

Amalio: There were a lot of snakes there. They killed any that they saw, but Mary and Amalio both reminisced about a particular snake with a bright mark on its head. No one would kill it, because they all wondered if it was someone in Purgatory, or someone reincarnated. They left that snake alone. Everyone in the neighborhood did.

Amalio: There was another piece of land owned by the family. It was about an acre and a half, about a three quarters of an hour walk from the house. There they grew wheat and corn. The corn was used for pig feed and some was ground into meal for cornbread. Near Santa Maria there was another plot of land that belonged to Alesandra, a "jardine" of about two and a half acres. There they raised apricots, peaches, lemons, oranges, "nespole" (loquats), figs, "suchel" (?), escarole, and beans. There was a well to water the crops.

Amalio: He also remembered going to "Uncle Louie's" (Luigi's) house, which was near Mama's acreage. Luigi was a "healer, a holy man." Uncle Joe (Giusseppe) lived across the street. [Alexandra "Mama" had brothers named Joe and Luigi].

Amalio [back to the house description]: The house was furnished with old-fashioned Italian furniture. Some of it was made by the town carpenter, who also made coffins. Some of it was bought in stores. All the floors in the house were tile. Everyone had his own bed.

Bartering

Amalio: They were one of the better-off families in the town, mainly because Vincenzo was sending back money from America for them. They had enough animals and crops to supply their own food, because buying in the market in Minturno was expensive. They made their own olive oil, taking the olives to a place called "The Mounds," where the olives were crushed between stones turned by a horse. The owner of "The Mounds" took some of the olive oil in payment.

Mary: They made their own bread, taking the dough to the center of town where a woman had a wood-fired brick oven in her house that was large enough to bake three or four loaves at a time. She was paid for the use of the oven with some of the fresh bread. If someone needed some bread between bakings they could borrow a loaf from her, then repay it out of their next baking.

Amalio: The only cash used by the family came from Vincenzo, and it was used to hire people occasionally to work on the land. They were paid with their noon and evening meals in addition to the cash.

Mary: Rose and Fil [Filippina] worked on the land. They had also helped with the building of the house by carrying buckets with cement and stones.

"A pain in the neck"

Mary, remembering Amalio as a child and younger brother, when asked if he had gotten into mischief: "He was a pain in the neck. He was mean."

Amalio: He remembers a little tame white dove that he was chasing in the yard. He accidentally kicked it in the head and killed it. It was the "loss of a good pet." If he had admitted what he had done and how it had died, Mama would have cooked it. Instead, fearing punishment, he threw the body of the dove into the prickly pears and didn't say anything when Mama was looking for her pet. That's why "I love doves," he said.

Mary: "He used to do those things and say he was sorry when it was too late."

Amalio: Can't remember much more about living there...

Pulcherini today

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Amalio Mallozzi died in 2005; Mary Mallozzi died in 2009.