Much to celebrate during Italian Heritage Month
The 1883 accidental meeting of Father Charles Pandosy and Giovanni Casorzo (Casorso) and Carlo Guaschetti on the New Westminster wharf led to the immigration of many Italians to the Central Okanagan. Both men worked for the Oblate Fathers on their Mission ranch.
Unlike Carlo Guaschetti, Giovanni Casorso soon brought his family to the Central Okanagan and, after several years, started his own farm. Casorso wrote back to Italy and convinced numerous of his fellow Tonco, Piemonte, Italy residents to join him in Western Canada.
These people worked for Giovanni and many of them moved on to starting their own Central Okanagan farms. Following the farming families, were friends and relatives who became involved in the trades and business sector.
Stories of these Italian families are being gathered by the Kelowna Canadian Italian Club (KCIC) as part of their “La Nostra Famiglia Italiano” heritage project.
June was Italian Heritage Month in Canada. In 2019, in celebration of this month, 30 stories of Italian families arriving here before 1919 were written and one was published each day during June. At the end of the month, these 30 stories were collected and printed in book format: “Le prime families di Kelowna” (“The first Italian Families of Kelowna”). KCIC followed suit in 2020 with Volume 2, featuring 30 more stories about arrivals during the 1920s and ’30s.
Last month, KCIC published Volume 3, featuring 1940s and ’50s arrivals. Both the 2019 and 2020 stories are available on the KCIC website, the KCIC library, Kelowna Public Archives (KPA), and the Kelowna & District Genealogical Society (KDGS) library which is located upstairs in the downtown Kelowna Branch of Okanagan Regional Library.
Most of the 2019 Italian family names are easily recognizable: Casorso, Capozzi, Ghezzi, Dapavo, Lanfranco, Risso, Turri, Alimonti, Barrera, Culos, Favali, Rantucci, Vaccaro, Orsi, Guidi, Gaspardone and Rampone. Other early families are no longer living in the area. They stayed here for a few years, before moving on.
There are many examples of families moving to, or from, Summerland, the Kootenays or San Francisco. Alfredo Biagioni moved to Summerland where he constructed many of its fine stone buildings, including Zia’s Stone House Restaurant. Nicola Ceresi operated the New Grand Hotel in Crescent Valley, near Slocan.
The Balagno family was the topic in this column, on Oct. 8, 1999: “Family disappears without a trace,” by Robert M. “Bob” Hayes. With more records and newspapers being digitized, information is becoming more readily available to us. We recently found, not only what happened to the Balagno family, but also made contact with some of their descendants.
Interesting historical information is often discovered when these stories are gathered. Jack (Agostino) Butticci arrived in Canada in 1912 at the age of 14. For many years, he was employed as a fireman (stoker) on the S.S. Sicamous. Before that, he worked on the Kettle
Valley Railway at Hope and then on the Osprey Lake-Princeton section. Because he was the youngest member of the crew, the honour of driving the last spike at Princeton in 1915 went to him.
Following the Italian tradition, women keep their surname following marriage. This makes it somewhat easy to find their records. But, when immigrating to America, they followed the customs of this country and adopted their spouses’ surnames.
As a result, their surnames have been lost and the contributions which these women made to the area have become overshadowed. Maria Capozzi (Mussato) was the matriarch of the Capozzi family. Assunta Bregolise (Porfiri) operated the ABC Market which was later developed into People’s Food Market. Anna Mussato (Myer) opened a candy and icecream store on Bernard Avenue before moving to Hollywood, California, in 1923.
While researching these Italian families, we discovered many new family names, including Capalino, Tugi, Porimi, Capasta, Crosetti, Alberti, Ambrozzi, Maggiora and Bechelli. These are some of the surnames that will be included in subsequent volumes produced by the KCIC.