Grieving Thorold family mourns loss of brother
brother Irmo to join them in the years following World War I, the elder two began to build new lives for themselves in Thorold. Primo achieved success as a businessman while Louis worked as a labourer.
In due course, Irmo was able to get employment on the Canal with his brother Louis. In fact, the two brothers had been working “almost side by side”, noted the Toronto Daily Star reporter the day after the accident – but on different locks.
The youngest brother’s wife Anita, described her unmarried brother-in-law “as a cheery addition to the neat little home at Maitland Street” in Thorold.
Unnecessarily, it was also added that “while she did not voice the thought, there was evident also gratitude that it had not been Irmo, the bread-winner who had been at work in the fatal number six.” This tragic loss of life continues to be mourned in the family nearly nine decades later.
So closely knit were the three brothers from the village of Mombaroccio (Monte Baroccio), near Pesaro on the Adriatic coast, that attendants at the funeral found it hard to restrain their emotions. The St. Catharines Standard reporter observed “their warm hearts going out to his two brothers who were quite overcome by the tragedy.”
The magnitude of a tragedy such as this added another entirely unforeseeable
PROFILE NO. 94
February 4, 1894 (Mombaroccio, Pesaro e Urbino, Le Marches, Italy) August 1, 1928 (Lock 6, Section 3, Thorold) Crushed by lock gate
Iron Worker, Steel Gates Company Limited Lakeview Cemetery, Thorold (Old Section E, Row 170, Grave 4)
complication: the stretching of faith denomination resources in small canal communities such as Thorold. For this reason, back-to-back funerals were necessary. Fr. Staley of Holy Rosary Church, thus, had barely dusted off his cassock after officiating over Boccioletti’s funeral before shifting to Irishman Joseph Carrig’s a few hours later.
This article is part of a series remembering the men whose lives were lost in the construction of the Welland Ship Canal. The Welland Canal Fallen Workers Memorial Task Force is a volunteer group established to design, finance, and build a memorial to recognize workers who were killed during construction of the Welland Ship Canal. For more information about the Memorial, or to contribute to the project, visit: www.stcatharines. ca/CanalWorkersMemorial