Albert Anatole Alberti--Part 4

This is a pass port picture of Albert and Laura Alice Martz. She is the reason Charlotte, his first wife, hired a detective. I find no pictures of Charlotte in the box and this is the only picture I can find of Laura. In describing Laura my mother’s scrabbled notes say this - (Small feet + Hands – Small in Stature –well built – smoked imported cigars – smelt good –.) I’m not sure why my mother uses capital letters. My mother notes that Laura was half Albert’s age. She’s not far off. Laura was 27 years younger and outlives Albert 25 years. An internet search reveals she was born in Oklahoma and had nine siblings. Three brothers, William, Edgar, and Theodore, come into play when the Kansas City Star publishes the scandal on the front page.

I promise I’ll get back to the scandal, but first we have to go back thirty or more years and deduce how Albert gets to this country.

After severing ties with the French Emigration Company in Marseille, Albert tried to increase his considerable savings by speculating in various Italian securities. This information comes from a reporter interviewing Albert for a retirement article. At that time in Italy there was a great deal of speculation in bank notes, gold, silver, and commodities. Albert gambles and loses his entire savings before you could say Jack Robinson.

At 25 years of age Albert was a seasoned, although disillusioned trans-Atlantic traveler. Understandably, he would want to avoid the hazards of entering the country through Ellis Island. Often, all passengers and crew members were quarantined if an infectious disease was discovered. There were other ports of entry. I suspect Albert entered through the port of New Orleans, Louisiana. It was the second-leading port for emigrants entering America. Many Italians entered there and it was serviced by French steamships that Albert would have been familiar with. Travel through New Orleans wasn’t without risks. Yellow fever and malaria were recurring hazards between the months of May and November. The Port of New Orleans was basically deregulated because the business community wanted it that way. There was much less chance of Albert being detained by picking this port. In addition, there were railway connections to New Mexico in1880, which is where Albert first finds employment.

His first job was in a print shop looking after a small engine for six dollars a week. There’s a Santa Fe, New Mexico online exhibit that includes a Virtual Print Shop. The museum has six vintage printing presses, and more than 200 objects found in early printing shops. I‘m unable to find a small engine in the exhibit that Albert might have maintained. He was soon promoted to general utility man. That job may have included keeping the presses clean and in top shape. Albert doesn’t name the print shop or shops he worked in, but mentions that he continued to find higher grades of employment and better pay. There were possibly more unnamed jobs. As a side income, he translated various foreign languages for one of the New Mexico unnamed newspapers.

In 1885, at the age of 30, ill health compels a move to Hot Springs, New Mexico. New Mexico was known as a “salubrious spot” to explorers and traders in the early 19th Century. When rails were laid into the region, the small stream of early health seekers turned into a flood. Albert was among them. Again and again, during the next 55 years of his life, he seeks out towns with mineral treatments for his health issues. There were numerous hot springs in the territory of New Mexico in 1885, but since he specifically notes Hot Springs, it may have been the town that re-named itself Truth or Consequences, in 1950, after the television show of that name.

New Mexico came a little late to statehood, so technically Albert was not actually in the United States in 1885. It became a state in 1912, when Howard Taft was president. The state has several amusing laws. Idiots are not allowed to vote, specifically those “mentally deranged.” Call it voter suppression if you like. The state voted democratic in 2016. It is also illegal to dance while wearing a sombrero.

Albert’s actual comings and goings between 1884 and 1890 are a little murky. The newspaper article on him is full of errors, condensed, and not exactly a model of investigative reporting. For my sake, I wish it had been. Albert’s proclivity for alternative facts didn’t help. Somewhere in 1884 Albert finds his way to Saint Louis and meets Charlotte Sarah Block (or Bloch). He may have been boarding with the Block family. She is one of Rabbi Aaron Block’s fourteen children. She is 16 and Albert is 29 years old. Their first child, my grandfather Wilford Alberti, is born in 1884 in Saint Louis. It doesn’t take a math major to figure out what may have occurred. The article notes Albert had been granted a vacation from the Hot Springs Company. It seems that while in Saint Louis a pregnancy may have materialized. Do rabbis have shotguns? He weds Charlotte, but there is no mention of a Jewish Wedding Ceremony. He does return to New Mexico, with his young wife Charlotte Sarah in tow. Two more sons are born in the New Mexico Territory. Ralph is born in 1886 and Paul in 1888. Paul only lives five years in one account, but my mother’s notes say he died of typhoid at 14. Ralph doesn’t live to be forty, but my grandfather Wilford lives to be 87.

Albert’s shenanigans between 1885 and 1890 are the ones he entertains his guests with at his swanky retirement party in 1916.

At the party, Mr. Fiske, the senior vice-president of Metropolitan Life refers to Albert’s short employment in New Mexico with the Acheson railroad as “a mysterious episode.” As a side note, in yet another of Albert’s alternative facts, he tells my mother he was one of the vice-presidents of Metropolitan Life. He was a very successful superintendent but never a vice-president. Mr. Fiske preceded Albert at the speaker’s podium. Several other speakers gave laudatory remarks on Albert’s service to the company. A fourth vice-president presents him with a diamond medal and a deputy superintendent presented him with a “loving cup” to commemorate his service. The cup was probably a smaller version of the two handled cups given to winners of athletic competitions.

When it came time for Albert to speak, maybe the good food and expensive wine loosened his tongue. To some degree he clears up the “mysterious episode” Mr. Fiske referred to earlier in the evening.

Here is an exact quote from a reporter attending the party: “Mr. Alberti created a great deal of amusement by reciting incidents from his early career in America, especially when he was Chief Engineer for the Acheson road without any training in civil engineering.” The actual railroad and proper spelling was the “Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway.” It took six months for the railroad executives to discover that the Chief Engineer they hired probably had little clue to what a civil engineer actually did. I wish I had a time machine. I would like to have heard details about the other incidents.

Let me digress for a moment. This lavish party orchestrated and primarily funded by Albert himself is an attempt to save his retirement pension after being fired or forced to resign after twenty five years of service.

I may have mentioned Albert’s first wife Charlotte Sarah hired a detective, suspecting that Albert was philandering. This was the year previous to the retirement party. Albert and Charlotte were living at 1100 Bales Avenue in Kansas City, Missouri. Albert was working for Metropolitan Life in the American Bank Building in downtown Kansas City. The detective was good at his job and caught Albert and his secretary (Laura) in a downtown hotel. Supposedly, the well paid detective was overzealous and marched Albert and Laura naked into the streets. This is scandalous news indeed if it occurred. I’ve tried to access newspaper files of the incident with no success. In any event, it was an embarrassing situation for the prestigious Metropolitan Life Company. Mr. Stewart, Albert’s direct supervisor, fires Albert for misconduct two days before Christmas. We know Albert paid dearly for this expensive tryst. Albert had $75,000 dollars in multiple bank accounts. Calculating that value in today’s money it comes to well over a million dollars. According to my mother, Albert got up in the middle of the night and spent $25,000 dollars in an attempt to buy out the entire Morning edition of the Star. Maybe he was successful, since I can’t find any evidence of the article. As the story goes, it headlined the news on the front page. Charlotte Sarah, his wife, was paid second. She had his bank accounts at First National, the Commerce Trust Company, the Southwest National Commerce Company, and the German-American Bank frozen. Albert and Miss Clayton failed to show up at the court proceedings and were fined twenty six dollars and fifty cents. In addition Albert had to pay Charlotte Sarah the twenty five thousand dollars she had sued him for. So far Albert’s peccadilloes have cost him fifty grand. But it’s not finished.

The brothers of Laura I mentioned earlier come to town. Remember Edgar, William, and Theodore? They force Albert to settle the remaining twenty five thousand on her. The court order signifies Mrs. Laura Clayton, so Laura was evidently also married. Her maiden surname is Martz. As it turns out Albert divorces Charlotte Sarah and marries Laura. Whether he was encouraged by the collective weight and persuasive measures of the three brothers, or if it was the easy path to re-join some of his money, is not evident.



To be continued next week:

Albert Anatole Alberti part 3

As a regular student not being groomed for a role in the church Albert may have had more freedom than I imagine. He was darkly handsome and may have turned the head of some girl in a nearby village or town and talked her into a confessional booth.. In America many acts of passion were routinely interrupted by the town constable shining his light into the back seat of a Chevy. On his regular beat in Lover’s Lane he would not be shocked- only the two illuminated lovers would be traumatized. All three parties must have been shocked when the Priest opened the door of the confessional. I’ve googled pictures of confessional booths and some are quite accommodating but I didn’t see anything as comfortable as a cushioned spring loaded Chevy seat. Albert possibly fell victim to the Italian machismo obsession and envisioned himself a young Valentino. Later in life an affair with his secretary threatens his pension and empties much of his substantial savings.

When giving information for a news article near his retirement Albert states he left the monastery at the age of 17, not 14 as he told my mother. He did not stow away on a ship headed to America, at least not as a teenager. This was yet another tall tale he told my mother. He actually travels only a short distance, whatever the distance might have been from the probable Certosan Monastery in Galuzzo, to the building that housed the Mayor of Galuzzo. An internet aerial view of Galuzzo shows it is a short straight shot to the Mayor’s office, and all down hill from the Monastery. After successfully passing an entrance exam Albert takes a position as a clerk in the Mayor’s office. He remains in this clerical job for two and a half years. Without aspirations of becoming the Mayor of Galuzzo this was a dead end job and Albert was without doubt ambitious. With his position in the Mayor’s Office he kept his eyes and ears open for news of better opportunities. The ebbing economic tide in Italy, which was so hard on uneducated and unskilled workers, provides profitable employment for the multi-lingual Albert. He becomes an instrumental part of one of the greatest mass emigrations in Italian history.

He travels to the port city of Marseille, France and takes employment with a firm of emigration agents. He was twenty years old and received three to five dollars in American equivalency for each passenger he put on board French steamships headed to the Americas. Southern Italians were desperate to leave due to extreme poverty, the problems in acquiring land due to the unification of Italy, and organized crime. Most of Albert’s clients went to South America. Many were illiterate and didn’t know the difference between South America and North America. Too few of the emigration agents were honest enough to tell clients the difference. It was of course a monumental difference and an immoral non-disclosure that affected the lives of many Italians. I hope Albert was forthcoming and honest with his clients. Any sins committed in a confessional booth would pale in comparison to the sin of misleading a poor and uneducated emigrant to thinking he was headed to the America of his dreams only to end up as a virtual slave on a plantation. There was a great need there for unskilled labor on the coffee plantations and in the mines. South America was undergoing a transition similar to that in North America with its emancipation of slaves. Venezuela had actually abolished slavery in 1854, a year before Albert’s birth

One can only imagine the difficulties that indigent and frequently uneducated southern Italians faced in preparation for traveling to America. Many southern Italians had to sell all their belongings to pay for the fare and needed guidance in disposal of their property. They were allowed only minimal baggage since there was limited space on the ships. With his language skills I assume Albert was instrumental in shepherding them through the paperwork necessary for both selling their property and then traveling to France and boarding a steamship.

Once an emigrant reached the port city of Marseille, they had to pass physical exams, where they were also checked for conjunctivitis and trachoma.

The lengthy steam powered trips were risky ordeals. Space and privacy were both hard to come by. Passengers in steerage slept in narrow packed bunks below deck. During storms the door to the upper deck was latched and left closed. Some sea hardy passengers adjusted to the constant rocking and bouncing of the ship. Many others spent the entire voyage bedridden with nausea.

Food included hard biscuits, wheat flour, oatmeal, rice tea, sugar and molasses. Some steam ship companies supplied travelers with even less variety. Eventually, various countries began regulating minimum requirements for food on board and requiring that each passenger be supplied with three quarts of water a day. Too often, upon landing, a large percentage of emigrants went straight from the ship to the hospitals, where survival rates were grim.

Beginning in 1876, when Albert would have been 21, he began a series of trips to South America in the interests of his French employers. They had a contract for the colonization of Brazil. Two years later he left this position to work for a competing French steamship company with a contract for the colonization of Venezuela.

I don’t know if Albert had the same accommodations as the passengers or if he had better quarters. I’m not sure precisely what his responsibilities as a traveling agent were, but I presume he was shepherding his clients through the paperwork and also acting as the liaison and translator at the destination port. He was probably quite good at his job. French was spoken by the crew, Italian by the passengers, Portuguese by the Brazilians, and Spanish by the Venezuelans. He was fluent in all of these romance languages.

In 1879 on a return trip from Central America, the steamer he was on became disabled. He was 24 and had been back and forth across the Atlantic numerous times. There is no information on how long the ship was disabled but it must have been near disastrous. It prompted a sea change in the direction of young Albert’s life. I seek forgiveness for the “sea change” phrase. Think of the troubles when a modern day luxury liner becomes disabled. A recent Carnival Cruise ship crippled by an engine room fire left 4200 passengers adrift for five days. There were shared horror stories by the passengers recalling unsanitary conditions and food shortages. Think of conditions on a steamship over 100 years ago. The steamship Albert was on was adrift in the Atlantic for two weeks. The perishable food would have definitely gone bad. The drinking water was compromised so dysentery would be in play. Disease killed more emigrants at sea than shipwrecks did during this time of sea travel. Illnesses often spread through the ships in epidemic proportions due to crowded or unsanitary conditions. Typhus, cholera, and dysentery were the biggest threats.

Albert was making a lot of money for a man of his age, but this ill fated trip alarmed him and made him aware of the risks he was taking each time he boarded a ship to South America. I’d like to think conscience played a small part since many of the poor Italians booked by unscrupulous agents were unaware of the ship’s destination. On his return he submitted his resignation to his French employers and set sail for other opportunities.



Albert suffered from stomach issues most of his life. He laid the blame on that final trans-Atlantic voyage. Perhaps dysentery or some other food related bug contracted on that steamship was the origin of his digestive problems. Amoebas, protozoan’s and bacteria can get into drinking water. On one of my mother’s written note sheets she added sentences sideways in the space of the left margin. “Overate 14 biscuits – almost did him in- but lived to be 85 years old”. Her lines and squigglys actually confuse her two grandfathers.. It was her other grandfather, Alson Alexander White, who was the biscuit eater. Alson, overweight, died after falling down the basement stairs in his fifties. Albert had his own “non-biscuit” health issues and always gravitated toward spa towns in America for the medicinal mineral water treatments.. My mother adds “Had to have his stomach removed”. Even today removal of the entire stomach is a difficult and risky procedure. Albert may have had some surgery done on ulcers or removal of a small portion but I doubt it was his entire stomach. His death certificate notes a bad liver as the ultimate cause of death.

To be continued 

The Gold Watch

The Gold Pocket Watch

From along icy shadowed halls of the Sant’ Antimo Monastery, resident monks and students were converging towards the chapel, for it was Lauds, which marked the beginning of each day. The reluctant boys moved grudgingly in the pre-dawn darkness, in little submissive groups, like mute sheep headed toward the shearing pen. The mutinous among the young students wished that Christ had not risen this early from the tomb, the reason given for this daily pre-dawn practice that incorporated prayer and hymns into an interminably long day.  Inadequately clad beneath rough woolen robes, the boys were shivering, their ice-cold hands clinging to Latin texts they dared not lose. Originally orphaned or abandoned, and now malnourished and impoverished, the young students felt the weight of injustice, and the yet unbroken boys rebelled in small insignificant ways. A peep beneath woolen hoods would reveal knots of uncombed hair, dirt behind the ears, and grimy underwear best not described.  A few older students, having taken vows of obedience walked briskly and had neat tonsured haircuts.  These students would become priests and abbots. A few would become cruel teachers, whom the headstrong boys with the unruly hair despised. Some of the brown robes were too long and frayed at the hem; some were too short, exposing bony ankles and sandaled feet to the drafts that whistled through the hallways.  Some boys were so skeletal their braided belts wound twice around their waists and it looked as if the weight of the robes would drag them to the ground.

As the boys passed through the thick exterior doors into the enclosed garden cloister, they were met with a biting wind and wooly heads were retracted further into their cowls. They resembled turtles as they moved slowly along the cobbled pathways toward the chapel.  In the middle of the cloister was an enormous statue dedicated to the source of their suffering. Carved in cold marbled stone, St. Benedict stood in the middle of the dead winter garden indifferent to the weather and the reluctant boys who faced never-ending hours of mandatory church services and Latin drill.  Each day had only two breaks, one genuine break after the noon meal, a second sham one during the evening meal when they were forced to listen without speaking while a monk read from a holy text.  To communicate they resorted to sign language.  A circle made with the thumbs and forefingers of both hands meant “Please pass the bread.” There were other signs invented by the wayward boys that would deserve serious punishment if they were ever deciphered. The untonsured boys were watched closely by the monks and older novices, who had leave to cuff miscreants who made faces or began kicking under the table.  Habitual offenders were hauled by the nape of the neck to Brother Scoldini, whose well worn leather strop raised welts across backs, buttocks, and legs.

The cloister was filled this morning with monks crossing the paths that surrounded the central statue of St. Benedict.  Several elderly monks moved as slowly as the reluctant boys, their bowed bodies the result of obeying edicts of their patron saint, who espoused hard labor and strict obedience to Benedictine rules.  It seemed this morning St. Benedict had settled his approving eyes on Brother Alito, whose old and twisted body resembled the twisted grapevines he tended in the Sant’ Antimo vineyard.  Brother Alito had lost count some time ago of the interminable years he had spent among the grapes.  It seemed St. Benedict even approved of the hacking consumptive cough Brother Alito had developed, which he tried to suppress as he passed under the visage of the giant statue, a touching testament to his fealty.

Young Albert Alberti was among the last to cross the cloister.  He had been a ward of Sant’ Antimo from the age of three when his family had a run of hard luck: two sisters carried away by pellagra, vineyards untended when the serfs were freed, and his father, Count Alberti, accused of being a disciple of Mazzinni, the leader of a secret assembly attempting to unify Italy into one state.  Albert was always the most reluctant boy, the least submissive boy, and almost always the last boy to cross the cloister on his way to the chapel.  He cringed under the scrutiny of St. Benedict, whose countenance toward Albert was always one of scowling disapproval.

It appeared St. Benedict would never forgive that Sabbath afternoon when he and a few other boisterous boys had played out the David and Goliath story using St. Benedict as Goliath.  Albert was chosen to champion the rowdy boys, and using small round stones and his woven belt for a sling succeeded in chipping a sizable piece of stone out of St. Benedict’s left temple and nicked his ear so badly it now resembled a cauliflower.  Unfortunately for Albert, the rousing cheers from the boys reached the refectory where Brother Scoldini was drinking Sant’ Antimo’s celebrated wine with Brother Benini. 

After thoroughly thrashing Albert, a still furious Brother Scoldini whipped and kicked him in the direction of the Abbot’s quarters.  The Abbott was in his cups and especially annoyed with Albert, but also with Brother Scoldini, for not resolving the matter on his own.

            “What is it now?” the drunken Abbott asked without interest.

            “Young Albert has damaged the statue of St. Benedict.”

            That seemed to stir the Abbott from his semi-conscious stupor.

            “What? – the statue is made of marble.”

            “He has managed it somehow.”

            As he walked through the cloister Albert was remembering the rest of the

conversation and  his creative and impassioned lie to the Abbot about merely

chasing the ravens away that were roosting and shitting on St. Benedict’s head and shoulders.

           

  In a moment of lost concentration in this recollection, Albert dropped his Latin primer near the foot of the giant figure. The book fell open, and sheaves of loose hand writing assignments flew away like birds whose cage had been opened. Startled, he chased the swirling papers up the walk to where the freezing wind had plastered them to the brick wall of the refectory and the wrought iron bars of the garden gate.  He paused to look wistfully through the locked iron gate into the morning darkness to where, in full daylight, he could see across the wild Val d’Orcia valley to the beginnings of the Alberti Estate, and often in summer one or more of his three older brothers: riding horses, tending the vineyards, or hunting with one of the two falcons their father had trained. This time of morning he could see only frosty fog rising off the Orcia River that flowed through the valley and passed the picturesque towns of Montalcino and Siena on its way to join the Tiber.

By the time he collected his Latin schoolwork, he was receiving disapproving looks from not only the stone faced St. Benedict, but Brother Scoldini, who was angrily holding the heavy chapel door open. As he passed beneath the tunnel formed by Brother Scoldini’s outstretched arm he was slapped soundly on the back of the head by the monk’s free hand. The smack caused the unruly boys in the chapel pews to turn their heads and smirk at Albert, including his slightly older and trouble-making cousin Felandro.  Felandro’s father was a younger brother to Albert’s father Dominic.  Dominic, as the eldest, had inherited the estate, the largest in the Val d’Orcia Valley.  Albert and Felandro shared the same olive skin, the same unruly black hair, the same intractable manner, and the same inherent hate for each other, as deep and entrenched as that between their fathers.

As Albert took his seat he looked past the altar piece to where a small fresco of St. Francis of Assisi was painted on the wall.  Albert much preferred the sayings of St. Francis to St. Benedict’s.  Benedict said, “Idleness is the enemy of the soul,” and “The first degree of humility is obedience without delay.” There were substantial rumors that his early followers tried to poison him.

On the other hand, St. Francis said, “Where there is charity and wisdom there is neither fear nor ignorance.” It seemed here at Sant’ Antimo St. Benedict made generous allowance for both fear and ignorance. Albert would rather be anywhere in the world than sitting on a hard pew beside Brother Scoldini,  preferably in another season outside the monastery, in fields of lavender or in the bird filled woods in the company of St. Francis.  Albert suspected Brother Benini, who now stood at the altar leading the litany, had only a rudimentary knowledge of Latin.  Regardless of this shortcoming, the assembled monks and boys dutifully repeated the psalms read by the corpulent winebibber with the rosaceous veins in his blue nose. Albert translated the Latin to Italian in his head but repeated the Latin flawlessly.

“Conculcaverunt me inimici mei tota die

 quoniam multi bellantes adversum me.” 

My enemies have trodden on me all the day long;

For they are many that make war against me.

During this litany Albert refused to exchange heated glances with Felandro or Brother Scoldini, regarding them as only puppets in the machinations conducted by the Abbot and the Church, preferring to stare at the stained glass windows and imagine a better life somewhere beyond their pictured saints.

“Tota die verba mea execrabantur adversum

Me omnia consilia eorum in malum”

All the day long they detested my words: all their

Thoughts were against me unto evil.

“Inhabitabunt et abscondent ipsi calcaneum

Meum obvservabunt sicut sustinuerunt animam

Meam”

They will dwell and hide themselves: they will

 watch my heel.  As they have waited for my soul.

          Despite Brother Benito’s drunken countenance, he had chosen a prophetic psalm to welcome this day with. As the boys filed out of the pew in front of him Felandro received a whack from Brother Scoldini for stretching his neck repeatedly during the service in order to stare vindictively at Albert. Caught up in his daydreaming of being delivered to a better place and a better time Albert had missed this infraction. Whatever the cause, it pleased him to see Felandro punished.

 During Latin drills Albert also missed the above normal sniggering and whispering when Brother Scoldini would lapse into one of his pensive walks to the window to check the worsening weather. This kind of unremitting winter weather affected teachers and students alike. Albert was one of the better students and Latin came easily, so he would conduct his own wool gathering sessions to coincide with those of Brother Scoldini’s.  These moments were his alone, and he would speculate on why he had been cruelly orphaned here at Sant’ Antimo within sight of his home.  It was only at Sunday Mass that Albert sometimes saw his family, usually his mother and two middle brothers, sitting near the front of the cathedral.  He was not allowed to visit, but would linger behind the other boys after the last hymn in hopes his mother would have a change of heart. Only at the Feast of Saint Nicholas was Albert allowed an agonizingly short visit to his family across the valley. These visits were often as silent as the evening meals at the monastery.  Accusing and guilty looks were exchanged, and it was never clear to Albert why he was the sacrificial lamb.

At the end of the Latin drills, the boys were led to the chapter house where a senior monk began to read the rules of Sant’ Antimo. After chapter rules were read they would be expected to discuss spiritual matters as well as monastery business.  There was always enough time allotted for everyone to examine their own conduct and one another’s.

 The reading was interrupted when Father Anselmo came into the chapter house looking solemn and apologetic.  He asked if any of the monks or boys had found or seen a gold pocket watch on their way to the chapel that morning.  There was a great deal of whispering among the boys since none were allowed to have personal items.  The monks were also speaking in undertones, having pledged their lives to St. Benedict and the virtues of poverty. It seemed the only lawful owner of a gold pocket watch was the Abbot, who was sometimes given property in exchange for housing and educating boys from wealthy families.

 In the midst of questions and growing suspicions about one another, the Abbot’s attending monk entered the chapter house and asked if he might speak to Brother Scoldini and Felandro privately.  The Abbot was seldom seen, preferring to sequester himself as he grew fat.  It was well known he had great difficulty lifting himself from a chair.  Persistent rumor spread that to curry favor with the Pope the Abbot would pick young boys to be castrated and sent to Rome to sing soprano in the Sistine Chapel Choir. As the chapter rules were being read, Albert wondered, somewhat hopefully, whether Felandro, who had a good singing voice, had been selected by the Abbot.

Near the end of the Chapter House Rules, Brother Scoldini and Felandro returned looking self-satisfied, and it was now Albert who was beckoned by the Abbot’s attending monk.  He was led out the same side door his merciless Latin teacher and spiteful cousin had just entered.  He gathered the hood of his robe in his free hand as they headed directly into the sharp wind and driving sleet toward the Abbot’s splendid quarters. There was little relief from the cold that gusted up beneath his robe.  As they were climbing the steps to the Abbot’s private lodgings, the cathedral tower rang out the hour of noon, and Albert’s stomach twisted at the thought of the other boys seated at long wooden tables in the refectory, passing warm loaves of bread and grabbing thick wedges of cheese from the platter.  The noon meal was the only time they were allowed to talk openly and even given a little leeway to gossip about their classmates and minders.  He suspected correctly that the conversation was leaning in his and his cousin’s direction, with various theories on why they had been plucked from the chapter house by the Abbot’s attending monk.

The Abbot was waiting for him, seated in a tapestry covered chair behind a desk covered with an array of spectacular food dishes. There was a small silver platter with two roasted pigeons, and a leg of mutton on a larger platter with a nicely browned skin dripping with gravy. There was a layered pudding dessert, sprinkled with chopped pistachios, laid on a small china saucer. Albert could smell and almost taste the chocolate pudding, nuts, and honey oozing from the dish. There were no dishes like this served at his parents’ estate, not even at the Feast of St. Nicholas.  Albert’s nervous dry mouth gave way to the appetizing odors.  He wiped the involuntary drool from the side of his mouth with the sleeve of his frock.

While reaching for a flute of brandy, the Abbot looked directly at Albert and said,

“You were seen picking up a gold watch in St. Benedict’s Garden this morning.”

Albert stared at the rings on the Abbot’s fat fingers and the jewel encrusted cross that hung about his neck from a gold chain.

“Me, Your Eminence?”  Albert had never learned or cared how to address the Abbot.  Reverend Father, Father Abbot, Most Reverend, the possibilities were endless.  Your Eminence seemed to suit him.

“Yes, you, Albert.  You, whose father is seldom seen at Mass, and you who seem to cause so much trouble for Brother Scoldini.”

Albert wondered why he should be held accountable for his father’s absence from mass, but addressed the more serious accusation.

“I swear your Most Eminence, it was not I.  I swear by the Virgin Mary.”

“Don’t damn yourself by false swearing, Albert. You were seen picking up the watch near the statue of St. Benedict by not one witness, but two.”

Bewildered, Albert reached in his mind for an answer to this dilemma, but finding none he asked, “Who sir?  Who saw me?”

“I am not here to be questioned by you, Albert.  You’re impertinence has no bounds.”

Albert remembered it was Brother Scoldini who saw him chase the loosed assignments to the garden gate.

“Your Most Eminent Sir, I only picked up my Latin writing exercises that were blown to the garden gate.  Brother Scoldini saw me.  Albert tried to maintain equanimity in the face of this false accusation

The Abbot dabbed his mouth with a monogrammed linen scarf and turned sideways in his chair. Albert followed his gaze to the window and saw the Abbot had a clear view of St. Benedict’s Garden, including the garden gate.  From this second story window he could also see over the gate across the valley, to the beginnings of the Alberti vineyards.  The Abbott appeared to be looking wistfully in that direction.

Albert was thinking fast, as he had when he was accused rightly about the stoning of St. Benedict.  His false story about shooing the ravens away from the statue had been plausible enough to lessen his punishment.  A little misdirection here might help.

“Perhaps it was my cousin, Your Eminence Sir that was seen picking up the watch. We are often mistaken for brothers.”

The Abbot’s bloodshot eyes settled on Albert with a look of disdain, as if he were merely a pawn of no consequence.

“Do not bear false witness, Albert; your cousin has been exonerated.”

 “You may search me, Sir Abbot.  I have no pockets, only this Latin primer and these sheaves of paper.”  Albert held out the Latin book to the Abbot in both supplication and argument.

Having taken enough time in this little chess game of his, the Abbott turned once

 again to the window overlooking the cloister.  He raised his unfluted hand in dismissal.

“Take the boy.  Remove him from my sight.”

“It’s God’s truth, ‘Your Highness,’ I am innocent.  It’s God’s truth.”

He was led back to the refectory where the emptied trays of bread and cheese had been stacked and returned to the scullery.  The boys were talking excitedly but grew quiet when Albert entered the room.  Brother Scoldini and Ferlando were sitting cheek to jowl on the far bench as if they were old friends.  Taratino, the truly orphaned and unruly boy from Siena, whose hair had been replaced with wire bristles, was the first to question Albert.

“Did you steal the Abbot’s gold pocket watch?”

From that point Albert was overwhelmed with questions and sly looks from the boys.

“Did the Abbot drop his watch in the Garden?”

“Where have you hidden the watch?”

“What else have you stolen from the Abbot?”

The questions brought up more questions, and all these unanswered questions and unjust accusations confused Albert greatly.  Albert was relieved when they were led to Latin drills by Brother Scoldini, who not once called on him or looked him in the eye during the afternoon classes.

The following week Albert was surrounded each noon by questioning boys.  Not one believed his lame and unexciting story about the dropped primer and the sheaves of paper flying away like loosed birds.

He doggedly stuck to his story and grew angry at not being believed for telling the truth.  He was furious at Brother Scoldini and Ferlando for implicating him as a thief.  His quarters had been thoroughly searched at his request, and still the unruly boys winked and gave him sly looks. The chapter house rules sessions became unbearable.  It seemed every session was designed to excoriate his sins.  He was scolded by the monks and held in awe by the unruly boys, who berated him nonetheless, delighted to have a scapegoat who drew attention away from themselves.  Now when he crossed through the Garden, which at one time offered sanctuary to Albert on a Sunday afternoon, he would pass behind the statue of St. Benedict, not only to avoid his scowl, but to register his protest against all things espoused by the saint.  He hoped each time he snubbed St. Benedict the Abbot witnessed it from his window.

Condemned as a liar he began to spin small tales at the noon table.  The unruly boys were skeptical but captivated.  The tales became larger.

“The Abbot really does have boys castrated to gain favor with the Pope.  What do you think happened to Pascal last year, the one with the high voice?”

“He was sent to his Uncle in Montalcino,” a boy answered.

“That’s what they told you – I have proof he is now in Rome.”

Albert found he was quite good at making up tales off the cuff.

“How do you know this, Albert?”

“There is a secret stairway to the Abbot’s quarters.”

  There were so many variations of the stories that it was inevitable Albert would eventually stumble on some semblance of the truth.

“The watch belongs to me. It was given to the Abbot by my father for safe-keeping, to be given to me when I leave Sant’Antimo.  The Abbot is the thief and the liar.”

By the time Albert fell on this truth, none of the unruly boys believed him.  His father had in fact given a gold watch to the Order of St. Benedict seven years ago in exchange for the education of his youngest son. For all those seven years the Abbot had stared out his window across St. Benedict’s Garden to the vineyards beyond the Orcia River and envied the estate of Count Alberti, and the treasures he imagined were housed there in the small castle.  Disbelieving tales of hardship, he constructed elaborate plots in his covetous mind to extort the imagined riches from Albert’s family.  In the past, the family had accumulated land and wealth banking for the Vatican, and that money, the Abbot conjectured, should revert to the church. Who was he, if not the church?

That day when he saw young Albert linger in the Garden he was finally spurred to move his first two pawns into action.  It was not difficult to convince Brother Scoldini and Ferlando to corroborate what the Abbot told them he had seen with his own eyes through the window.   He would soon make his next move and inform Albert’s parents of their son’s perfidy and extort additional indulgences from the family to save young Albert’s soul from perdition.

As the Abbot’s scheme proceeded, Albert’s tales became more complicated and less subtle in their accusations of the Abbot.  Brother Scoldini carried these accusations to His Eminence, who was alarmed when he realized one of the stories was near to the truth.  He instructed Brother Scoldini to give Albert scullery duty during the noon hour in order to isolate him from the other boys and monks.

Towards the end of the winter Albert’s determination to absolve himself began to weaken and was replaced slowly and resolutely with the resolve to find the imagined stairway to the Abbot’s quarters and actually steal the gold pocket watch if it existed.

       Why not, he told himself.  He was already damned to the eternal fires of hell for lying.  There was never going to be redemption here at Sant’ Antimo.  The path forward seemed clear.

       He had already been imagined and condemned as a thief, so now he would commit his second cardinal sin.  

Albert Anatole Alberti--Part 2

Probably the monastery was just what it was, a place where a young man could get a sound education. The concentrated Greek and Latin studies created a base that served him well. Latin was especially helpful in learning the romance languages, (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian). The first practical use of his language ability was in selling French steamship passages to southern Italian emigrants headed to the Americas. He made and lost a small fortune before he turned 25. Later, after he had circumvented the standard Ellis Island entry to America, he made extra money translating documents and finally ensconced in his main career with Metropolitan Life, his language ability helped him sell insurance policies to immigrants who may not have fully conquered the English language.

We know he was very fluent in Italian, English, and French. He was almost certainly fluent in Portuguese and Spanish. He traveled to Venezuela and Brazil multiple times in his early twenties. Somewhere in the box there is a suggestion that Albert studied Hebrew. I can’t imagine it being in the curriculum of any Italian monastery. If true, I doubt it was much use to him. It may have impressed his future Rabbi father-in-law in Saint Louis, Missouri, who owned a jewelry store.

I first thought Albert was born in Pienza, Italy since he listed it as his birthplace on his naturalization papers in1900. I would like to think it true and not just picaresque fiction, another bit of disinformation by a roguish Albert. It is one of the most picturesque towns in all Italy. Today it is a World Heritage UNESCO site. Pope Pius II planned to use it as his summer court. He constructed or re-constructed about 40 buildings transforming it from a medieval town into a creation of the Italian Renaissance. He consecrated the Duomo in 1459, but died soon after. It is interesting that the rebuilding was done by the Florentine architect Bernardo Gambarelli, and it is reported he may have worked with Leon Battista Alberti, a humanist and renowned architect in his own right. For you sleuths and historians in the family this Alberti connection should be examined. As a bonus, if you plan a trip there, there is an awesome annual cheese festival and many of the streets have names like Via dell’Amora, and Via del Bacio. Translated to English they are Love Street and Kiss Street. Renaissance Romance, with wine and cheese, how can you resist?



Located just a few kilometers north of Pienza is the Monastery of Sant’Anna in Camprena. When perusing and parsing all the misinformation that Albert was prone to disseminate I like to imagine Albert being placed in this monastery. Adrift with no diary or personal accounts of those dozen or so years sequestered in some Italian monastery, I penned a short story of his imagined wayward ways among the monks at Sant’ Anna Camprena.. Now that I’ve excavated the depths of the box and discovered a bit more of Albert’s character, I might re-write it in the future. The next time I might address why the monks damned him to hell. Was it fore taking liberties with the girl or desecrating the confessional box? The story I spun out of what I imagined life for Albert might be like in a monastery is probably not even close. I know now that I also had the wrong monastery and the wrong monastic order. The story I wrote with a pot load of wrong information- is named “The Gold Watch.” I will post it for those that might have nothing better to read.

The monastery in Camprena was chosen for the most famous scenes of “The English Patient.” The bedridden badly burned Ralph Fiennes has flashbacks to the desert air crash and Juliette Binoche studies the frescoes in the 13th Century Bacci Chapel. No, you can’t dangle from the ceiling and light flares to see the paintings as she did in the movie. A long avenue of cypress trees leads to the, monastery, standing amidst green fields, and featuring beautiful gardens.

The problem with Sant’Anna in Camprena is that it wasn’t operating as a working monastery in 1855. How disappointing!!

Today, even if Albert was not born in Pienza, you can spend the night in one of the ancient cells of the monks at Camprena, and then dine on tasty traditional Tuscan meals at the farmhouse. In the evening, you could sit outside on the terrace and view the sheep grazing in the beautiful Val d”Orcia valley below. The aromatic famous pecorino cheese comes from their milk. This would be high on my bucket list if it weren’t for the inconvenience of age and a dozen other little obstacles.

I then speculated on the Abbey of Sant’Antimo, a Benedictine monastery in Montalcino, almost in walking distance from Pienza, if you’re a really good walker. In 1855, a good sturdy horse could have pulled a cart or surrey there in a half an hour. More problems arise with the choice of this monastery. In 1866, when Albert would have been eleven years old, the Italian government decreed a general suppression of the religious order, and the monastic community here was transferred to Pescia, closer to Florence.

Someone, you know who you are, armed with a good passport and plenty of Euros, could go over and find the actual monastery Albert was placed in. I’m only a shallow digger with little patience. It’s not the sun bleached pyramids of Egypt with limited cuisine you’d be digging around in, or the mud packed Olduavi Gorge sleeping under a mosquito net. This is Tuscany with wine and pasta. Go!

Further evidence in the box points toward Galuzzo as Albert’s birthplace. I wouldn’t bet Albert’s hypothetical Italian Estate on it, but if I were to place a bet this would be it. Just before Albert’s retirement, when giving biographical information to a reporter for a newspaper article, he tells him he was born in Florence.

On the year Albert was born in 1855, Galuzzo was a little village or suburb in the southern quadrant of Florence. Albert took a job in the mayor’s office there, after either escaping or being forcibly evicted from the monastery, (take your pick) at the age of fourteen or seventeen, (take your pick). Both accounts and conflicting dates are in the box of memorabilia. Why Albert would list Pienza on his naturalization papers and then tell a reporter he was born in Florence may never be known. That’s not usually something you would vacillate on unless you had something to hide, didn’t actually know, or just enjoyed leaving a trail of false leads out of contrariness.

There are two monasteries in Galuzzo, San Francesco, a fourteenth century Franciscan monastery and Certosa del Galuzzo, a Carthusian monastery. Certosa del Galuzzo is the larger one. It was one of the most powerful monasteries in Europe. It was erected in 1341 with the aim of creating both a religious centre and a structure to educate the young. The monastery faces Palazzo Acciaioli, a building with battlements where the youth of Florence were instructed in language and in the human sciences. There are 28 monasteries in Tuscany, but for several reasons this one seems the likely place that Joseph and Siena may have placed Albert. It was famous for its ample library. I don’t know how the young male students were housed, but each Certosan monk had a private bedroom and a small separate room for praying. It was furnished with bare essentials and each cell had a small secluded garden. The monks led a life of quiet contemplation and solitary prayer. Speech was forbidden, except once a week. I find it hard to get any information on how functional this monastery was in 1855. Many orders of monks were changing locations and being suppressed by Napoleonic orders. Certosa del Galuzzo was no exception. I have no hard proof that this is where Albert spent much of his youth. Somewhere in Tuscany, in some monastic ledger; there is proof of his presence.



Whichever monastery Albert was in we have no indication of what went on in his daily life during his educational years. There are some titillating tales! He tells my mother he was caught Flagrante delicto in a confessional booth with a girl from town. I think the Latin translates to “flaming offense.” Use your imagination, but he was caught red handed in the midst of sexual misconduct. In a confessional booth, no less! He tells my mother that the monks damned him to hell and forced him to do the dirty difficult tasks around the monastery. Next, he tells my mother that a cousin, who was also being schooled there, gave him his gold watch. With this as his only coin of exchange he scaled the wall and stowed away to America. Evidence in the box proves this was false so why Albert would lead my mother up the garden path with only half truths only he can answer.

Albert Anatole Alberti--Part 1

Answering the door bell some six years ago now I opened the door to a triad of conspirators. They stood huddled in the entry looking both mischievous and mysterious. They held an unadorned cardboard box as if it contained religious relics. The visit from my three sisters was unexpected and their enigmatic smiles left little doubt they were up to something. The size of the box could have held a pressure cooker, a giant geode, or possibly fossilized poop from a Triceratops. What I found in the box were long held treasures collected from their separate homes. Sepia colored pictures, old love letters, a receipt for the twenty five dollar down payment on the home we grew up in, newspaper articles on the plane crash that killed our father, and letters sent to our mother from San Diego, Japan, Alaska and Hawaii, all from our brother after my mother shanghaied him at age 17 and signed him up with the Navy, hoping this would straighten him out.

Our brother Dale lived another 60 reputable years after the shanghaiing. His ashes have been distributed to the remaining siblings by his widow in small festive envelopes. Mine came in a 7” by 7” envelope with silver Christmas wrapping tied with a lacy black ribbon and adorned with a hand made delicate metallic gold bow. The attached note from Bess said “Dan, I know your heart will know what to do with Dale’s ashes”. I didn’t actually at the time but I do now.

I think my sister Ruth has mistakenly mixed the ashes of our mother and her deceased husband Richard in an urn atop her mantle. Mixing ashes of loved ones seems somehow fitting. Some remnant of Dale may find its way to that communal urn. I would like some of mine added at some later date.

I know his passing is what prompts my sisters to show up at my door, hundreds of miles from their homes. To pass these valued bits of nostalgia into my care must have been hard knowing my lifetime inability to focus on any one thing. Sensing we will be joining our brother in the genealogical records as a footnote, they are hoping, fantasizing maybe, that I will sort out the accumulated nostalgia into something some bored to tears descendant will pull out of some attic recess in the future, and spend an hour or two reminiscing, while the rain pours down and the accompanying electrical storm disrupts facebook, so why not go to the attic and see what curious things ancestors wrote on real paper from real trees.

They will be disappointed, as will I. I am not an organized person and have trouble collecting my own thoughts, let alone synthesizing information into something readable. I am not much interested in doing the leg work it takes to be really good at genealogical research. I get excited when I find little notes or poems that give clues to what went on in the daily lives of deceased family members. Unfortunately few of the people in the box my sisters gift me with were writers. The most prolific and talented is our mother. Her writings in the box include early correspondence she had with Leonard while he was in the Civil Air Patrol in Kansas, the religious articles on faith and miracles she wrote for “Stepping Stones” a publication of The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints”, and a humorous account of her first solo flight when she was qualifying for her pilot’s license.

After sifting through the box carefully, as if I was looking for small bones to reassemble a small pre-historic bird skeleton I find only a fragment here and there to suggest a wing or a leg. It’s like trying to assemble a 500 piece puzzle with 400 pieces missing. There will never be enough information to assemble an accurate or complete representation of any of the ancestors. There are no diaries, no lengthy accounts of daily living. They were all too busy living. What I find primarily after the contents of the box are examined are questions.

I find a little handwritten note written by my mother that says “Charlotte Sara Block, my grandmother” She is one of thirteen children, fourteen by another account, sired by a Rabbi who owned a jewelry shop in St. Louis. That’s all the information I can find in the box on my mother’s maternal grandfather. He is a German-Jew, whose name was probably spelled Bloch, and how and when he came to America is a question mark.

I find more information on my mother’s paternal grandfather than anyone else, Albert Anatole Alberti. I decide to start with him since he was such a colorful character. According to him he had seven names, not as many as Pablo Picasso whose full name was Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Pablo Ruiz y Picasso, names that honored his mother’s lineage. It would have been a lot easier to trace Albert’s parentage if he were Spanish, but I can find only a slender trace of his mother, at one place she is Sinea and on his naturalization papers it is spelled Sienna, like the Italian City. For Albert’s actual name I find someone has added an A making it Alberta, another place I find Alexander replacing Anatole as his middle name. That would make it Albert Anatole Alexander Alberti. I find nothing about the other three missing names but I’m guessing they started with A since the two of his three sisters I find names for are Assontina and Antonina. Even these names are in question because I find a page of copy paper where my mother has tried to diagram a family tree with lines and arrows. She has written in the upper left hand corner Count and Countess with three arrows. One to her grand father Albert Alexander Alberti, not Albert Anatole Alberti, like I find in other places and other arrows pointing to “3 girls Nazis took over and she has marked out the second two letters of Antoninas. Then she has another arrow pointing to another scratched out name I can only read through the scratches, Antonina again. Then she has”died in husbands Atoninas arms of dysentery”. You see what I’m up against with descending and ascending arrows pointing higgledy piggledy in every direction. A blurred and faded note indicates the three sisters died during the time the Nazi’s took over in the beginnings of the Second World War when Italy was still an ally of Germany and the Fascist Mussolini was dictator. Not knowing whether they were older or younger than Albert, it seems probable they would have died in this time period since Albert passed away in 1940 at the age of 85. Whether they died of old age or at the hands of the Nazi’s or from some disease like dysentery we may never know.

Albert fills in the name Joseph for his father and Siena for his mother on his naturalization application in 1900 at the Kansas City, Missouri District Court at the age or 45. He’s been in the United States for countless years and never set foot on Ellis Island. He slipped into the country without papers. I can find nothing on the internet or in a search of the vaults of Granite Mountain outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. The good news is that the Mormons add additional records each year equivalent to the data in the Library of Congress. The Mormon Church has built a super secure site to store extensive genealogical records 700 feet deep into the mountain, able to withstand a nuclear blast. Those considered heathens may not be high on the priority list of the Mormons although a lot of church members want to trace their lineage wherever it leads.. Even though my mother was Episcopalian, she married a Latter Day Saint, albeit the reorganized branch of the Salt Lake City church. Many relatives of church members not baptized while alive are ceremonially baptized posthumously in one of the ever increasing worldwide temple baptismal fonts. I doubt many Alberti’s have been baptized by proxy in the spectacular fonts the Mormons use to christen the dead. Still, I’m a little surprised not to find something in the mountain vault on Albert. Albert snuck into this country without papers; maybe he can finagle a way into heaven without this baptism benefit provided to members of the Mormon Church.

When Albert lists his birthplace he writes Pienza, Italy, a picturesque Italian hill town in the Province of Siena in Tuscany. The town was reconstructed by Pope Pius as a renaissance showpiece in the fourteenth century. When giving biographical information for a newspaper article Albert lists his birthplace as Florence. His second wife Laura would forward family letters form Italy to my mother, only after retaining or destroying the envelope or deleting the address of the writer. Supposedly there was an estate somewhere in Tuscany that my great grandfather could have taken over but he tells my mother he values his American citizenship over anything Italian. Albert tells my mother outright that it’s a lovely estate. Everything in Tuscany is lovely, even the old buildings that are showing wear. If, indeed there actually was an estate, a small castle, or a vineyard in the middle of Tuscany that her husband might inherit one day, Laura might have wanted to limit the possible interlopers. There’s a lot more to this real or imagined estate that will never be found inside this box. Possibly it was in financial trouble as many of the Italian estates were after Italian unification and the subsequent demise of the nobility when serfdom was banned. Possibly the estate didn’t exist at all -but I expect it did. One rainy day one of the Alberti offspring reading this in the attic during that electrical storm, , the one who has made his or her fortune with a new internet app, will take a limo to the airport, board his or her Lear jet, and using his or her upgraded smart phone translation app, connect the dots and fill in the missing pieces that are not in this box.

Albert’s tendency to substitute fiction for fact undermines the whole process of trying to nail down the real story of his life. Maybe he wanted it that way. Possibly there were some things in his past he was ashamed of. Episodes beyond the scandal that caused him to set the alarm to three a.m. and drive to the docks on Main where the Kansas City Star was being distributed to carriers, and attempt to buy out the entire morning edition. There’s probably a good story left in Italy, perhaps some disgrace that left the estate in ruin and bankruptcy. He benefits from anonymity by re-inventing his past. When he spins a few good whoppers to my mother he may be polishing his resume or maybe just entertaining his grand daughter with what she wants to hear. He was never President of Metropolitan Life Insurance like he tells her, but he did rise to Superintendent, which was a big deal for an Italian American at the time. He was Chief Engineer for six months with Atcheson Railroad in New Mexico until they found out he had no experience at all in civil engineering. He puts a humorous spin on this story at his retirement banquet at a swanky five star hotel in Wilmington Delaware, and has all the guests laughing, including the mayor and several of the richest Du Ponts on the planet. Maybe the reason the Atcheson railroad was never able to reach Santa Fe was not just the difficult terrain. Albert has a boat load of character flaws but he is educated, motivated, industrious, fluent in five or six languages (he tells my mother 17) and pulls himself up by his Italian made boot straps and a bit of creative hyperbole.

Puzzling out Albert’s birthplace, employment records indicate he was born in Galuzzo, which is a little village or suburb in the southern quadrant of Florence. Why he put Pienza on his naturalization records is, and will probably remain, a mystery. Maybe there was a reason he wanted to hide his actual birthplace, but all we can do is guess.



He tells mother he was placed in a monastery at the age of three. This was a common practice of the nobility to educate their male children, which is what he tells my mother. Second guessing Albert has become routine so it could have been because the family fell on hard times. Many of the estates collapsed around the time of Albert’s birth in 1855. At that time Italy was undergoing unification and serfdom was essentially outlawed. It turned out to be a hardship for both the serfs and the nobility. Another possibility, just saying, is that Albert could have been illegitimate which would explain the dearth of information about his parents. See where all this guessing leads, to more questions. A less likely possibility is Joseph and Sienna (or Sinea) thought Albert might find a pathway to becoming a cleric or bishop.



TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK

Mary Trulucia White

My mother’s mother, Mary Trulucia White, was born in Independence, Missouri in 1886. Interestingly, my mother shared few anecdotes or written details about her parents. Prone as I am to speculation, I’ve got next to nothing here. If I find more in notes unread, or if you as a related reader have information, even hearsay, please share. I’ve added some information below to give historical context to the times in which her mother lived. Charlotte’s (Mom’s) mother was the sixth child and second daughter of Alson Alexander White and Sarah Ann Robertson. Her father commuted by trolley from their home in Independence, Missouri to his downtown office in Kansas City. He worked for the growing Badger Lumber Company, where he’d been promoted from bookkeeper to treasurer.


Kansas City had developed one of the best trolley systems in the United States. Starting in 1870, the first trolleys were pulled by horses. By 1925, the transportation system had grown to over 700 trolleys. At that time, operation of the system was turned over to the Kansas City Public Transportation System.


I remember old trolley tracks running down 24 Highway and Sharon (my wife) remembers trolley tracks on Noland Road. The later trolleys that were hooked to overhead electric lines looked like the buses I used in my youth to get around town. There was a rumor—never refuted—that my mother and father, Charlotte and Leonard, were put off a trolley once...for a public display of affection.


The year Mary Trulucia was born, Grover Cleveland was president. I think he was the only president who wed while in office. He married a lady twenty-seven years his junior. Around that time, a pharmacist invented Coca-Cola in Georgia...don’t we wish we could go back in time and buy a few shares? There was a big riot and bombing in Chicago, where unions were pushing for an eight-hour workday. Geronimo and his band of Apaches surrendered in Arizona, which marked the end of the wars between the Native American Tribes and the United States Army. In New York, the Statue of Liberty was dedicated as a beacon of hope for millions of immigrants who would pass it in the decades to come. I think she might have shed a tear or two if she could have looked into the future.


Many changes have come since Mary’s time. At one time Lady Liberty welcomed people from Ireland, Italy, and many other places in all corners of the world; today, the great complexities of immigration have become a highly-charged political problem. The world’s population has increased six-fold in the 130 years since Mary’s birth. In 1886, the population of the world was less than one and a half billion. Today, it approaches seven and a half billion[LV1].


Technological advances has changed the way the world works in ways unimaginable by Mary and her contemporaries. We have gone from phones attached to the walls of our homes to cell phones that ride in our pockets and receive calls and text messages from tall cell towers that dot the landscape every few miles. In remote areas, you can use a satellite phone that bounces messages off satellites in orbit around the earth. In 1886, news in Independence, Missouri and other cities was found in newspapers such as the Independence Examiner. Today, instead of a once or twice daily newspaper printing, news is delivered almost completely digitally, and can be released instantaneously to millions through the internet. Television didn’t become a major source of news until the late 1940’s, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the first President to appear on television. The first personal computer became available in 1975, and came as a kit. Twenty years later, they had become a standard feature in homes across America. Many of today’s younger generation have no memory of life without computers, and many rely heavily on social media websites for news, information, and communication[LV2].


Considering what we have available today, just forty-two years after the advent of the personal computer, it’s overwhelming to assess the changes that have come in the world. We could address a zillion other changes in the last century from the world Mary Trulucia lived in, compared to today’s influences and environment. There’s a bit of nostalgia and longing for what we of the older generation refer to as the ‘good ole days’. I don’t miss the hardships of travel, paucity of good reading material, and outhouses of two hundred years ago—but drop me off in the fifties with a good public transit system, a modern library, and indoor plumbing. Whether I like it or not, I’m caught in the modern milieu and chaos of self-driving cars, fake news websites, and transgender bathrooms where the lights, faucets and stool all operate by sensors…or not. How different is the world we now live in, compared to the world in which Mary Trulucia lived[LV3] !


I am curious as to how Mary Trulucia came to be courted by such an unwelcome suitor, at least in her parents’ estimation. He was a foreigner in their eyes—a lazy Italian with no prospects—and currently unemployed. Did they meet at school, on the trolley, or maybe at the soda fountain in the Clinton Drugstore on the Independence Square? No one remains living today that might know the answer, but it seems likely they met at school. The Noland School Mary Trulucia attended was built the year before she was born. It was located on Liberty Street, near its intersection with Pacific Street in Independence. It was originally called the Southside School, but was renamed in honor of Hinton Noland, a longtime member of the Independence School Board.


Long before he became President, Harry Truman was eight years old when he entered Noland School as a first grader in 1892. If my math is correct, that makes him two years older than Mary Trulucia, and it is likely that the two of them attended school together, albeit in separate grades. Early in 1894, Harry Truman became ill with diphtheria and was forced to drop out of school. When he was well enough to return, he transferred to the new Columbian School, which was closer to his home.


During the 1890’s, classes at the Independence High School were held upstairs in the Ott School on North Liberty Street. A separate building for the high school was completed at the corner of Maple Avenue and Pleasant Street in 1899, around the time Mary Trulucia would have been entering high school. Harry Truman and his future wife, Bess Wallace, finished grammar school in 1898 and graduated from Independence High School with the class of 1901. If I could find an old yearbook, I would bet—not the farm, but everything in my billfold and the loose change on my desk—that I would find Mary Trulucia and her beau, Wilford Alberti, her future husband, in that yearbook. A search of Google just now reveals I would have lost that bet, as I discovered that Independence High School didn’t start making yearbooks until 1911.