I am working on a family history of the Catallo family in Rochester, NY. I am using public records, family documents, and more to build this.

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The Catallo Family: From Pignataro Maggiore to Rochester, NY

Last Updated Oct 11, 2026

This is the story of five generations of Catallos, from Giorgio Catallo, a man of Pignataro Maggiore born around 1857–1862, to his great-great-grandson George B. Catallo of Rochester, New York, who compiled it. The thread that ties them together runs Giorgio > Crescenzo "Lawrence" > George F. > George John > George B.; the other branches are followed as far as the records go.

Everything here comes from the family papers (passport, naturalization, marriage and death certificates, consular reports and Jim Catallo's hand-written memoir), Ellis Island manifests, Find a Grave, published obituaries, and family knowledge. The source for each claim is named in the text, and where records disagree the disagreement is noted rather than smoothed over. Living people appear only as their relatives' obituaries name them.

Generation 1: Giorgio Catallo and Elisabetta Caricchio

The family begins in Pignataro Maggiore, a farming town about 40 km north of Naples and 20 km northwest of Caserta. There Giorgio Catallo married Elisabetta (Elizabeth) Caricchio; both are named as Crescenzo's parents on his 1927 Italian marriage certificate and his 1979 New York death certificate.

Giorgio's birth is not yet pinned down. A hand-written pedigree chart gives about 1862. Ellis Island lists a Giorgio Catallo arriving in 1896 at 37, in 1905 at 47, and in 1920 at 63 from Pignataro, which points instead to about 1857–1859. Like many men of the Mezzogiorno at the turn of the century, he seems to have crossed to America for seasonal work and gone home again.

The crossings, 1896 and 1900. Ship manifests now trace Giorgio across the Atlantic at least four times. On 11 May 1896 the Alsatia landed him at New York from Naples: line 742, Giorgio Catallo, 37, labourer, bound for Rochester for a "protracted sojourn" with one piece of baggage (Alsatia manifest, p. 13). He was one of about sixteen men on lines 727–743 all going to Rochester, with Pignataro surnames that recur in the family's records: Cicali (Cicala), Palumbo, Giordano and Scialdone. One of them, Carlo Catollo, also 37, may be a relative. Pignataro men were already working in Rochester in the 1890s, and Giorgio was among them. The match is strong.

Carlo Catallo, probably Giorgio's brother or cousin. A Carlo Catallo was living in Rochester in 1920. The S.S. Madonna, which sailed from Naples on 8 Oct 1920 and reached New York later that month, carried on list 17, lines 2–3, Lorenzo Cicala, 42, a shoemaker, and Giacomo Cicala, 37, both of Pignataro, going to "their cousin Carlo Catallo" at 376 State Street, Rochester. Line 1, Pietro Giuliani, 17, was going to his cousin Antonio Del Vecchio at the same address. Carlo is most likely the Carlo Catollo, 37, who sailed with Giorgio to Rochester in 1896, which would put his birth around 1859 and make him Giorgio's brother or first cousin. That identification is inferred, not proven. The Cicala cousins also show the Catallos and Cicalas were intermarried, as Casto Catallo's marriage to Maria Stella Cicala already suggested. The 1920 census for 376 State Street would show who Carlo lived with.

On 13 Mar 1900 he arrived again, on the Victoria from Naples: Giorgio Catallo, 42, married, a labourer from Pignataro, with $18. He travelled steerage, could not read or write, and declared he was staying in the USA (Ellis Island passenger record). He sailed with eight other Pignataro men and named as his in-law Giovanni Borulli (probably Borrelli) of 915 "Lacque" Street, Philadelphia. That in-law may be the link to the Theresa Borrelli on the pedigree chart. On this and every later crossing he told the clerks he had never been in the United States before, an answer repeat labourers often gave, which does not weaken the matches. A G. Catallo, 36, a farmer, also landed from the Hesperia on 5 May 1893, with no town given; that one is unconfirmed.

Turned back at Ellis Island, 1905. On his third known crossing Giorgio was refused entry. The Germania sailed from Naples on 18 May 1905 and arrived on 1 Jun 1905. Its manifest (list 6, line 11) shows Catallo, Giorgio, 47, married, labourer, unable to read or write, from "Pignataro Magg.", bound for Rochester with $12, going to a relative, probably Giuseppe Borrelli (the surname is hard to read), at a hotel restaurant in Rochester. The line is stamped DEPORTED. The Record of Aliens Held for Special Inquiry for the same ship (line 16) shows him held as "LPC" (likely to become a public charge) by inspector Mann, excluded by a Board of Special Inquiry on 2 Jun (record page 86), and sent back on the Germania on 5 Jun 1905. LPC was the usual ground for refusing an older labourer with little money. On the same manifest page, Lorenzo Carucci of Pignataro was going to his friend Bartolomeo Giuliano at 368 State Street, Rochester, the uncle Angela would join twelve years later.

Giorgio's ages, 37 in 1896, 42 in 1900, 47 in 1905 and 63 in 1920, all point to a birth around 1857–1859. Read together, the records show a labourer who crossed back and forth for work in Rochester while his family stayed in Pignataro. Two years after he was turned away, his 15-year-old son Crescenzo sailed into New York on the same ship, the Germania, and was admitted.

The last crossing, 1920. Giorgio was at home in Pignataro in February 1917, when his daughter Angela named him as her nearest relative there (S.S. Patria manifest, below). In 1920, at 63, he crossed one last time. The S.S. Taormina list from Naples (list 20, line 3) records Catallo, Giorgio, 63, married, labourer, of Pignataro, 5 ft 2 in, brown hair and eyes, with $50, arriving at New York on 4 Jun 1920. His nearest relative at home was his wife Elisabetta, so she was still living in Pignataro in 1920. He was going to his son Crescenzo at "376 St", almost certainly 376 State Street, Rochester.

He did not get through at once. The Special Inquiry record for the Taormina (sheet 239) holds him as "Un read LPC PH D": unable to read, likely to become a public charge, and probably certified physically defective (the last reading is inferred from the usual abbreviations). After about five days he was admitted on 10 Jun 1920. The 1917 Immigration Act exempted from its literacy test a father over 55 coming to join an admissible son, and that may be why he was let in; this is an inference. This is the visit the family remembered, when the old man tied young George to the cellar pole. The Rochester city directory for the year ending October 1922 (p. 268) lists "Catallo Giorgio laborer bds 13 Saratoga av", boarding in his son's house. Where and when Giorgio and Elisabetta died is not yet known.

The same index lists a Crescenzo "Castallo", 25, of Pignataro, who sailed to New York before about 1897. He cannot be our Crescenzo, who was a child then. If the surname is a misreading of Catallo, he may be an older relative after whom Crescenzo was named.

The 1920 crossing is the one the family remembered. Notes made on the 2002 Ellis Island printouts mark it as Jim Catallo's grandfather, and Jim's memoir recalls "grandpa" visiting from Italy and tying a misbehaving young George to a pole in the cellar. It is the only story of Giorgio that survives in the family's own words.

The town's province changed names around the family, which explains the mixed place names in the records. Pignataro belonged to Terra di Lavoro, seated at Caserta, until 1927, when it was placed under Naples; the province of Caserta was re-created in 1945. So the 1939 marriage copy and the 1949 consular report say "Napoli", while later papers say "Caserta".

Giorgio and Elisabetta's other children are uncertain. The pedigree chart names sons Mariano and Angelo and a daughter Angela, and an Angelo, son of Giorgio, who married a Theresa Borrelli (the handwriting is hard to read). Jim's memoir says instead that his father had two sisters, one on White Street in Rochester and one in Italy (the "100" and "200" beside them may be Jim numbering the two sisters rather than house numbers). The Rochester sister is probably Angela, below. A 16-year-old from Pignataro who arrived in 1914 is marked on the Ellis Island printout as "nephew to Dad", but his name is cut off the copy. Nothing reliable has yet been found for the generation before Giorgio and Elisabetta.

Angela Catallo, Crescenzo's sister. One sibling is now confirmed. The S.S. Patria, which sailed from Naples and reached New York in February 1917, carried on list 10, line 28, Angela Catallo, 22, single, travelling second cabin and paying her own passage. Her nearest relative at home was "her father Giorgio Catallo" of Pignataro, and she was going to "her uncle Bartolomeo Giuliano" at 376 State Street, Rochester, the same house where Crescenzo was living when he was naturalized in 1918. She was born about 1894–1895, and she may be the sister in Rochester whom Jim remembered. Bartolomeo Giuliano was an uncle by blood or by marriage, so Giuliano is a new family surname; an Angelo Giuliano, 21, of Pignataro, had sailed with Giorgio in 1900. Angela travelled with Angela Mancini, 55, a widow going to her sons Antonio and Pietro Borrelli at 384 State Street, another sign of the Borrelli connection.

The sister in Italy. Crescenzo's other sister stayed in Italy. Her married name was probably Zeppetella, since the 1943 clipping names her son as Angelo Zeppetella (inferred: a son would normally carry his father's surname). A 1943 Rochester newspaper clipping says she had four sons who served Italy in the Second World War. The eldest, Angelo, born about 1910, was a prisoner of war in 1943. The youngest, Americo, was killed in East Africa about 1941. The other two served in the Italian forces (see the 1943 section under Crescenzo).

Another Catallo household: Casto Catallo. The Pignataro Maggiore birth register for 1891 records a second Catallo family in the town in Crescenzo's infancy (Atti di Nascita 1891, act no. 35, FamilySearch, accessed 9 May 2026). On 1 Mar 1891 Casto Catallo, aged 30, a bracciale (day labourer), registered the birth of his son Giovanni. The boy had been born at 10 am, probably on 26 Feb 1891, at house number 12 on a street whose name is hard to read (perhaps Via Marrazzi). His mother was Maria Stella, whose surname may read Cicala. The mayor, Alfonso del Vecchio, took the declaration.

Casto was born about 1861, the same years as Giorgio's estimated birth (c. 1857–1862). Giovanni was born five months after Crescenzo. In a town of Pignataro's size, two Catallo men of the same age were most likely brothers or first cousins, which would make Giovanni a first or second cousin of Crescenzo. That is an inference only. Casto does not appear among the names on the family's pedigree chart, and the link needs his own birth or marriage act, which will name his parents.

Generation 2: Crescenzo Lorenzo "Lawrence" Catallo (1890–1979)

Crescenzo Lorenzo Catallo was born in Pignataro Maggiore on 22 Sep 1890 (passport; death certificate) and left home at 15. Rochester knew him as Lawrence; the records also call him Criscenzo and Lorenzo, and the 1949 consular report spells the surname Catello.

Crossing to America

On 26 Apr 1907 he reached New York on the Fabre Line steamer Germania, which had sailed from Naples on 11 April (Ellis Island manifest; ShipIndex). He is line 2 of the manifest: male, 15, single, from Pignataro. Just above him is Giovanni Marcello, 32, also of Pignataro, probably a travelling companion or sponsor.

Three years later he crossed again. The Madonna sailed from Naples in August 1910 and reached New York on 30 Aug 1910 (the 2002 printout gives 29 Aug). Crescenzo is on list 1, line 26: "Catallo Crescenzo", 20, single, a farm labourer who could read and write, from Pignataro. His nearest relatives at home were his "Parents Catallo Giorgio and Elisabetta, Pignataro Maggiore", so this is the first of his own crossings to name both parents. He was going to his "Cousin Lorenzo Testa, State St 376, Rochester" with $30. He was 5 ft 3 in, with a brown complexion, black hair, dark eyes and a scar on his chin. Column 17 says he had been in the United States before, in Rochester; the years are only partly legible but appear to run from 1907, which fits the 1907 Germania arrival (inferred). The "Non Immigrant Alien" stamp beside his name most likely marks him as a returning resident, though that is also inferred (Madonna manifest, list 1, line 26). So 1910 was a return to Rochester after a visit home, not a first arrival. Jim's memoir dates his father's coming to 1910, which was most likely the crossing the family remembered. The manifest also shows that 376 State Street was already a family address that year. Testa is a new surname among the family's kin. He made at least five Atlantic crossings in his life.

Citizen, husband and father

On 6 Nov 1915 "Criscenso L. Catallo" married in Rochester (NYS marriage index, p. 212, line 8, certificate 29117). The index does not name the bride. The middle initial marks the groom as Crescenzo Lorenzo, and his bride was almost certainly Martha (Marta) Munno, also of Pignataro, who had lost her mother young and been raised by an aunt (Jim's memoir). Her name here is an inference until certificate 29117, which would also name her parents, is seen. Their first son, George, was born on 14 May 1916. On 30 Dec 1918 the Monroe County Supreme Court naturalized him as "Crescenzo Lawrence Catallo" (certificate no. 870483). The certificate describes a man of 28, 5 ft 2¾ in, with dark brown eyes, black hair and a scar on his left little finger, living at 376 State Street with Martha, 26, and sons Giorgio, 2, and Simone, 1.

By 1920 the family had moved to 13 Saratoga Avenue, where Jim was born at home; Lawrence was still writing from there in 1949. The family's parish was likely St. Anthony of Padua, Rochester's first Italian national parish (parish history).

The Rochester city directory for the year ending October 1922 (p. 268) files him under the misspelling Cataldo: "Lorenzo (Martha) mach opr h 13 Saratoga av", a machine operator heading the household, with his father Giorgio boarding there. A different Crescenzo, with a wife Vincenza, lived at 358 Oak Street and is listed under both Catallo and Cataldo. He is not our Crescenzo, though he may be a relative. A Rochester marriage index shows a "Crisengo Catallo" marrying Vincenza Spampinato on 11 Jul 1931 (certificate 29598), when our Crescenzo had been married to Antoinette for almost four years.

His earlier address, 376 State Street, was a Pignataro household that the family's emigrants used for years. Crescenzo lived there in 1918; his sister Angela went there to her uncle Bartolomeo Giuliano in 1917; his father Giorgio gave it as Crescenzo's address in June 1920; and in October 1920 two Cicala cousins from Pignataro were going there to Carlo Catallo (S.S. Madonna, list 17). Whether Crescenzo still lived there in 1920, after Jim's birth at Saratoga Avenue, is not clear.

Loss and a second marriage

Martha died on 26 Nov 1926, aged 34, eight months after the birth of their fifth child, Betty (Find a Grave; Jim names Lake Avenue Hospital). The four older children went to St. Mary's orphanage at Main and Genesee Streets; baby Betty lived with a family friend.

His passport, no. 435233, dates what came next almost day by day. It was issued on 8 Jul 1927 and lists him as a leather cutter. He landed at Naples on 29 Jul, and on 8 Oct 1927 he married Maria Antonia "Antoinette" Caricchio in Pignataro Maggiore (civil register 1927, part I, no. 22). Her parents were Giuseppe Caricchio and Concetta Bovenzi, a reading her FamilySearch record confirms. He left Naples on 15 Oct and brought her home to five children aged about 10, 8, 6, 4 and 1½.

Jim remembered that his father "married a cousin of his". The records support a family tie, since Crescenzo's mother and his new wife were both Caricchios.

A FamilySearch record for Maria Antoinette Catallo gives her birth as 8 Oct 1907 and her immigration as 1927. It places her in Rochester in 1930, 1935 ("same house") and 1940, and records her death in Rochester on 28 Dec 1996 and her burial there. It names her parents as Joseph (Giuseppe) Carichio and Concetta Bovenzi, her husband Lawrence Catallo, and her daughter Antoinette Wrights. The 1907 birth date falls on the day and month of her wedding, and Jim remembered her as 29 when she married, so her true birth year is still open (see the conflicts table).

The Caricchios had their own ties to Rochester. In the Italians to America index, an Alessandro Caricchio, 38, married, of Pignataro sailed for Rochester in about 1905, with a contact at 368 State Street. That was a few doors from the 376 State Street where Crescenzo lived in 1918. He travelled on the same manifest as several Bovenzis, the surname of Antoinette's mother. A Giuseppe Caricchio, 31, married, of Pignataro, sailed in about 1900, bound for what is probably Fishers Island, NY, with a Borrelli contact. He could be Antoinette's father Giuseppe, but nothing yet confirms it. These are index entries only, with estimated years.

The death of little Lawrence

Crescenzo and Antoinette had four children. The youngest, Lawrence (Lorenzo), was born in Rochester on 24 Jul 1946. In 1949 Antoinette took him to Pignataro on passport no. 30962, staying at Via Partignano 3. He died there at 2 pm on 24 May 1949, of splenic anemia (American Consulate General, Naples, Report of Death, 16 Aug 1949).

He was laid in a vault in the Pignataro cemetery and not brought home. In 1982 a Vito Giorgio paid the Congrega di S. Giorgio Martire, the town's confraternity of St. George, 18,600 lire to renew his burial niche (receipt no. 46).

Work and last years

Crescenzo was a leather cutter for most of his working life. Jim wrote that he worked for the WPA in the 1930s and then cut leather at Eastman Kodak until he retired at 65; his death certificate confirms Kodak and gives his schooling as grade 5. Jim remembered him as hard-working, well dressed on occasion, and handy: he did his own repairs and taught Jim the carpentry Jim practiced for sixty years.

A family on both sides of the war, 1943

A Rochester newspaper clipping kept by the family, from the summer of 1943, tells how the war divided Crescenzo's family. Its headline reads "Uncle of Trio in Italian Army Has 3 Sons Fighting for U.S.", and a photograph captioned "Their Kin Fights Kin" shows Crescenzo, in glasses, with his son Simon, the two of them reading a V-mail letter from a nephew who was a prisoner of war. The story gives the family's address as 13 Saratoga Avenue. The paper and exact date are not on the cutting. The nephew's letter was dated 13 July, and the article mentions Marshal Badoglio, who led Italy from 25 Jul 1943 until the armistice of 8 Sep 1943, so it ran in those weeks (family history 2, the complete clipping; family history 1 holds a partial copy). "Lawrence Catallo's three fighting sons" were in the US Army: Chester, 21, a private in the Signal Corps on manoeuvres near Nashville; George, 27, a corporal in the Infantry at Fort McClellan, Alabama; and James, 23, a private in the Field Artillery at Fort McKinley, Maine. Simon, married and living at 25 Fulton Avenue, was a defence worker who expected to be called up in about two months "to even up the score for our family, 4 and 4."

The other four were his nephews in Italy, the sons of his sister there. The eldest, Angelo Zeppetella, 33, had been an Allied prisoner of war in Africa for two and a half years. His fourth letter to his uncle had just arrived, "unsealed, much-stamped" and "neatly printed in ink on an official blank", dated 13 July from "somewhere in North Africa". It asked after the family's health and avoided any mention of the camp. Angelo's youngest brother, Americo, had been killed two years earlier in battle in "Oriental Africa", Italy's East African empire. Nothing was known of the other two brothers except that they were serving in the Italian forces. Crescenzo had seen all four as young boys on his visit home fourteen years before. "I only wish Marshal Badoglio would listen to the pleas of his people and give in to the demands of the Allies," he told the paper. He was by then doing war work at Kodak and "hoping for the day when he can see his sons and his sister's sons in a world at peace again."

The article says he came to America in 1906, a year before the 1907 Germania manifest, and puts his visit home about 1929, where his passport gives 1927. It also calls Simon his "oldest son", though George, born in 1916, was older than Simon, born in 1917. These are small slips of memory or reporting.

He and Antoinette later lived at 362 Falstaff Road in Irondequoit. He died there at noon on 12 Jul 1979, aged 88, of cardiac arrest with anemia from colon cancer, and was buried at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery on 14 Jul 1979 (NY death certificate). His Social Security number was 073-05-0348 (SSA Death Master File). Antoinette, who kept writing to relatives on Via Partignano into the 1990s, died on 28 Dec 1996 (Catallo Family Tree 1).

Generation 3: Crescenzo's nine children

Crescenzo had five children with Martha Munno and four with Antoinette Caricchio, born across thirty years from 1916 to 1946.

Children of Martha Munno

George F. Catallo (14 May 1916 – 23 Oct 1996), the eldest, carries the direct line and has his own section below.

Simon J. "Si" Catallo (19 Nov 1917 – 27 Nov 1988), named Simone on his father's naturalization, was married and living at 25 Fulton Avenue in 1943, working in a defence plant and expecting to be drafted. The same story's photograph shows him with his father, reading his cousin Angelo Zeppetella's letter from a prisoner-of-war camp (1943 newspaper clipping). He married Annette Dellario (22 Aug 1920 – 25 Jun 2016). Both are buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Canandaigua (Find a Grave). Their children have not yet been found.

Vincenzo "Jim" Catallo (22 Feb 1920 – 7 Aug 2016) was born at home on Saratoga Avenue. On his twelfth birthday, 22 Feb 1932, the Rochester Journal and the Post Express listed "James Catallo, No. 13 Saratoga Avenue" among the members of the Loew's Rochester Theater Birthday Club, which showed the family still in the same house ten years after the 1922 directory (via OldNews.com). Three years later he made the front page. On 25 Jun 1935 the Rochester Journal's Local News page ran "Boy Rescued from Gorge": James Catallo, 15, of 13 Saratoga Avenue, was brought out of the Genesee River gorge by firemen after his companion, Dominick Del Conte, had reached safety (OldNews.com summary; the full article text has not yet been read). His memoir does not mention the rescue, but it does say that by 1935 he was calling himself Jim, or "Jumbo" (the reading may be "Jimbo"). He married Rose in 1942, the same year he went into the Army, and in his last years he lived in Victor, first at Gypsum Mills Estate and then at the Legacy (memoir transcription). His birth certificate reads Vincenzo, his father called him "Jimmie", and he took the name James John Catallo when he joined the Army in 1942. Already married, he enlisted at Rochester on 24 Nov 1942 as a private, serial number 32584116, and was released on 10 Sep 1943; that summer he was a private in the Field Artillery at Fort McKinley, Maine (1943 newspaper clipping) (WWII Army Enlistment Records; VA records). He worked as a carpenter, the trade his father taught him. He married Rose Cacia (1921 – 25 May 1988) and they had three daughters, Joyce Howe, Barbara Catallo and Janie Catallo. His hand-written memoir, made around 2015, is the source of most of what the family knows about its early years in Rochester (obituary).

Chester C. "Chet" Catallo (25 Feb 1922 – 20 Jan 1959), whose middle name was Charles, served in the Army in World War II. He was inducted on 30 Dec 1942, entered active service on 6 Jan 1943 (service no. 32 673 866), and served as a private in Headquarters Company, 69th Signal Battalion. In the summer of 1943 he was on manoeuvres near Nashville (1943 newspaper clipping). He was honorably discharged on 14 Oct 1943, after about nine months. The short service may mean a medical discharge, but that is an inference; his VA claim file (XC 4 545 808) would explain it. He died at 36 and is buried in the veterans' plot, section 18, grave 151 at Holy Sepulchre (Find a Grave). In 1959 the Monroe County Veterans' Service Agency had a flat granite marker placed on his unmarked grave (DA Form 1815, application of 30 Jan 1959). No spouse or children have been found.

Elizabeth M. "Betty" Catallo (27 Mar 1926 – 14 Apr 2016) was a baby when her mother died. She married Benedict "Ben" Rinaudo (1919 – 12 Oct 2005) and they were together 57 years. They ran Benedict's Pastry Shoppe in Rochester in the 1960s, and Betty was known as one of the city's top cake decorators. Their sons Ben, Rocco, Lawrence, Vincent and Chester carry the names of her father and brothers, and her obituary counts 13 grandchildren and 26 great-grandchildren (obituary).

Betty died in Rochester on 14 Apr 2016, aged 90. Her funeral was held on 19 Apr 2016 at St. Jude's Church, Lyell Road, and she was buried the same day at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery (obituary, New Comer Cremations & Funerals, Westside, published 17 Apr 2016). Her obituary names her sons as Ben (Pattie) of Tennessee, Rocco (Sharon) of Sodus, Lawrence (Julie) of Ogden, Vincent (Chris Perrin) of Irondequoit and Chester (Linda) of Greece. After the pastry shop closed, she and Ben kept baking at Star Markets, Sibley's, Quality Bakery and Gruttadauria's. The obituary remembers her love of cooking and the kuchens and donuts their customers came back for. It names as survivors her brother James and "sisters-in-law Annette Catallo and Theresa DiPalermo"; see the conflicts section for who they were.

Children of Antoinette Caricchio

Martha T. Catallo (18 Aug 1930 – 30 May 2000) may have been named for her father's first wife. Her Social Security record gives her birth in Rochester and names her parents as Lawrence Catallo and Antoinette Caricchio. No spouse or children have been found.

Concetta "Connie" Catallo (4 Oct 1935 – 2008) was probably named for her maternal grandmother, Concetta Bovenzi. A St. Anthony's card dated 24 May 1936 is likely from her baptism.

Antoinette "Annette" Catallo, called "Bubbles" (16 Sep 1941 – 4 Jan 2006), married Bernard W. "Bernie" Wrights (30 Oct 1941 – 2 Apr 2008). Her Social Security record confirms her birth in Rochester and names her parents as Lawrence Catallo and Antoinette Caricchio. Their children have not yet been found.

Lawrence (Lorenzo) Catallo (24 Jul 1946 – 24 May 1949) died in Pignataro at two, as told above.

Generation 3, the direct line: George F. Catallo (1916–1996)

George Francis Catallo, Crescenzo and Martha's first child, was born in Rochester on 14 May 1916 (Social Security Death Index via AncientFaces). He appears on his father's 1918 naturalization certificate as Giorgio, aged 2, named in the Italian way for his grandfather. His birth was registered under that name: the New York State birth index for 1916 (p. 261) reads "Catallo, Giorgio, 14 May, Rch., 40331", the same date his Social Security records give. Some family documents give his full Italian name as Giorgio Francesco, the Italian form of George Francis (per George B. Catallo); the index shows only Giorgio, and certificate 40331 would show whether a middle name was registered.

The few stories of his boyhood come from his brother Jim. He was the misbehaving grandson whom Giorgio, visiting from Italy around 1920, tied to a pole in the cellar. He was ten when his mother died in 1926 and was sent with his brothers to St. Mary's orphanage until their father came home from Italy with a new wife in late 1927.

Military service, 1942–1945

George served nearly three years in the Army in World War II. He spent 14 months in Europe as an armorer, earned credit for three campaigns, and came home a Technician Fifth Grade (Tec 5, equivalent to a corporal). His discharge certificate and his Enlisted Record and Report of Separation (WD AGO 53-55), both kept by the family, give the details below.

Drafted. George registered for the draft as George Francis Catallo with Local Board 551, Monroe County. He was inducted at Rochester on 19 Dec 1942 as a selectee and entered active service on 29 Dec 1942, serial number 32586025 (NARA, WWII Army Enlistment Records). His enlistment record calls him a manufacturing foreman, and his separation record gives his civilian trade as hand etcher. Both records give his schooling as eight years of grammar school and one of high school.

Training. In the summer of 1943 a Rochester paper described him as a corporal in the Infantry at Fort McClellan, Alabama (1943 newspaper clipping). He trained as an armorer (military specialty 511), the soldier who maintains and repairs small arms. In 1944 he completed a four-week infantry armor artificer course, and on 27 Mar 1944 he qualified as Expert with the M1 rifle, with a score of 184.

Overseas. He sailed for the European Theater on 16 Jun 1944, ten days after D-Day, and landed on 28 Jun 1944. He received battle credit for Northern France, Rhineland and Central Europe. He was never wounded.

His unit. He was discharged from the 713th Airborne Ordnance Company, part of the 13th Airborne Division (LoneSentry, division components). The 13th reached France only in February 1945 and returned to New York on 23 Aug 1945 (Wikipedia), the same day George's record shows him landing. He therefore came home with the 13th Airborne. Because he arrived in Europe eight months before the division and holds campaign credit for Northern France, which the division does not, he must have served with another unit in 1944 and joined the 713th later. That earlier unit is not named on these papers.

Discharged. He sailed from Europe on 15 Aug 1945, three months after V-E Day, and reached the United States on 23 Aug 1945. He was honorably discharged at the Separation Center, Fort Dix, New Jersey, on 8 Nov 1945 for demobilization. His service totalled 1 year 8 months 2 days at home and 1 year 2 months 8 days overseas. He received $309.37 in mustering-out and travel pay and kept up his National Service Life Insurance.

Medals. The separation record lists the American Campaign Medal (written "American Service Medal"), the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal and the Good Conduct Medal. His three campaigns would also have entitled him to three bronze service stars on the European ribbon, though the record does not say so.

At discharge. The record describes him at 29: 5 ft 10 in, 210 lb, brown eyes and brown hair, living at his father's house at 13 Saratoga Avenue, with no dependents. That suggests he married Vera after November 1945, but this is an inference.

Both papers are now in the project folder, under George F Catallo military. If his fuller personnel file is ever wanted, it can be requested from the National Personnel Records Center on Standard Form 180 with serial number 32586025. Many Army files from this period burned in the 1973 St. Louis fire, so the request may return a rebuilt record. The 713th's morning reports, also at the NPRC, would show when he joined the company and where it had been.

George married Vera Fornarola (3 May 1920 – 9 Nov 1989), a Rochester native who had first been married to Paul Marzano. A FamilySearch record, indexed under Vera Frances Marzano and also as Vera F. Catallo, gives her full name as Vera Frances Fornarola, born in Rochester on 3 May 1920. It names her parents as Raffaele Fornarola and Grazia Crocetta and her brothers as Galeno L. and Orlando Samuel Fornarola. Marzano was her first married name, not a later one: her daughter Grace Marzano was born in 1940. Vera brought three daughters from that marriage, Grace Marie, Clara and Beverly, who became George's stepdaughters. George and Vera had three children of their own:

  • Larry Catallo

  • Maryann Catallo

  • George John Catallo

Vera died in 1989 and George on 23 Oct 1996, a date his FamilySearch (Social Security) record confirms; both are buried at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery (Find a Grave).

The Marzano stepdaughters. Grace Marie Marzano (28 May 1940 – 27 Jun 2026) married Frank Joseph D'Ambra, son of Bartalo D'Ambra, on 24 Oct 1959 at Holy Rosary Church, Rochester. The wedding notice names the bride's parents as Mr. and Mrs. George Catallo, a sign that George F. stood as her father (Greater Greece Press, 5 and 12 Nov 1959, via OldNews.com). The fuller notice of 5 Nov lists Sylvia Christopher as maid of honor and Beverly Marzano, Annette Catallo and Mary Ann Simeone as bridesmaids. The best man was Dominic White, and the ushers were the groom's brother Leo D'Ambra, Richard Leonardi and Joe Andriano. OldNews indexes Beverly and Annette as Grace's sisters. Beverly is her Marzano sister. Annette Catallo is most likely George F.'s half-sister Annette, then 18, making her Grace's step-aunt and near-contemporary rather than a sister; that is an inference, as no daughter Annette of George F. and Vera is known. Frank was a Navy veteran and tavern owner in Greece, NY, who died on 6 Sep 2014 at 75, and later Donald DeMarco; her daughters are Laura (Alan) Alliet, Valerie D'Ambra and Debra D'Ambra (Grace's obituary; Frank's obituary). Clara married George Blanda and has children Joseph and Christie. Beverly "Bev" married Michael Naylon, now deceased. All three are confirmed by family knowledge.

Sources

Full citations, the timeline and the research checklist are in The Catallo Family: Crescenzo Lorenzo Catallo.

Family papers (scans)

  1. S.S. Madonna manifest, Naples 8 Oct 1920, list 17, lines 1–3 (Cicala cousins to Carlo Catallo); manifests and Special Inquiry records for Giorgio Catallo: Alsatia, 11 May 1896, p. 13, line 742; Germania, 1 Jun 1905, list 6, line 11; Taormina, arrived 4 Jun 1920, list 20, line 3, and Special Inquiry sheet 239; S.S. Patria manifest, Naples to New York, Feb 1917, list 10, line 28 (Angela Catallo); Rochester city directory, year ending Oct 1922, p. 268; Ellis Island book index, Naples third class, group 20, line 3 (Giorgio Catallo, 63); Ellis Island Record of Aliens Held for Special Inquiry, S.S. Germania, arrived 1 Jun 1905, line 16 (Giorgio Catallo); Ellis Island Foundation printouts, Jan 2002: Germania manifest (26 Apr 1907), Madonna manifest (29 Aug 1910), Catallo search results with hand notes; S.S. Madonna manifest image, Naples to New York, arrived 30 Aug 1910, list 1, line 26 (Crescenzo Catallo)

  2. Pedigree chart, hand-written (Vincenzo "Jim" Catallo as no. 1)

  3. Certificate of Naturalization no. 870483, Monroe County Supreme Court, 30 Dec 1918

  4. US passport no. 435233, issued 8 Jul 1927, with Italian visa and Naples stamps

  5. Certificato di matrimonio, Comune di Pignataro Maggiore, marriage of 8 Oct 1927, copy issued 24 Oct 1939

  6. American Consulate General, Naples: Report of the Death of an American Citizen, 16 Aug 1949, and letter of 18 Aug 1949

  7. New York State Certificate of Death, Lawrence Catallo, 12 Jul 1979

  8. Memoir by Jim Catallo, hand-written c. 2015

  9. Congrega di S. Giorgio Martire receipt no. 46, 9 Oct 1982; St. Anthony's card for Concetta Catallo, 24 May 1936

Online