Working to share our history
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STEUBENVILLE -- Museums should be about more than just storing things.
That’s one of the reasons Ed Palombizio is excited about the Jefferson County Historical Association’s involvement with a project that is looking to help preserve the stories of Italian immigrants from across the Tri-State Area.
“At museums, we wait for you to bring something in, and we put it on display. We can only hold so many different sets of Steubenville pottery. You know, our building is only so big, and we get stuff when people can’t find a use for it anymore,” Palombizio, an association volunteer, told members of the Steubenville Kiwanis Club Tuesday afternoon while speaking at the Sycamore Youth Center.
He and Joan McGlone, the association’s treasurer, were discussing the organization’s involvement with the Italian Diaspora Archive Resource Map Project. It’s being coordinated by the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh, the region’s only museum affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution. Also involved in the project are Loyola University, the University of Pittsburgh and West Virginia University.
The two explained that for the project to really be a success, they need residents from throughout the region to fill out a two-page survey that can be found on the association’s website (jeffcountyhistorical.org.) Questions include in what year did a person’s family come to the United States, what region of Italy did they come from, why did the participant’s relatives choose to leave Italy, what port did they came through, why did they come to the Ohio Valley and what challenges did they face.
There are 22 questions, and the last one asks if the participant has any stories or information that they wish to contribute.
Those who take the survey have the opportunity to visit the museum operated by the association at 426 Franklin Ave. in Steubenville, and place a pin a map of Italy that’s displayed in the Italian Room to show what part of the country their relatives came from.
“We have many different pins on our map already that have been placed by people who have participated in the survey,” McGlone said. “We have some unique things in that room. It’s all decorated up. There’s a shelf with books about Italy.”
She said she had been asked by the history center to provide an update for its newsletter about the work being done locally to identify, gather and preserve the stories of Italian immigrants who settled in the region. She said she used the opportunity to detail some of the things that make the Steubenville area unique regarding its Italian-American culture.
McGlone explained she focused her writing on things like DiCarlo’s, the original maker of Steubenville-style pizza, and the work of Charles “Chip” DeMarco, the Steubenville resident who patented the first pizzelle iron in 1946.
While Steubenville’s Dean Martin is considered to be one of the all-time great entertainers -- the room dedicated to his life is the most popular in the museum -- his brother, William Crocetti, was an aerospace engineer with North American Rockwell and worked on the team that designed the engines for the Saturn V rocket, which launched the Apollo missions that took America to the moon.
Sadly, he never saw a lunar landing -- he died from a brain tumor on Oct. 20, 1968, at the age of 52.
In addition to information gathered through the surveys, project officials are looking to gather oral histories.
Palombizio, who lived in Pittsburgh at one time, said his interest in preserving stories grew from the programs he saw where oral histories of veterans from World Wars I and II and the Korean War were shared as those who had served were getting older. Those documentaries started him thinking, Palombizio added.
“Why don’t we bring in some current memories of older residents,” he asked. “Why don’t we get some Italians or some other groups to come and tell us about what it was like and what their experiences are. So, we are going from collecting stuff to collecting information and trying to bring it to the people.
“We never really dealt with that aspect of it, and it’s something that I really think should be addressed, so we’re going to try and emphasize that. It’s not always easy, but it’s a different way of approaching this,” he added.
The biggest issue they have encountered, Palombizio and McGlone said, was simply getting people to participate. That’s even after the association cut the center’s original survey form from eight pages to two.
“There is a lot of history that we would like to know that goes beyond collecting stuff and showing stuff,” Palombizio said. “So, we’re trying to collect family origin history. The problem we’re having is that people don’t want to come and talk with us. They don’t want to share things, and we try to talk with them about that. We’re trying to find a way to get them to share their stories.”
There are a lot of such stories to be told in our region. According to Census Bureau data, Italians make up 12.9 percent of reported European ancestries in Jefferson County. That number is 14.1 percent in Brooke County, 15.6 percent in Hancock County and 16.1 percent in Washington County.
The Italian Room at the museum, which is housed in a 19-room, three-story former mansion, will be the site of the Echoes of the Ohio Valley Italian Heritage Reception. Scheduled to run from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Oct. 11, the gathering will offer a chance for those who have shared the Italian immigrant stories of their families with others and to mark the map.
A representative from the history center will be on hand, McGlone said.
Hosted by the historical association, the event will feature light fare from Italian restaurants from around the area and Italian wines. It’s free to attend, but the deadline for RSVPs to hello@jeffcountyhistorical.org is Oct. 7.
In future years, the heritage receptions will focus on the many other countries that were home to area residents, McGlone said. She added that the association would like to gather histories of those from other nationalities in the future.
To learn more about the project or the museum, call the historical association at (740) 283-1133.