Ali Mandile

Heritage Blog- Ali Mandile

All four of my great great-grandparents were born in Southern Italy.  They came to the United States in their early teenage years. My great great grandfather came from a little island off of northern Sicily called Lepari. His wife came from the mainland on the west coast of Italy (about half way up the boot). The other two came from Southern Italy.

They all came around the year 1860. They arrived in Boston with a lot of other immigrants. They thought the streets of the United States were “paved with gold.” Life in Italy was not exciting and there was not much going on. They heard about the progress and the opportunity the United States had to offer.  They wanted to work and have better lives, so they came over to the United States.

They came here and lived around Boston Proper. One of my great-grandfather’s cousins moved to Rhode Island, but the rest settled in Boston. The Italians stuck together for the most part, and lived mostly in the North End of Boston.

My great-grandparents met because their parents belonged to an Italian club in Boston. They got married and had 14 children. They lived in Dorchester, MA in a big house. My great grandfather was a barber.  He worked in Boston and owned his own barbershop. His wife stayed home with all of those children.

My other great grandfather was a stone mason in Boston. His wife worked as a housekeeper and a candy maker.  They had 3 children, John, who died in his mid-twenties, and a sister Lucy. Lucy became a nurse in 1920, which was a proud moment for my family. She was written up in the newspaper for being one of the first female nurses in Boston.  She brought my grandfather to his first Red Sox game and was an avid baseball lover.

My grandfather’s father went to Boston College and went into the seminary. His name was Angelo Mandile.  He came out and got married to my great-grandmother, Margaret. They had seven children: four girls and three boys. Two of the children, Frances and Peggy worked for the phone company their whole lives. They all stayed in Massachusetts except for sister Mary married a sailor at the end of the World War II they lived in Idaho and had 8 kids.

Lucy married a captain in the Marines during World War II.  When he came back from the war they moved to Green Harbor in Marshfield, MA, where I live now. His family all worked as fishermen and he became a lobsterman. He was President of the Lobster Association of Marshfield. His daughters are alive and they live in Canton now.

All of my grandfather’s family lived well into their 90’s.  My great aunt Mary was 105 when she died. My great-grandmother was 103 and she lived through 3 centuries! She was born in 1899 and passed away in 2003.

My great-grandmother, on my dad’s mother’s side, was Irish and was born in the U.S.  Her name was Margaret Dennin/McGuinnis.  Her mother came from County Cork, Ireland and came over by boat during the Potato Famine.  She landed in Nova Scotia and then went to Boston on another boat.  This is why my grandmother’s Professor at B.C. called them “two boaters” because they couldn't afford to come from Ireland to Boston, directly.  My great great-grandmother worked as a maid for a wealthy Brahmin family.  She married and moved to Providence, R.I.  where she had 3 children, two boys and a girl.  The girl was to become my great great-grandmother, Margaret (first generation, American).  When Margaret was old enough to marry, she married Stephen Dennin, who was a liquor distributor.  They had two children, my great-grandmother, Margaret and my great uncle Johnny.  Stephen was killed, shortly after. A keg of beer fell off the truck and struck and killed him!!! My great-grandmother remarried and he was named James McGinnis.  They had two children, my Aunt Dot and my Aunt Kay.  They all lived together and seemed to be happy.  My great-grandmother died when my grandmother was four years old.  That would be 67 years ago.

     My great-grandfather's history is kind of not so clear.  His grandfather had roots in France.  The French name was "Couer" translated to Hart in America. My great-grandfather, born in the U.S., married Martha.  His mom and sister died within months of each other with tuberculosis.  He was 6 years old and he and his father moved in with my grandfather's three sisters.  He was 105 when he died and my great-grandfather was 97 when he passed away. It looks like we have some longevity in the genes on my dad’s side!

Now for my mom’s side! My great-grandfather, Adolph Hahn came to the US thru Ellis Island in NY from a little town in what was then Germany called Walleen and settled in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in a little township called Engadine. Two years later he sent for the family and they also came 
through Ellis Island.  There were my great-grandmother Amelia and 9 children, 2 
of whom died on the way of chicken pox.

My great-grandfather, Herman Carl Hahn, was the youngest and literally left home (ran 
away) to go to high school in Newbury, Michigan.  He was the only sibling to go beyond 4th grade in school.  He got a job working for a man named Swanson, who gave 
him room and board and put him through high school and Olivet College in lower Michigan.  From there my great-grandfather went to Marquette dental school in Milwaukee Wisconsin and became a dentist in a little town of North Fond du Lac Wisconsin.  Most of his patients were either farmers or railroad workers.

He met my great-grandmother Jean Elizabeth Davidson, while interning in a mental 
hospital in Newbury Michigan, where she was an occupational therapist.

She went to school in a Detroit Michigan High School.  I do not know where 
she got her therapy training.  She was one of two children.  She had a 
sister Blanch.  My great grandmother was an orphan and was adopted by a 
family, of which I know very little.  I do know she had a sister 
Carrie, who was adopted by a family who moved to Canada just north of 
International Falls Minn.

My grandfather’s mother's father was Linus Davidson.  I know nothing of his past.  He 
worked his whole life in a Buick GM auto plant in Flint Michigan.

My grandfather was one of three boys born in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin.  He graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee and eventually ended up settling in Boston.

My grandmother, Mary Rita Fink, was born in Fond Du Lac as well to Reuben and Rosemary Fink. I do not know much about her family except that her grandfather on her 
father's side was a farmer in FDL county Wisconsin and her mother's father was a 
Fond Du Lac fireman. 

SO, I am Italian, Irish, and German. The end. I promise.