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Salvatore D'alessandro, wife and children - Photograph
Hand-written on the back of this photograph is "1916", but that is not the date of the photograph, but the year of birth of the older child, Antonietta. The younger child, Felice, was born in 1920. Salvatore's wife was named Vittoria Iacovelli.
In his letter to his godmother [Maria] Vittoria d'Alessandro, Salvatore names his children as Felice and Antonietta. Following the usual naming rules, those would also be the names of Salvatore's parents. And if this photograph was taken in 1921, and if Salvatore married at age 21 and his daughter Antonietta was born a year later, then Salvatore's year of birth would be about 1894.
Salvatore's son Felice D'alessandro, then, would have been about 24 years old in 1945.
Felice died in Trento (Trentino-Alto Adige) from tuberculous. He had gone to Trent for a cure. He had developed pneumonia during the war; maybe his ship had been sunk or he had fallen into the sea. Because Felice died young, his son, who was born in June 1948 after Felice's death in December 1947, was also given the name Felice.
Salvatore's godmother Maria Vittoria d'Alessandro and her daughter Pasqualina DiRenzo, who in America was called "Mrs Pasqualina Iacovelli" because Iacovelli was her husband's family name, helped Felice when he was held as a prisoner of war in America. And from gratitude for this help, Felice's own son Felice was baptized, by proxy, by these relatives in America.
Pasqualina's niece remembers Pasqualina preparing packages for the mail. There would be a big box and Pasqualina would enclose the box in a flour sack and then seal up the open end of the sack with red wax. And that was how they used to prepare packages for the mail.
