The Ungaretti Family
My Mother's maternal great grandparents were Louise Casagrande and Anthony Rosasco. Both were born in Genoa, Italy: Louise in 1851 and Anthony in 1848. In 1870 they married and moved to New York City in hopes of finding a place to make a better living. Their eldest child, Rose was born in New York in 1871. After her birth the family moved to Chicago where Anthony worked in candy factory. They had eleven children, eight of whom survived. Rose visited some friends in St. Paul where she met Pacifico Ungaretti. She left her family and moved to St. Paul when she married him in 1891. Her Father felt terrible that his daughter should move so far from him. In those days Chicago and St. Paul were considered to be a world apart. Anthony died in 1892 and Louise died in 1928
Pacifico Ungaretti was born in Lucca, Italy in 1864. When he was 13 he and a boy friend came by boat to the United States to seek their Fortune. He opened a fruit stand in St. Paul and later lived in Eau Claire, Wisconsin for a short period. When he returned to St. Paul he opened another fruit store. Pacifico and Rose had five children: Joseph, Paul, Dante, Louise and Gemma. Their second child Louise is my grandmother. Pacifico died in 1929 when he was 65 years old. He died of a heart attack in the drug store at Fairview and Grand in St. Paul. Their house was next door. Rose lived to be 90 years old and died in California, in 1961. She had been visiting her daughter in Los Angeles at the time. Both Pacifico and Rose are buried in Calvary Cemetery in St. Paul, Minnesota.
(The above text was written by Tom Leonard in 1970)