151 McRoberts Avenue

This is part 2 of the story of the Del Piero family, covering the years they lived on McRoberts Avenue. Part 1 can be found here.

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When Giacomo Del Piero left Hamilton, Ontario, for Italy in 1930, he was working as a tile setter. In Hamilton, he was also listed as a “terracer”. This skilled work, creating terrazzo floors, tiling, and creating mosaics, was taken up by many northern Italians. A collection of essays, The Friulian Language: Identity, Migration, Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2014 ed. Rose Mucignat) notes famous examples around the world. Closest to home, this work includes the rotunda ceiling at the Royal Ontario Museum created in 1933, and the Thomas Foster Memorial Temple in Uxbridge. University of Toronto Professor Olga Zorzi Pugliese has catalogued so many of these beautiful installations, from public buildings to private homes, and researched the Canadian companies and some of the craftsmen who created them.

The fact that Giacomo Del Piero went to Hamilton to work must had something to do with his connection to his cousin Aurelio, who ran a steamship ticket agency and shop on James Street North. Aurelio Del Piero was well established in Hamilton. He had been in Canada since 1906 and was one of the founders in the 1920s of the Hamilton branch of the Sons of Italy, a benevolent society still active today.

However, when Giacomo came back, alone, from his trip to Italy he didn’t stay in Hamilton. Instead he moved to Toronto, finding a home on Laughton Avenue, south of St. Clair Avenue West. There are a number of Italian households listed in the area west of Caledonia Road in the Might’s Directories of the early 1930s, many of them working in tiling, marble work and terrazzo flooring. Nearby, at 60 Caledonia Road, was the headquarters of one of the city’s leading firms for this type of work: Italian Mosaic and Marble Company of Canada Limited.

A few months after Giacomo’s return, on May 1, 1931, 37-year-old Anna Redivo sailed from Genoa to New York City also aboard the Roma. With her on the passenger list were her three children: Maria Del Piero age 11, Argentino Del Piero age 8 and Alfio Del Piero age 3. The children were all born in Roveredo, but Anna herself was born in Bahia Blanca, Argentina. The Canadian passenger list notes that she is going to join her husband at 125 Laughton Avenue. On May 12, 1931 the family crossed the border into Canada for the first time.

Look familiar? This is the what the Del Piero’s neighbourhood was like when they first moved to Toronto in 1931. Courtesy City of Toronto Archives.

The first few years of the family’s life in Canada were spent on Laughton Avenue. In the 1932 Might’s Directory, Giacomo Del Piero is listed with the first name John, living at 236 Laughton and working as a mechanic at “Italian Mosaic.” This could be one of two companies operating at the time and it is just a guess to know which “Italian Mosaic” employed Giacomo Del Piero, but given the location I’d be willing to bet it was at Egidio DeSpirt’s company on Caledonia.

My best guess is that Giacomo Del Piero’s employer was Italian Mosaic & Marble Company Limited at 60 Caledonia Road. The company was the Toronto branch of a family business still operating in Buffalo, NY today.

Research done by Olga Zorzi Pugliese and Angelo Principe for their article, “The Mosaic Workers of the Thomas Foster Memorial in Uxbridge”  contains details of DeSpirt’s company, which was responsible for work in many significant buildings such as the mosaic floors in the Toronto Old City Hall, the King Edward Hotel, and the provincial Parliament building.

In 1935, the Del Piero family was listed at 151 McRoberts Avenue, formerly the home of S. Clifford Olmstead, manager of one of the gas stations in the Perfection Service Station chain. In this edition of the directory, Giacomo – now regularly listed as John (just as Egidio DeSpirt went by “Giles”) – is described as a Stone Masher. The next year, he is a stone mason, the trade he will keep for the rest of his time on McRoberts. It is interesting that this period of transition coincides with the contract that Italian Mosaic and Marble Company had won to complete the elaborate marble work in the Thomas Foster Memorial (their competitors, the other “Italian Mosaic”, did the murals).

Another interesting note from this time is that in the federal government’s Annual Report of the Labour Organizations in Canada in 1936, the President-Secretary of the Bricklayers, Masons and Plasterers’ International Union No 16 (Terrazzo Mechanics) was “A. Redivo” at 151 McRoberts Avenue. Later, editions of the Report show “A. Redivo” of the same address in the Secretary role for the Local. Might’s Directory does not list anybody named Redivo in this time period, on McRoberts or elsewhere. It would need more research, but since married women were not usually listed in Might’s Directory unless they were widows, it is possible that Anna Redivo was the labour leader listed in the government directory.

The turbulent politics of the time must have enveloped the Del Piero household. Just considering a few possibilities is anxiety-producing. There were the government’s anti-Communist actions against labour unions, Italian fascist activities in Canada as well as anti-fascist activities by many labour organizations and within the Italian community itself. In addition, there was systemic racism against Italians. Living on a very British street like McRoberts where the local members of the British Imperial Association were regularly reported in the newspapers claiming problems caused by “foreigners” for just about any situation, must have had some dark days.

In Hamilton, Aurelio Del Piero had become involved with the Italian fascist movement and had loaned money for the construction of the Casa D’Italia, which housed fascist organization offices as well as providing space for the Sons of Italy (which was not outlawed as a fascist organization by the Canadian government) and other cultural groups. Research by the Columbus Centre on the arrests of Canadians during World War II includes the imprisonment of Aurelio Del Piero from 1940 to 1941.

In Toronto, the family continued through the war years in their home on McRoberts. In 1938, Maria Del Piero, now 19 years old and known as Mary, had started working for a men’s clothing company at 142 Front Street West called Cook’s Clothing. Warren K. Cook, the owner, was apparently supportive of the labour movement and garment worker’s rights and Mary Del Piero continued to work for his company throughout the war, progressing steadily in her career. Giacomo Del Piero continued to be listed as a Stone Mason.

Argentino and then Alfie came of age just as the Del Piero family decided to leave McRoberts. In 1947, they all moved to Vaughan Road in Fairbank. 1948 is the first year that a new company is listed in Might’s Directory: Del Piero and Son, Contractors. Mary had also risen to the job of Examiner at Cook Clothing. The new residents of 151 McRoberts were another building contractor, Gordon W. Kritzer and his wife, as well as his wife’s sister and her husband, Rev. Charles S. Laidman, a Congregational minister from Binbrook, who had come back to Canada after serving at the historic church in Chicago’s posh Oak Park suburb.

151 McRoberts Avenue

This is Part 1 of the information I can find of the earliest Italian residents I’ve identified on McRoberts Avenue [January 2019 note: The Castruccis are now the earliest]. This covers the arrival in Canada of Giacomo Del Piero, who was later joined by his wife Anna Redivo and their children. They moved to McRoberts in 1935, but this part of the story goes back before that. Part 2 can be found here.

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In the 1935 Might’s Directory for Toronto, the name of the first Italian resident of McRoberts Avenue appears.  His name is Giacomo Del Piero and he, along with his wife Anna Redivo and their children, lived at 151 McRoberts. From what I can find, Giacomo Del Piero’s trip to McRoberts was a long and difficult one, and I’m not sure it would have been easier once he was settled here.

This 1921 photograph is reproduced in the San Bartolomeo parish magazine from Roveredo. Giacomo Del Piero is first from the right, in the second row from the top. The magazine article identifies every single person in the band.

Giacomo Del Piero came from Roveredo in Piano, a town in the Udine region of northern Italy. He was 36 when he arrived in Halifax from Bordeaux on May 30, 1927, aboard an aging French-owned ship, La Bourdonnais. The Canadian Immigration Service Return shows he was travelling with 46 other men from Udine – almost all of them leaving wives and children in Italy – who had come to settle in Manitoba under the auspices of the Alonsa Italian Colony Limited.

Twenty settlers had first joined the Alonsa colony in the spring of 1926, according to an article published January 21, 1928 in the Winnipeg Tribune. Giacomo Del Piero was in the second wave of 50 men, joining what the newspaper described as a flourishing and promising community at Alonsa, much like its sister venture at Lorette, Manitoba.

“From Verdant Hills of Piedmont to Manitoba Grain Fields” is the headline of this 1928 feature article from the Winnipeg Tribune. The white house is one of the settler farmhouses at Alonsa, while the large dark building is the house in St. Boniface where the Alonsa and Lorette Italian colonists would stay when they first arrived in Manitoba.

It was a hard-working life for the Italian colonists, the Tribune said, but the men were up for it. They were making progress on the land and could soon become Manitoba landowners in their own right, if they chose to do so.

The article described the settlement scheme: “The basis of the colony is a contract between the individual settler and the society. Under its terms the settler makes a cash deposit before leaving Italy, and agrees to work for the society for 12 months at a standard wage, board and lodging being supplied by the society.

“At the end of the year, the settler has the option of leaving the colony, in which case his original cash deposit will be refunded. Or he may ask to be assigned one or more farms to cultivate them and eventually become the owner. In this case the original cash deposit is applied toward the down payment on the farm, the basis of the new management being the familiar “half crop payment” plan which is in general use throughout Western Canada.”

In Manitoba, the men planted grain and other crops in the summer, worked in the bush cutting wood in the winter, kept dairy cows (the sister settlement at Lorette produced cheese), and performed building jobs on the settlement and for hire by neighbours.

Unless he cashed out as soon as his 12 months was up, Giacomo Del Piero may never have seen his cash deposit again. By 1929, the Alonsa company was bankrupt. The settlers were left stranded in Manitoba with IOUs for wages, and nothing more. The situation prompted the provincial government to get involved and a special license was given to allow the wine produced by the settlement to be sold. However, the venture was soon accused of manufacturing additional wine for sale from imported grape juice concentrate, and the Winnipeg Tribune noted that proceeds were apparently still not flowing to the settlers who had lost so much. The chair of the provincial government committee that was formed to look into the matter stated in March 1930, “Many of these immigrants appear to have lost practically everything.”

It was all gone – the hundreds of cords of wood they had chopped, the acres they had cleared, the barns they had built. By then, the Depression Dust Bowl drought had started and unemployment was rising. Under very difficult circumstances, Giacomo Del Piero moved East.

The clue to where he was living is a 1930 border crossing card into the US on September 4, 1930. Giacomo Del Piero told the customs official he was living in Hamilton, employed as a tile worker. His departure contact was his cousin in Hamilton, Aurelio Del Piero, who was at 253 James Street North. (Click here for a great Flickr album of James St. N.)

Giacomo had $100 with him and a steamship ticket for the Roma, a much newer and nicer ship than the French boat he had travelled on to Canada. The card notes that Giacomo Del Piero’s time in the U.S. would be very brief. He was headed home to his wife, Anna Redivo and his family in Roveredo.

Part 2 coming soon…