"Come to America"

Fortune and history have not been kind to the Italians of the Mezzogiorno. During much of the nineteenth century, the southern region of the Italian peninsula had been the scene of constant battles between warring factions in the great struggle to unify the various kingdoms into one nation. The south at that time still didn't have a unifying Italian language, with dialects spoken in different regions.

The fighting and the oppressive policies of some leaders and feudal landowners spawned bands of brigands, a veritable army of dispossessed who, disappointed with failed agrarian reforms, took to terrorizing the landowners and creating a state of lawlessness in the region. In turn, the landowners put together their own small armies to resist the brigands. The strife added to the difficulties of the poor trying to eke out a living in areas like Calabria where the land already was difficult to till.

Luigi Castiglia had been part of the army of Giuseppe Garibaldi, one of the generals leading the fight for unification, and had been mustered out of the service with a small pension, reportedly two dollars a month, upon returning to civilian life around 1870. Historical research by Robert Golden indicated that Luigi likely fought with Garibaldi in his later campaign beginning around 1866. Luigi settled in Lauropoli, a hardscrabble Calabrian town about ten miles from the Ionian Sea. He had been preceded by about one hundred years by a Giuseppe Castiglia from Sicily. Records show Luigi Castiglia took a job as game keeper, a position with some responsibility in the local feudal culture.

Historical research, by none other than Frank Costello's close friend and confidante Frank Rizzo, known as Il Professore, holds that the town was formed around 1776 by the Marchioness Laura Serra of Naples. Marchioness Laura, sometimes known as the Duchessa, was the Italian version of "to the manor born." She married a prominent landowner, a Marquis, and when he died, she decided to live in the south permanently. With a decree from the King of Naples, she was granted land permitting her to set up a town that she named after herself, calling it "Lauro-poli." The setting was inland from the ancient city of Sybaris, an old Greek outpost close to the Ionian Sea.

The Marchioness invited anyone with a problem with the law to settle in Lauropoli, which — given the way history played out for at least some of the Castiglia family and its progeny — proved to be an interesting bit of foreshadowing. Luigi worked as a game warden for one of the landowners and tried a stint at farming by working a vineyard. The locale had the ruins of an old Grecian temple, and if Luigi cared to, he would have taken his family there on outings.

It seems that the Castiglia family struggled in Lauropoli. Farming was not an easy occupation at that time. Luigi's wife Maria Castiglia worked as well as a "spinner" or weaver of cloth, and since she was more of an entrepreneur than her spouse likely took on work as a seamstress as well. A friend once described her as stout, illiterate, but intelligent — a country woman who had black hair pulled back with hairpins. By early 1891, the couple already had five children — four daughters and a son — when Maria gave birth again to another boy named Francisco, the child who would grow up to become Frank Costello.

Right from the start, there was an issue with Francisco. For years there were questions about when exactly he was born. His birth certificate records a date of "ventidue, di Febbraio" or February 22, in the year 1891. But researchers have uncovered a baptismal certificate date of February 17, 1891, for one "Francisco," the son of "Luigi" and "Maria Saveria Aloise," (which was the maiden name of Frank Costello's mother). What explains the discrepancy? It was common in rural Italy that a birth was recorded on the day officials were notified, and not on the actual birthday, which would have been earlier than the date of baptism. The FBI files don't help clear up the confusion since an agency dossier has noted three different years — 1891, 1893, and 1896 — for Francisco's birth, along with birthdays of January 23 and January 26. The date that seems settled, based on Social Security Administration records, immigration records, and Costello's own burial place is January 26, 1891.

Of course, by the time he was born, Francisco's accurate date of birth wasn't the Castiglia family's main concern. Luigi's prospects were not getting any better the longer he stayed in Lauropoli. The family was in debt, and even Maria was said to have run up tabs with the local flour mill, which she couldn't pay. So, in 1895, Luigi Castiglia, accompanied by his oldest son Eduardo and at least some of his daughters, Concetta, Sadie, and Saletta, did what many in that part of Italy were doing, crossing the ocean to the United States as part of the early wave of Italian immigrants bent on trying their luck in New York.

Once in New York, Luigi Castiglia found himself in a labor market saturated with workers, mainly immigrants. In the Italian community, men known as padrones became crucial links in doling out jobs, arranging travel, and sending remittances bank to Italy, although it is doubtful given his struggles that Luigi sent anything back to Lauropoli. Controlling resources the way they did, the padrones wielded a great deal of power. It is very likely that Luigi got work from the padrones, but he had no great success in making financial headway. He was a laborer. For him the streets weren't paved with gold. Yet, he had nothing to look forward to back home in Italy. He finally wrote Maria. "Sell everything," Luigi told her, "even the bed sheets, if necessary, even if you have to borrow some lire from someone, but come to America."

It was a move of desperation, and one relative remembered that the family vineyard was also sold off. With prospects non-existent in Lauropoli, the only chance for the family was in Manhattan. With young...