You Never Know Who Might Be Your Family

I was ten years old when I moved into my new neighborhood July 4th weekend 1975.  I didn't know much back then, it was surviving one year of school after another at the time. But he we were just moved into a Chicago neighborhood from a Chicago suburb of Justice.  The neighborhood was called Wrightwood.  Pretty typical on the southwest side of Chicago - a grid - a block to the North, 79th Street, a corner grocer, a bakery, a library and a bar.  I would frequent the grocer, bakery and library regularly.  

A week or so into it and I'm playing in the backyard with my GI Joes, the good ones - 12 inch tall, fuzzy hair and beard and kung-fu grip, and here drives by my first friend of the neighborhood - Don Casey.  

Shortly after we hang out at his house a couple blocks away. His mom - Mrs. Casey, notes my last name of "Cavallone" - "I remember Cavallones," she exclaims, "I grew up with Cavallones on Federal Street when I was young.  I'm Italian too."  Over time she told me that her mom was best friends with my great aunt Catherine Merenda, my Grandfather John's older sister.  

At the time, I had no idea where Federal Street was or that my grandfather had siblings. A little more than a year later - in mid September of 1976 Don's grandma had passed and I never had more than a quick passing "hello," I was a typical kid.  Play.  Over the years Don and I remained friends, even to this day.  I was over at his house almost daily and soon to be called by Mrs. Casey "her fourth son."

We had much in common in those early years.  Comic books, Doctor Who, St. Thomas Moore summer softball - we frequented the original comic & Doctor Who conventions on Michigan Ave.  We even owned Tenth Planet, a comic books specialty chain of stores together in the 1990s.

The significance of this story is that after Peter Barbella shared the San Giovanni Evangelista church records with me and I began indexing them, then putting my pedigree chart together, I joked more and more with Don that I bet we are cousins.  I decided to dig a little into his family ancestry and began to see similar names appear and I created his tree.  Riccio, d'Onza, Setaro...  Roughly a year after the records were shared with me, on November 20, 2019 not only one connection was made, but four!  As it turns out we are 7th cousins!

Don ended up not the only distant cousin I didn't know growing up in Wrightwood.  Diane, Joe and Karen Stavola lived a block south of me on Campbell Ave - we went to school together; Dan Libretti (1919-1986) and his wife Antoinette Petrizzo Libretti (1922 - 2014) lived behind me and about a 1/2 block south on Maplewood Ave. The Stavolas grandfather, Joseph was my grandfather's best friend.  Dan Libretti was my grandfather, John's first cousin and Antoinette's father Francesco sold the sausage my grandparents used for their pizzas at C&M Pizzaria on 52nd & Halstead Street.

When I attended Bogan High School (1979-1983) I was a DJ on WBHI radio. A fellow DJ, Mark Rubino, I discovered, is also a 7th Cousin.  Mark's grandfather, Clemente Ben Rubino (1894-1947), who also lived on Federal Street, was a saloon owner. 

Our lives interact with many people through the years, many we don't realize are real connections. I understand the past is the past, but I can't help, as a genealogist, pondering the "what if I knew the family connections years ago."  What tales that could have been.