Family history assignment

Video on Italian-American Immigration

On my father's side, I am a second generation Californian. He was born in L.A. in 1914, the first of 7 children. His parents had come from Italy via Ellis Island and the Colorado coal mines of John D. Rockefeller (or so the story is told). My grandmother, then Maria G. , arrived in 1909. I have never been told the story firsthand but this is what I have pieced together from the family lore so there are significant gaps in the story.

The family took up residence in a two story Victorian era house a few miles from downtown Los Angeles in a placed they referred to as Happy Valley. As the story goes, dad was born in the room above the living room. Dad took me to the old neighborhood when I was an adult. It was an off the beaten path little valley in a hilly section overlooking downtown L.A. The alleys were still unpaved and the streets without curbs. The family had a garden plot next door and dad loved to regale us with tales of wine making during prohibition.

Dad and Mom bought their first house on 101st street in south central L.A. At the time, the great post-war northern migration of African-Americans had not yet occurred and so it was a white working class enclave. By 1950, the demographics of the area had changed dramatically and my parents chose to relocate to another all-white enclave. This time it was suburban, middle class Glendale. They bought the home for $13,000 which very nearly broke the family budget for many years to follow. I was born in Glendale in 1956 at Glendale Sanitarium (now a huge medical complex called Glendale Adventist Hospital).

We lived in a neighborhood just down the hill from Brand Park which had been willed to the city by Leslie C. Brand, an early developer. He turned his orange groves into the suburban dream. His home and grave site are still in the park.