A VERY AMERICAN STORY
On Tuesday we had a fascinating guest, a good friend of Rotarian Larry Levine, Ron Mantegna – a Northbrook resident, long-time volunteer and Kayak fisherman. Oh, and his brother Joe is an actor. But this talk was not about Joe. This was about one family’s story and how it applies to all families – a true American story if you will.
Ron would have liked to share the story of his Italian family - but the DNA of the Mantegna’s is more than that. From an African beginning 79,000 years ago to over thousands of years moving to Turkey, Greece and finally Sicily, Ron shared an amazing DNA journey -one he suggested everyone take one day.
His “Sherpa blood” was due to the Mantegnas’ several centuries in a tiny mountain village Calascibetta or in Arabian Calet Shabet meaning ‘top of the mountain.” Either way this village was one of the highest points in Italy.
Ron went on to share the Mantegna’s journey that landed them in the United States of America – where his family, as immigrants embraced the ‘best country in the world” contributing as coal miners and eventually landowners. Salvatore came to America with $14 in his pocket (that would be $400 today) and lived in Chicago. In fact, his room was at 420 ½ S. Clark Street where he shared a 26 X 16 ft room with 3 other people.
At some point in 1905 he moved to McAlester, Oklahoma a Choctaw nation -where immigrants worked in the most dangerous coal mines in the USA. The Sicilians in McAlester practiced a “Amish” like tradition of working and building a home, that they did for each other.
By 1917 Sal bought his own land, 50 acres from the Indian Nation for $400 and built a home, and this land remains in the family to this day.
But Sal came back in 1923 to Chicago’s Little Italy, where he married Mary Ann Novelli. The family grew on Chicago’s West Side – a neighborhood that was more a “salad” than a melting pot -all separate and different.
The Novelli- Mantegna combined family includes four 1st generations of WWII heroes, a “Rosie the Riveter,” an actor, a kayaking fisherman who tells one fascinating story about how his Sicilian family (with roots in Africa!) became the ultimate American melting pot today!
Please take the time to play the meeting video and listen to our neighbor Ron Mantegna share his American story. It’s all our story, and worth the time!