SERRADIFALCO

CALTANISSETTA

       On November 30, 1912, at the age of twenty-three, Gaetano Coniglio, son of Gaetano and Maria Carmela Calabrese Coniglio, married nineteen-year-old Rosa Alessi, (daughter of Leonardo and Concetta Abate Alessi) in Serradifalco, Caltanissetta, Sicily.  They lived in a region of Italy where Gaetano had been a sulfur miner and a soldier in the Italian army.   Hoping for a new life and new opportunities in America, Gaetano followed his brother Giuseppe to the "new world" in 1913, on the ship Berlin.   Giuseppe's wife (Rosa's older sister) Angela came on the same voyage, arriving at Ellis Island on April 30, 1913.   Rosa (he called her "Rosina") had their first child, Gaetano (Guy) in Serradifalco, in December 1913.  In 1914, while German U-Boats were sinking passenger ships in the Mediterranean, she and the baby left Palermo on the SS Patria and arrived in New York City on December 14, 1914, one week before the baby's first birthday.  They went to Robertsdale Pennsylvania, where the men were soft-coal miners.

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Chiesa Madre San Leonardo Abbate (Mother Church dedicated to Abbot St. Leonard), where the wedding of Rosa and Gaetano took place on November 30, 1912.  (They were also married in a Civil ceremony on December 1, 1912.)
The church is the tallest building in Serradifalco and can be seen in the 2004 photo, below, by Greg and Melissa Coniglio

Gaetano arrived in America on April 30, 1913 on this 3,200 passenger ship, the SS BERLIN. On the same voyage was his brother Giuseppe's wife, Angela Alessi, Rosa's sister.

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Rosa and baby Gaetano arrived at Ellis Island on the 2,200 passenger ship SS PATRIA in 1914, on December 14.

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