The Peresello and Pellis families resided in the village of San Daniele in the suburbs of Udine, Italy. Udine is in the province of Friuli-Venezia. Antonio Peresello and Caterina Pidutti were the parents of Aristide Bruno Persello, who was the oldest of five children. Antonio and Caterina also had four daughters. The photograph shown is a family portrait taken at the end of World War I. Bruno is not in the picture. Seated are Caterina and Antonio. Standing from left to right are two of their daughters, Gisella and Mimi, and their daughter-in-law, Maria (Pellis) Peresello holding Maria and Bruno's son Antonio (Tony). Caterina lived until 1930 and Antonio until 1946. Both resided in the house Antonio had built until their deaths.
Aristide Bruno Persello was born on October 15, 1889, in San Daniele. Bruno was the oldest of five children of Antonio and Caterina [Pidutti] Peresello. His siblings were all sisters, Maria Ulolerica [1892-1962], Gisella [1899-1973], Rosa [1903-1932], and Domenica [Mimi], who is lived in Genoa until her death in April 2000.
Bruno married Maria Rosa Pellis, daughter of Giuseppe and Marianna [DeCecco] Pellis in San Daniele on December 13, 1913. The house built by Bruno's father and the church Bruno and Maria were married in still stand today. The family plot for Antonio Peresello's family is behind the church.
World War I was a great trial for the Peresello family. Bruno was enlisted in the army and served in the Italian-Austrian theater. He was captured three times by the Austrians and escaped all three times. The last time he was captured, Bruno served as a baker for the troops. His daughter, Alice, has his original war diary, which has been recently translated. It is a detailed description of life as a soldier during the war. In the picture above, Bruno [second from the right] stands with four of his war comrades.
During the war Austrian soldiers occupied the Peresello home using it as a headquarters during their occupation of Udine. Bruno had left a few weeks earlier to the war front. It was during this time period on March 23, 1915, that Bruno and Maria Persello's first child, Antonio Giuseppe was born.
Overall the Austrian soldiers did not mistreat the Peresello family. However, the family was required to feed and take care of the soldiers. The occupation ended the same year, when the Italian army took back Udine.
Bruno returned home toward the end of the war in 1918. Afterward, the Persello's had a daughter, Caterina Gina. Times were hard after the war. Work was scarce and there was great political upheavel throughout the country. Benito Mussolini was becoming popular with the Facist movement. Many Italian men looked toward the United States for work and a new start. Bruno was one of these men and by letter got in contact with a mining company in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, where there was a growing Italian community being set up. Bruno had to leave his family behind again in 1921 to take the job. When Bruno sailed on the Presidente Wilson from Trieste, Italy and entered Ellis Island on May 3, 1921, his name was recorded as Perstello, dropping the second E and adding a T to his surname. The name remained Persello (without the T) thereafter. This left Maria to care for their two small children. The picture above shows Bruno in 1920.
Maria came over to America in 1922 through Ellis Island, as had her husband the previous year. She had 6 year old Tony and toddler Gina along with a trunk, a mattress, and a few other belongs. The three set sail on the ship Christopher Columbus from Genoa after having traveled across northern Italy by rail. The ship arrived in New York harbor on November 11, 1922. The picture above shows Maria with Tony and Gina upon arriving in Ellis Island.
With only a green card showing her husband's name and address, Maria was directed and taken to Greensburg. The family reunited again resided in Greensburg for the next five years. During their stay they had another son, Americo [Mack] born November 28, 1923, and another daughter, Alice Ofelia. The picture above shows the Persello family when Mack was 1 year old in 1924.
Meanwhile, Antonio and his daughters remained in Italy, where Antonio passed away in 1946. The picture above shows Antonio with two of his daughters, Gisella and Maria. Gisella did not marry and lived in Italy until her death in 1973. She and her youngest sister Domenica, aka Mimi, came to visit their older brother Bruno and his family in Alliance, Ohio, in 1971. Maria married Pietro Arturo Persello in 1914, and they had seven children. She died in Italy in 1962. Another daughter Rosa also lived in Italy and died in 1932 at the young age of 29.
The Persello family moved to Alliance, Ohio, in 1926, where they lived in three different residences. A few years later, Nelso [Ned] Plinio and Franklin [Frankie] Delano [named after the president] were born. The above picture is the entire Persello family in 1942. Starting from left to right in the back row are Tony (Antonio), Maria, and Bruno. In the center row are Jean (Gina), Alice, and Mack (Americo). In the front row are Ned (Nelso) and Frankie (Franklin)
The next picture shows Bruno and Maria with Ned and Frankie in 1945.
World War II resulted in the two oldest sons serving in the Navy. Both Tony and Mack served in the Pacific theater. Each of the two daughters married sailors, also. Jean married Tony Trombitis, and Alice married Ralph Bostwick. Ralph also served in the Pacific theater.
Following the war, the family was once again reunited, with Tony also being reunited with his wife, Lillie, and four children. The picture above shows the Persello family on New Year's Day, 1946 on the back porch steps of Bruno and Maria's home in Alliance, Ohio. Starting from left to right, in the back row are Maria, Mack, and Bruno. In the next row down are Jean and her husband, Tony Trombitis. In the next row down are Ned, Tony's wife,Lillie (Mcgrath) Persello, and Tony holding their youngest child, Peggy. In the front row are Alice, holding Tony and Lillie's third child, Izetta, Sonny (Tony, Jr.), Tony and Lillie's first child, Wanda, and Frankie.
In 1954 Bruno returned for a visit to his homeland and visited with his sisters, Gisella and Mimi. The picture below is a picture of him taken for his passport to Italy.
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