Floriano went to work on a diary farm in Switzerland as there was no work in Cloz. By about 1909 he and a friend had worked their way through France, Spain and Portugal and  there were able to board ship to immigrate back to the United States coming through Ellis Island.  While working his way through Europe, he picked up French, Basque, Spanish, and Portuguese.  He then made his way to Superior, Wyoming, a community with a strong Cloziani population.  In Superior he worked caring for the horses and mules that were used in the mines.  When he was 21 years old he married Carina Maria Degiorgio, another Trentini immigrant from Spera in the Valsugana.  They had two children, Mary Clara born in 1913 and Henry in 1914.  They were divorced in 1921.  He changed his name to Frank as that sounded more American.

Floriano, Carina and Coyotes - Superior, Wyoming, about 1915 Photo courtesy Gene Franch

Photo courtesy Henry Franch

The picture on the left shows Frank's sister Oliva is standing holding Mary, and Carina is holding Henry on her lap.Oliva  married Ricco Zamboni.  Ricco is a nickname meaning "Curly" as he had very curly hair.  They had a baby girl named Ruby.   Ruby was still a baby when Oliva died at age 20 of sugar diabetes.  The picture on the right shows Frank with Henry standing in front of him, Mary stands in front of her mother, Carina, and Ricco holding his daughter.  Ricco sent to Italy for Oliva's younger sister, Maria and married her.  They had two more children, Frank (named for Floriano) and Rena.  Maria and Ricco are also buried in Rock Springs, Wyoming.

Photo courtesy Henry Franch

Frank was offered a job as Barn Boss for the Union Pacific Coal Company in Winton, Wyoming, and while there he met May Yarger.  She was teaching sixth grade there.  They were married on 20 July 1927.  Their children include Flori Gene, Nila Marie, Celia Jane, and Dorothy.  The job of barn boss required that he feed and care for all the horses and  mules that were used in the mines before there was automation.  He continued to work for the UPCC until his retirement.  He held various jobs, though none in the mines themselves.  He worked in the shop, on the tipple, in the lamphouse filling the carbide lampsthat the miners had on their hardhats so they could see in the mine.  His last job was nightwatchman for the camp.  This included keeping the big coal furnaces stoked with coal and working correctly in the mine office, the company store and post office, the doctor's office, and the school. Like Cambria, Winton no longer exists but was about fifteen miles north of Rock Springs.

Several of his siblings also came to the United States as adults.  His brother Luigi (Louie) came to Winton during the time before Frank married May.  He had suffered trauma in the Italian army and spent his last years in the state hospital in Evanston.  He is buried in Rock Springs.

Frank's other brother, Ernest never married.  He was living in Argentina when he was killed in a truck accident in July of 1953.  Frank's daughter, Dorothy, remembers the day the telegram came to tell the news.  ". . . he sat in our living room and cried like a baby which scared me . . . I had never seen seen him cry before."

The last of his sisters, Agnese lived out her life in Italy.  She married Roberto Floretta.  They never had children.  Frank kept in touch with his sister with letters and went back to Cloz to visit a couple of times toward the end of his life.  Dorothy remembers: "Dad went back to Italy when he was about 75 . . . he went to get a passport and wasn't able to find proof of his citizenship which we thought was odd since he had voted, been a deputy sheriff at one time and had a driver's license for years.  Anyway, he wasn't taking any chances of not getting back into the U.S. so he went throught the citizenship classes and my husband (Steve) went with hime to Rawlins when the class got their papers.  During this swearing in, Dad got up and gave a speech about what it meant to him to be an American and there wasn't a dry eye in the house including the Judge." 

A newspaper article reported the incident this way:  "For years, Frank Franch, 82, of Rock Springs thought he was a citizen of the U.S.  He voted, secured hunting licenses and even served as a deputy sheriff.  Then came a rude awakening last week when Franch, a native of Austria, was summoned to his home in Italy to sell property.  In attempting to get a passport, he was informed that he was a citizen of Italy!  Franch thought that since his father was a citizen, he was automatically a citizen of the U.S. but he was unable to prove his father's citizenship.  He enlisted the aid of Miss Emma Roessler, instructor of many aliens who have become citizens, and after cutting some red tape at the Denver Immigration and Naturalization office, was able to take the test on the U.S. Constitution at Rawlins.  Then he was sworn in officially as a citizen.  Now Franch finds he can vote and hunt legally, after all these years."

When Frank died in 1977, he was proud to be a great-great-grandfather but is be fondly remembered as father, grandfather, and great-grandfather.