Un Farabutto

Grandpa Francesco Proia, from Caserta, Italia, a clever stowaway in the bowels of the ship bringing him to Ellis Island, Feb. 4, 1905. Gruff ways, often snarling a guttural “Huh,” a lack of English, never-ending hand gestures, made me fearful of him. But awestruck I was with the romantic notion of his stowing away. Bootlegging homemade vino during Prohibition – another plus as he captured my imagination as un farabutto – a scoundrel, a reprobate. Add in his being a coal mine boss in Marianna, Pennsylvania, and I had a genuine hero. How many other children claimed such details about their grandpas? Never telling anyone of my naïve admiration for him, family loyalty prevented me from bragging about him. Living to just a few days short of his “hunnert” birthday, I loved and admired him to the end. Even when the ship’s manifest I discovered for La Lorraine listed him as a passenger in steerage, not a stowaway.