San Martino in Pensilis

San Martino in Pensilis is a town of 5,000 people, a town in the region of Molise and the province of Campobasso in southern Italy. The town is part of what appears to be a productive agricultural region. The land around the town consists of rolling hills and valleys devoted to farming.

View from San Martino in Pensilis

Giuseppe Riposo and Leona DiCicco came to American from San Martino in Pensilis in the 1910s. At the time Italy and Europe were in flux, war was breaking out in the Balkans, and southern Italy was suffering from years of grinding poverty. 

We came to San Martino to spend a few days this month in the streets that our grandparents had perhaps walked and to think about them and why they left and what they must have thought about what they were leaving behind.

Today the area around San Martino in Pensilis is a busy agricultural area and the streets of the town often see tractors among the cars and motor scooters that you see everywhere in Italy. Some people who live in town commute to their farms in nearby areas on tractors. The town today must be very different from the town that my grandparents emigrated from.

The main street

Two years ago we made a quick stop here on a similar trip and talked informally with a few people. It is interesting that Italians in the small towns all seem to walk around with an extensive town history in their heads. Then, in 2010, we met a group of four men in their forties or fifties who were hanging around on the main street. When they saw us with our cameras, they clowned for us (and probably more for each other) and asked for us to take their picture. We did, of course, and showed them the images that we had taken. We then talked about my grandparents, their stories, their names. 

Both family names, Riposo and DiCicco, were recognized immediately. The Riposos, however, no longer lived in the town. One of the men, a person named Leo (pronounced LAY oh in Italian) said that he knew a family named DiCicco and that he’d take us there in his car. We drove off with Leo but we found no one was home.

A tight squeeze

This year we made a reservation in the only hotel in the town. The manager of the hotel said that he had noticed the family name Riposo as our request for a reservation came to him via email. He said that Riposo was a name that had been part of the history of the town. He also said that Leo was a very common first name in San Martino since Saint Leo was the patron saint of the town.

Hmmm. And Grandma’s first name, as we remembered, was Leona.

We went to town offices and checked with the Anagrafe, the town government officer who keeps track of births, deaths, and other vital information. She was very helpful and checked all the town records for information on the birth of Giuseppe Riposo in the late 1800s and early 1900s. She found a number of Riposos and RIposas but could not find a Giuseppe RIposo.

We asked her to look for Leona DiCicco. The Anagrafe looked back at us, puzzled. We repeated our request. She was still puzzled. Leona is not a first name that is given in Italy but she said that she would look. When she returned, she invited us into her work area to view the 100-year old documents. The records showed that Leontina DiCicco was born in San Martino in Pensilis in 1899. The change to Leona may have been made at some later date.

She also had a brother named Michele (Michael, of course) who was born in 1896.

Hmmm. Her brother was named Michael!

We asked for a copy of the birth information and Anagrafe was gracious in passing it along to us. The birth information, which we’ll share with you when we get home, indicates that her family were contadini, farmers.

What an interesting story and, of course, there is a lack of certainty about what we’ve found. There is not social security number to cross check. There aren’t people here with first hand information to talk to. But the circumstances seem so suggestive that we’ve found the record of her birth in her hometown.