b. La SS. Crocifisso Society in Chicago

Many Italians disembarked in New York and chose to travel to the state of Illinois where there were many Nicosians[13].  They were dedicated to small commerce and took advantage of the many possibilities that Illinois and its principle city, Chicago, offered[14].

      The newly arrived found lodging in the Italian neighborhoods of Armour Square and Bridgeport, in the southern part of the metropolis, built largely between 1830 and 1840 by the Irish.  The majority of the Italian community there was originally from Ricigliano and Nicosia.  In particular, the area between the 26^th, 31^st, Halsted Street and the viaduct, was built exclusively by Nicosians, who had recreated a complex social network similar to that found in the neighborhoods of their native city in Sicily.  First taken in by relatives or friends from Nicosia, the emigrants were able to begin to orient themselves in the world of work in Chicago, often by going to the public “free employment offices” which helped workers find jobs in factories and businesses, or in the Legal Bureau, which sought to give legal assistance to the workers in case of injury or because of problems at their former places of employment.

      The large Italian community in Chicago, had about 25,000 members in 1900, had the same characteristics as other areas of the United States.  In a dynamic work market, the Italian emigrant maintained the social and religious customs of his homeland, showing devotion not often found or accepted by the established religious hierarchy, which was almost entirely comprised of Irish Americans.  The community built its own churches and sought priests that were also Italian, and found help from the missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Mother Cabrini[15].

      The many associations present in the city were still not able to guarantee adequate support for the needs of a community often fighting for survival.  The societies of mutual benevolence in Chicago, were also characterized by the fragmentation found in the New York City associations, and often limited their charitable works.  It was not by chance that Luigi Provana lamented that, aside from the Società delle Donne Italiane and the Circolo Maria Adelaide, dedicated to the organization of feasts of charity, the Italian associations did not carry out needed works for those most needy: “apathy on one part, envy and personal as well regional jealousy on the other, are the cause of this hardly flattering state of things”[16].  

      With every probability, the first Italian association was the Società di Unione e Fratellanza Italiana, began in 1880.  This organization was of a charitable nature and its members met the first Monday of the month at 59 West Randolph Street.  In the following decade, many other groups were created by Italian Americans, such as the Bersaligeri di Savoia and the Società Cristoforo Colombo. 

      The Sicilians, met at the Trinacria Fratellanza Siciliana, which was founded in 1892 and, later, in the Unione Siciliana founded by Vincent E. Ferrara in 1914[17].

      Divided by regional rivalry, the associations became numerous. This was seen on the pages of Italian language periodicals, such as La Tribuna, during times of patriotic commemoration.

      In Chicago, the Nicosian community developed a sophisticated migratory chain which brought entire families to follow the men, who arrived first.  The chain helped to reconstruct the web of familial relations that they left in Sicily.   Sicilians from communities neighboring Nicosia, Capizzi, Agira, Nissoria, Assoro, Villarosa, were part of this migration.

      Already at the beginning of the twentieth Century, the Sicilian community was able to depend on its own bank, which was established by fellow Nicosian citizen Henry R. Contorno.  The “Herbitens Bank” – at 154 W. 22^nd Street, near Wentworth Ave., offered banking services needed by his co nationals, especially those regarding the sending of funds and items to Italy and other places around the world.  Beyond creating an important financial instrument of intermediation between American and Italian banks (through depositing and reimbursing Le Casse Postali di Risparmio Italiano), the institution worked in all activities common to immigrants.

        The “Herbitens Bank” also served as a form of travel agency for rail and sea, publicizing itself as an ‘Italian agent of the Mediterranean and Continental conferences” and “Representative of Italian, French, Austrian, Greek, English, and Russian lines”.  Contorno also organized a legal office in the bank with and Italian and American lawyers, and even opened a shop that sold watches and jewelry, and another for wedding gifts. 

       Another financial institution founded by a Nicosian was the “Banca Dott. Cesare Conti”. This bank had financial connections to the Banco di Napoli and the Credito Italiano[18] in Italy.   

      It was through these banking institutions, that the Nicosian immigrant was able to send his savings home to Italy. Money sent by Sicilians from abroad accounted for .5% of all deposits on the entire Italian peninsula between 1891 and 1895.  This percentage grew and by 1910, over 20.09% of deposits came from those abroad and were the fruit of sacrifices and great difficulties[19]. 
         Francesco Di Bartolo a lawyer, Dr. Nicolò Campione and the pharmacist Francesco Cortiletti were part of the very large Nicosian community.[20] They were some of the more prominent Nicosian citizens in America.  Apart from several representatives in the business and professional classes, the working class was most represented in the Nicosian community.  Rosario Messina (1882-1960) belonged to this working class. He was born in the San Salvatore neighborhood in Nicosia.  In 1905, he abandoned life as a farm worker in Sicily and embarked on the Napolitan Prince from the port of Palermo with eight other Nicosians, ranging in ages from thirteen to forty one[21].  In Chicago, Messina began work as a construction worker and, on June 4, 1909, he married Nicosian Santa Proietto (1888-1943), who had arrived in the United States three years previously[22].

      Antonio La Barbera also was part of the working class, and he left Naples on the steamship Alsazia and arrived in the U.S. in March 1896, at the age of 24.  In Chicago, La Babera became a tram operator and married by way of an arranged marriage fellow Nicosian Anna Santa Giunta, who joined him in America in 1899.

      Francesco Scarlata, son of Sigismundo and Antonina Pantaleo, was born in 1925 in Nicosia, in the neighborhood of Sant’Agata.  His parents returned to Nicosia from America after a long period abroad and they had purchased land along in the “Rocasci”, which was only accessible by crossing the Salso River.

      Economic hardship pushed Francesco and his brother Antonino (who was sixteen years old) to Chicago,   They received help from the Falco family.  Francesco specialized in tailoring and he never forgot the help that he received from his paesani during the first months after his arrival[23].

      Another working class family was the Lizzio family.  Battista Lizzio and Carmela Vanaria married in Nicosia on May 13, 1911 and after having sold the little that they to purchase a ticket to America at the cost of $98, in February 1912, they left Italy aboard the steamships SS Italia.  The journey lasted seventeen days and concluded with its arrival to Ellis Island, where they were met by one of the Carmela’s brothers.  In Chicago the family took up residence in the old Italian quarter, around the church of Santa Maria Incoronata.  Carmela began to work as a seamstress of pants while her husband worked in construction.  To Battista and Carmela were born four children, all of which worked in commerce and industry[24].  Carmela never felt the need to learn English and spent whatever free time that she had with her children and paesani from Nicosia.

      The Nicosian community in Chicago met at the Società SS Crocifisso, founded on February 10, 1899 and was incorporated as a society on August 7 of that year.

      In the early years of the twentieth century, the community met in the Santa Maria Incoronata Church, which had a richly artistic altar that held a precious image of the Holy Crucifix (SS Croficisso).  The altar served as the gathering point for Nicosians for their sacred functions and gatherings. 

      The Società SS Crocifisso was not the only Nicosian group present in this Illinois metropolis.  In 1921 news had spread that there was the creation of another Nicosian organization. [25]. 

      Founded by 26 Nicosians, the Società Siciliana di Tutti I Paesani di Nicosia Sotto il Titolo Crocifisso was based mainly on the union of its members.  Their goal was social betterment, materially and intellectually, of its members and was also a form of mutual benevolence association.

      It was this reciprocal help that characterized this Nicosian association.  Article two of its constitution writes that it “considered as primary concern the families of the members” and that “financial support will be given in cases of illness, as well as accompaniment at the funeral in case of death and in any other way needed in case of other misfortune”.  The financial reports of the society in 1955 show that most of the financial resources of the society were used for funeral costs for its members (in that year Lorenzo Panetteri, Salvatore Divicino, Giuseppe Divicino, Sigismundo Naselli and Mariano Lizzo died, which cost the society $2,400) and for compensation of the doctor Alfredo Bellizzi.

      As the majority of Italian American societies had as their goal charitable ends, the Nicosian society was structured around a directed council made up of a president, vice president, secretary of minutes, secretary of finances, a supplies secretary and secretary of society families.  The organization also had a treasurer, three attorneys, a marshal, two sergeants of arms, a captain, caretaker, and, six councilmen.

      Strictly tied to the devotion of the Holy Crucifix, which was venerated in Nicosia, the society met in general assembly two times each month, beginning each meeting with the below prayer:

Sommo e misericordioso Iddio Creatore dell’Universo intero. Voi che vedete tutti i cuori umani e ne scrutate i pensieri più intimi, fate che i nostri pensieri, le nostre azioni e le nostre deliberazioni in questa seduta siano scebre di egoismo e degne della vostra misericordia, ed accettate innanzi la vostra maestosa presenza.  Fate che ci amassimo da veri fratelli e mantenessimo le nostre relazioni sempre più strette, così che avessimo un giorno la fortuna di godere la presenza del Vostro diletto Figlio Gesù Cristo Signor nostro.

      Each meeting would always close with another prayer.

      Only those born in Nicosia and their descendants were able to become a part of this society.  Admission to the society required proof of their origins and the approval of two of the members of the group that felt they were dedicated to morals and work.  Application for admission to the society, had to be accompanied by a certifying document of health that proved that they were absent of venereal diseases. 

      The society was composed of two categories of members: single and married.  The difference in category effected how they were to act in the association, just as was required in the Nicosian society in Sicily.  When a single member married, he would ask to become a part of the married category, within two months of the wedding, (after which time they could no longer seek admission into this new category).

      The member that was fully admitted into the married category was guaranteed reimbursement of funeral costs for his wife, and children (those under fifteen years old). The costs were divided by all the members that were a part of the married category.

      The society also had the task of putting on a feast in honor of the Holy Father of Providence, (Santo Padre della Provvidenza), the protector and patron of their society.  The society had to establish the date of the festival and the appropriate ways in which to solemnize the event.

      Representatives of the sister society participated in the feast with the professional and social groups. Members of the associations of Saint Alfio and Umberto Principe di Piemonte were present for the festivities of 1921.  They attended the religious celebrations and the procession of SS. Crocifisso through the streets adjacent to their social club with their own standards and flags[26].

       In these events, the associations demonstrated their presence to the other Italian communities and gave the Nicosian community in Chicago the level of visibility that the immigrants had in their own colony.  This was a testament of their social affirmation.  The religious event also was joined by another event that was profane in nature[27] and therefore the feast also assumed a common and non-religious character.  “Until now all had been established with zealous purpose so that the festivities were truly lavish and keeping the traditions of years gone by”, wrote an anonymous correspondent from Chicago in 1908[28].  In that year the members of the society were able to hold festivities on a Saturday, on the eve of the feast, with the sounding of the bells from the church of Maria Immaculata, where the liturgy was accompanied by music from the Banda Garibaldina, directed by Modestino Mastrogiovanni.  Sunday, “a parade perhaps never before seen on similar occasions” accompanied the procession, led by the tricolor flag, to make the procession stand out from the “many races of people that were found throughout these long and vast streets of America[29]”.  After the mass officiated by the Rev. Roccardo Lorenzone, the festivities continued until late in the evening, with drawings for a watch, and a painting of Saint Peter, and the evening ended with a display of fireworks.

      News of the event on May 29 1908 shows that like the Società SS Crocifisso in Chicago, aside from their religious nature, were not very different from mutual benevolence societies, which were most common in New York City.  The religious event gave the possibility to “be seen”, and to show their own importance in the Italian American community and by the publication of these events in the local and Italian American newspapers.  Homage to the Holy Father of Providence was born from the devotion of individual Nicosians and came to affirm the presence of the entire Nicosian community in a foreign land.  “A new affirmation of the moral and intellectual strength of which the esteemed members of the society of the SS Crocifisso are able, even in distant lands, to carry out their zealous and loving actions for their homeland[30]” wrote L’Eco dei Monti,

      The society sent thirty lire to Nicosia every year in commemoration of Holy Week.   The funds were equally donated by all the members of the society, explicitly for the Holy Father of Providence solemn celebration. 

      After the society achieved membership of 250, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the society experienced an inevitable decline with the progressive loss of first generation Nicosians.  Future generations born in the United States became ever more a part of the larger American society, and progressively lost interest in the traditions of their ancestors.  Only in recent years – thanks to the recent wave of interest in one’s ethnic roots in the United States –the society has taken new life, and returned the veneration of the Holy Crucifix, (SS. Crocifisso).