Rionero Sannitico
the history of the city, and the Capretta Family
Our second stop in visiting the homelands of my Italian ancestors was the town of Rionero Sannitico. Rionero Sannitico is a small town of around 1,000 people in the Isernia province of Molise. It is about an hour and a half north of Naples and was just under 2 hours south of our last stop, Santo Stefano di Sessanio. The name Rionero means Black River and refers to either the dark waters of the Volturno tributary, or the dark, healthy soil in the area.
This was the home of my paternal great-grandmother, Antonita, and the Capretta family.
History of the Town
Rionero Sannitico is a small mountainous town at an altitude of 3,448 feet above sea level and is about 11 square miles. The rain falls in such a way on the town that part of the water drains down in the Tyrrhenian Sea, and the rest flows the other direction into the Adriatic. Supposedly the place the water splits is right in front of the Santo Bartolomeo Church.
Rionero Sannitico
The earliest evidence of people in this area shows three overlapping civilizations who were likely wiped out by ancient Samnites who came to the area around 600 BCE. The Samnites, an Italic tribe, continued to hold the area throughout Roman rule and were known for their resistance to Rome.
Following the Romans, Celtic-Germanic tribes ruled the area for a while. By the 8th century the town (at that time called Rivinigri) was taken as a fief of the Abbey of San Vincenzo al Volturno (a community of Benedictine monks) and was brought under Christian control. Not long after, the city was fortified with a castle and surrounding fiefdoms to protect from Muslim groups who were raiding religious buildings for their wealth as part of a centuries old struggle with the Catholic church over territory in Sicily and Southern Italy.
Abbey San Vincenzo al Volturno
By the 13th century Rionero Sannitico was under the feudal system ruled by the Carafa family. It continued to change hands and was governed by different families for the coming centuries. The area was an agricultural center growing vegetables, fruits, grains, and especially olives for olive oil production. The town remained an agricultural hub and was conveniently positioned for trade. It continued increasing in population and growth under the Kingdom of Naples until the mid-19th century.
In 1861 the city went through the Unification of Italy. (Prior to this point the city name was Rionero, and then Sannitico was added after the unification to distinguish it from Rionero in Vulture). Along with many other cities in the south, Rionero Sannitico was hit with high taxes and new invasive laws that changed the way they had used land for centuries. This had a serious impact on the economy and many people left to find work in other areas.
While the majority returned back to Rionero, they estimate that around 700 from the area stayed in America and Canada. One place that many of the people from Rionero Sannitico moved to was Cleveland, Ohio where they were in high demand as stone workers for Lakeview Cemetery. This made Cleveland feel like home for many from Rionero Sannitico as people they knew filled up the east-side blocks surrounding Cedar and Fairhill.
Not long after the population loss from immigration, the area around Rionero Sannitico went through another difficult time as it experienced the German “war on civilians” against the Southern Italian resistance, individuals in the south who didn’t agree with the north’s alignment with Germany. The city was located near the Gustav Line, a point of strength for the Germans who sought to destroy roads, homes, and bridges to decimate the resistance and recruit or deport into the army.
War Memorial in Rionero Sannitico
Rionero Sannitico Today
Today the town has recovered and rebuilt both its population and infrastructure. It is known for outdoor activities like skiing, hiking, and cycling as well as foods like cavatelli (a handmade pasta), mutton, olive oil, meatballs, and buffalo mozzarella. The town is beautiful, green, and quaint. It offers a piazza with a civil building, war memorial, and some restaurants and shops. Each year residents of the city continue to act out a Living Nativity Scene, where they dress in costume and process throughout the streets of the city reenacting the story of Jesus’ birth as they go.
Up until the 1960s some women in the area continued to wear traditional clothes, a shoulder-length white headdress, a highly embroidered velvet bodice and sleeve covers over a white lace blouse, and a dark skirt adorned with lace and embroidery.
We had a great meal at Trattoria Black River and were joined by a cat that kept sneaking back in despite the workers best efforts to shoo her away. We didn’t do as much walking around here, but I believe you could get around with a wheelchair if you needed to. There are flat areas and sidewalks in the main part of the town. Overall this is a lovely hillside area, I enjoyed seeing the integration of different types of architecture and the merging of old with newer.
Trattoria Black River
Family History
On April 18, 1901, Severino Capretta came through Ellis Island at the age of 17 to visit his cousin who lived on Frank Ave. on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio. After returning to Rionero Sannitico he settled down as a contandino (farmer) and married Serafina DiFranco, the daughter of a master stoneworker, in 1903. They grew potatoes, corn, and beans, and raised pigs to make sausages (something my Grandpa still does occasionally).
The couple would have my great-grandmother, Antonita, two years later on December 9, 1905. Hard times encouraged Severino to go to America again and in March of 1909 at the age of 25 he returned to Cleveland and began to work digging sewers. Serafina would soon follow, arriving 9 months later in Ellis Island on Christmas Eve 1909 with 4-year-old Antonita and her 6-month-old brother, Amadeo, born just months after Severino left.
Severino Capretta and Serafina DiFranco
Severino and Serafina would go on to have 7 children in total. For most of their time they lived on or near Frank Ave, where he first visited his cousin half a century before. Serafina died in 1945 at the age of 62. Severino would continue digging sewers and working construction well past retirement age and passed at the age of 88 in 1972.
Antonita, who started going as Antoinette after they moved here, went to their neighborhood school here in Cleveland through the 11th grade when she stopped to start working as a laundress to help support her family. She herself reported that she had 6 boyfriends at this time, but at the age of 17 she decided to marry 26 year old Luigi Glorioso, a sewer worker from the neighborhood just like her father.
Antoinette (Antonita) Capretta and Luigi Glorioso