Published August 30, 2024
By Joseph Newkirk
This 1925 photograph of Joseph Affre’s family shows Mr. Affre holding his daughter, Vivian, and clockwise: his wife, Antoinette, and children Peter, Pauline, Sylvester and Magdalene. Affre and his wife were born in Italy and after immigrating to the United States near the turn of the 19th century became naturalized American citizens and worked for Quincy’s Lanza Fruit Company before starting their own produce store. (This photo is from the author’s collection.)
Most of the first Italian immigrants arrived in Quincy between 1900 and 1910 during a decade when more than 2 million Italians entered the United States. For every one immigrant to America, two went to Argentina or Brazil, where the more Mediterranean climate, Latin cultures, and Roman Catholic practices mirrored their native land.
About 40 percent of these Italians were “birds of passage” coming to the U.S. to earn money and then return to their families, or they were seasonal workers seeking opportunity. Most Italians migrated to larger cities of the Northeast, where they formed “Little Italy” neighborhoods. Relatively few went to Midwestern or Western states, and because farming conditions had been harsh in Italy and the work mostly done by peasants laboring under cruel landlords even fewer wanted to pursue the primary Italian occupation of farming in this country.
So why did an Italian community take root in Quincy during the early 1900’s with several families coming here and continue farming?
Many of these immigrants came from Sicily after leaving their homeland following a massive earthquake in 1908—one of the most destructive earthquakes in European history—that killed about 110,000 people and left most survivors destitute. They found it easier to enter through the New Orleans port rather than New York’s Ellis Island. Standards and medical exams there were more lax, detention times shorter, and with much fewer immigrants to process less language confusion existed.
From New Orleans they boarded a boat north along the Mississippi River and relocated in Quincy, which offered suitable land not found in urban areas to raise crops and a river to supplement meals with fresh fish.
A prime example of these agrarian immigrants was Joseph Affre, the author’s grandfather. He and his wife, Antoinette Anerino Affre, were contradini—peasant farmers—and in Quincy they cultivated land on what is now 36th and State Streets. After working for Lanza Fruit Company for a few years, they began selling their vegetables and fruits at a market stand on 7th and State Street next door to their home. During the Industrial Revolution when Quincy’s labor force began shifting more toward manufacturing and people had less time for gardening, residents welcomed the fresh produce the Affres provided. Within a few years their stand became a store.
Once the good word got back to Italy about this town, other family members and Italian households followed. By the beginning of World War 1 in 1917, three of Joseph’s brothers and a score of Italian-born immigrants had also made Quincy their new home. In 1925 the Gem City had a small but thriving Italian community.
When Joseph Affre died in 1932 at the age of 46, his wife and children continued farming and running the family store until about 1941, when WWII sent the boys to war, and the girls opted for “careers.” Joseph’s brother, John Affre, along with his wife, Venera, and their daughters Angela, Magdalen and Josephine had a similar market at 609 Hampshire Street that stayed in business for 64 years. “Retirement,” as we know it now, was unheard of for these immigrants: John Affre worked every day until his death at age 92.
Italian-born males living in Quincy like the Affres were almost all self-employed, due largely to language barriers and reluctance by employers to hire “foreign” workers. They were hard-working, industrious and frugal, and did well on their own. Indeed, many Italian-Americans here had indoor plumbing before most others in the city. Almost all became naturalized American citizens.
Traditional Italian values followed these first immigrants to this country. La Familia (“the family”) is the sense of duty to relatives and other Italians in the community. Joseph Affre’s sister-in-law, Mary Anerino, was born deaf and cared for all of her life by relatives and other local Italians. Joseph’s mother-in-law lived with her family in Quincy until her death at the age of 102. Old folks homes and institutional care were not part of their culture.
No ethnic group dovetails without some rough edges into an adopted country. Two areas of conflict for Italian-Americans in Quincy and elsewhere were religion and education.
These first immigrants to Quincy—and almost all Italians—were Roman Catholics, but their practices differed widely from religious traditions in this country. They venerated individual saints like Mary Magdalene and Francis of Assisi with a fervor many Catholics here found unsettling. People deemed their wearing a sachet of garlic around their neck to ward off “evil eye” “superstitious” and “bizarre.” Farmers like the Affres attended ceremonies filled with incantations and rituals outside of Catholic orthodoxy intended to bless the land and ensure a bountiful harvest.
Education seemed the key for the next generation to dovetail more completely into American culture and live with less hardship than their parents. Many Italians, though, did not fully embrace education for their children. First, it threatened the authority of the parents by giving children “brash” and “rebellious” ideas. Also, elders expected children—especially males—to work to help put food on the table. Even the school lunch program clashed with Italian values because it took children away from the traditional colazione—families eating lunch together.
Those first-generation Italian-Americans growing up in Quincy largely prospered but never forgot their roots. Josephine Affre, John Affre’s daughter and a Quincy Public School educator for over 30 years, recalled in a local oral history interview sponsored by Quincy University’s Communications Department: “When my family’s first grandchild was born, my mother kept saying, ‘la bella bambino!’ (The beautiful baby boy!) When he grows up, he will be pope!’ The child’s mother piped up, ‘When he grows up, he will be president!’ My mother paused long before saying, ‘As long as he doesn’t forget where he’s from.’ A poignant silence followed. Finally someone in the room asked sheepishly, ‘Where is that?’ A wave of voices rose from the shores of memory, hope and hard-won wisdom, ‘The United States—it’s a suburb of Italy!’”
Sources
Affre, Anthony. M.A. Family History of Affres, Anerinos, and Badamos in the United States.
Bozeman, Montana: University of Montana Press, 1995.
“Delicious Fruits and Confections.” Quincy Daily Journal, December 19, 1901, 8.
“Funerals.” Quincy Herald-Whig, June 4, 1932, 8.
Iorizzo, Luciano J. and Salvatore Mondello. The Italian-Americans (Rev.) (The Immigrant
Heritage of America Series) Boston: Twayne Pub. 1980.
Josephine Affre, M.S. Interviewed by the author. Quincy, IL, June 13, 1986. Local Oral History
Interviews under the direction of Dr. John Schleppenbach of the Quincy University Communications Department.
“A Lifetime on Hampshire Street.” Quincy Herald-Whig, Aug. 5, 1968, 14.
“Pete Affre—A Manner, Philosophy All His Own.” Quincy Herald-Whig, June 4, 1973, 14.
“Wedded at St. Peter’s.” Quincy Daily Journal, January 17, 1912, 10.
