Racchini History

The past couple weekends, Aunt Vonda, Carol, and Mom have been cleaning out my great-uncle's house in Brookville.  Uncle Ardy is currently in an assisted living facility.  He will most likely not return home.  He, like Grandpa, has lived a long life.  He turned 96 in January.

The house that Uncle Ardy has lived in is the house that the he and my grandpa grew up in.  There is a lot of history to the house, and the ladies found some very interesting documents.

This a picture of my great-grandfather, Guiseppe (Joseph) Racchini.  He came to America for the first time in 1883.  He was able to establish himself and find a home.  He, then, went back to Italy to get his wife, Madelina and bring her back to America.  I have seen this photo before, and this is the photo that was used as his passport photo.

These are my great-grandfather's American passport and his Italian passport.  In his Italian passport, there was a list of his children and their birthdays.  Aunt Vonda and I found that very interesting.

I know that it hard to see, but the below picture was one that fascinated me the most.  The larger piece of paper is my great-grandfather Record of Immunization.  He was vaccinated twice, although it does not say what type of vaccination.  The white card at the bottom of the picture is my great-grandmother's Alien Registration Card.  It holds her fingerprint, her signature, and the signature of a witness.  My great-grandmother did not know how to write, so her signature, or her mark, was an "X."  The smaller card in the center of the picture is the punched-hole ticket that my great-grandfather was issued for his boat trip back to Italy to get Madelina.  It has been saved all these years.

While in America, my great-grandfather received several letters from Italy.  This is just a picture of some of the letters and envelopes he received.  The paper is thicker, and they look like they were written with a quill pen.  Aunt Vonda knows a lady who is fluent in Italian, so she plans to get some of the letters translated.  It will be interesting to find out the information they contain.

The sheet of paper on the right is a vocational Civics and American Government exam that Grandpa Cookie took in the 1930s.  The test had questions about Abraham Lincoln, the Cotton Gin, Henry Clay, and the Civil War.  The pieces of paper of the left are the exam forms where Grandpa wrote his answers.

Finally, this Pirates ticket was from May 12, 1957.  I just thought it was something cool.  The cost of this ticket was $2.40.  That included $0.20 Federal Tax and $0.20 City Tax.