Ancestors

Alfonso De Risi

Alfonso De Risi was born at Monteforte Irpino, a hill town in the province of Avellino in Campania, a few miles west of the city of Avellino and about twenty five miles east of Naples. He was born at half past five in the morning on 13 February 1885, in his parents' house at number 98 on strada Alvanella. His father, Carmine De Risi, was forty and kept a tavern; his mother was Vittoria Marinella, a seamstress. The next morning Carmine registered the birth at the town hall before the mayor, Tommaso Manfredi. Carmine could not write, so the two witnesses and the mayor signed the act. Fifty seven years later Alfonso put 14 February, the day of that registration, on his American draft card.

He was the second son of that name. An older brother, also Alfonso, had been born in the same house in December 1883 and died there at three months, on 1 March 1884. Another brother, Vincenzo, went to America before him.

In October 1900, at sixteen, Alfonso sailed from Naples on the Hesperia and landed at Ellis Island on 26 October. The passenger list gives his home as Monteforte, calls him single, and names the man he was going to: his brother Vincenzo. The census of 1930 gave his year of arrival as 1899. By 1930 he was a naturalized American citizen.

He married Catherine F. Ryan, a New Jersey girl whose parents had both been born in Ireland. The census of 1930 gives her age at marriage as sixteen, which puts the wedding about 1906. Their children were William J., born about 1907, Ethel R., about 1909, Joseph J., about 1911, Raymond Joseph, born at Hoboken on 23 August 1919, and Edward, born at Hoboken on 30 November 1923.

In 1920 the family lived in Hoboken, the Hudson River city just north of Jersey City. Alfonso was thirty four and his wife thirty. William, Ethel and Joseph were at home with the baby, Raymond. Edward was born there three years later.

By April 1930 they had moved to 261 New York Avenue, in the Eleventh Ward of Jersey City. They rented there for $55 a month. Alfonso was forty five and worked as a tailor. Catherine was forty, and all five children were living at home, from William at twenty three down to Edward at six.

The De Risis stayed at 261 New York Avenue for at least twenty years. The census of 1940 found Alfonso there in the same house as in 1935, with Catherine, Ethel, Raymond and Edward. In 1942 he registered for the draft once more, at fifty seven. His employer, he wrote, was his own business at 277 New York Avenue, a few doors from home.

In April 1950 Alfonso, sixty five, was still at 261 New York Avenue with Catherine, now sixty. The census taker wrote his trade as a manufacturer of ladies' shirts, working in his own business. Living with them were their youngest son Edward, a timekeeper for the Railway Express Agency, and Edward's wife Gloria, a secretary.

A death notice of March 1966 for Francesca Fusco, who died at Jersey City on 8 March, named a brother Alfonso De Risi. He was very probably this Alfonso, the only man of the name then living in Jersey City. The other relatives it named were Frank, Joseph, Anthony, John, Carmine and Josephine Fusco.

Alfonso De Risi died on 1 March 1974, at eighty nine. His last home was in Monmouth County, on the Jersey Shore. He was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in North Arlington, the large Catholic cemetery of the Archdiocese of Newark, in Block 7, Section D, grave 153. His son Edward lies in the next grave, number 154, with Gloria. Grave 153 also holds a Joseph A. DeRisi, who died in December 1966, and a Gabrielle DeRisi, who died in April 1980.

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Cite: Heirology, "Alfonso De Risi (1885-1974)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/alfonso-de-risi-1885-1974-d8b297.