Nicolina Lania was born on December 3, 1885, in the ancient town of Santa Maria Capua Vetere in the Caserta province of the Campania region of Italy.  Her parents were Michele Lania and Rosa Rullo (see below for more on Michele and Rosa).  She had one older sister, Juanine (Maria Giuseppa), and four younger sisters:  Carmella, Giovanna, Maddalena, and Raffaela, as well as another younger sister and brother who both died very young.

Nicolina and her sisters grew up in Santa Maria Capua Vetere, where their father Michele is said to have been a carpenter and ship builder.  In the first years of the 1900s, when the oldest Lania sisters were grown, the family began to emigrate to New York.  The first to make the journey was Juanine, who arrived at Ellis Island on March 16, 1904, heading for the Brooklyn home of her aunt, Giovanna Biello.  Nicolina was next, arriving on May 17, 1906, going to the home of her uncle Giuseppe Colamastis, also in Brooklyn.  The rest of the family gradually followed, until by the beginning of 1910 everyone, including Michele and Rosa, were safely settled in New York.

The Lania sisters found work in the garment factories, and husbands among their father's co-workers on the Brooklyn docks.  By 1915 five of the six sisters had married:  Juanine to Gregory "Mini Gooch" Guercio, Giovanna to Giuseppe Castagna, Carmella to Tony DeRosa, Maddalena to Giuseppe Scotti, and Nicolina to Francesco Cacciutto.

Francesco was born on November 5, 1882 in the town of Lacco Ameno on the island of Ischia in the province of Napoli in Italy.  He gave his parents' names as Michele Cacciutto and Angelina Castagna, but he may have been adopted;  his granddaughter Kathy reports:

...Grandpa wasn't a "blood-Cacciutto." He was a Ward of Naples and was taken in by great-grandpa. That's why Francesco was left nothing in great grandpa's will.  Also Francesco had an adopted brother who moved to Argentina. So there are Cacciuttos there.

He was left the house in Italy and grandma sent money to the cousins to pay the taxes.  I guess because they went and paid it we had no claim to the property.  When we went to Italy with my father we went to see it, but they wouldn't let us on the property, the gate was locked and a woman wouldn't let us in.

Francesco grew up on Ischia and became a sailor.  His grandson Franklin says:

I know that in old Ischia he -- a licensed Captain of the Ocean Sea -- had the harrowing responsibility of captaining the tanker that transported water from Naples across the harbor to the island. As this was a daily run despite how stormy the bay might be -- the same Bay of Naples that drowned Shelley in a squall -- he was admired as a very brave man.

Francesco probably already knew at least two of his future brother-in-laws well:  Giuseppe Castagna and Giuseppe Scotti also came from the small town of Lacco Ameno, and Giuseppe Castagna in particular was probably related to Francesco's mother Angelina Castagna.  In any case, the Lania sisters seem to have found Ischian sailors appealling!    Nicolina and Francesco probably married around 1913, and had their first son, Michael John, on February 28, 1914, followed three years later by Alfred, born July 1, 1917.  Carmela Lania DeRosa died in 1919, and Francesco and Nicolina, together with Michele and Rosa (with whom they were sharing the big family brownstone on Carroll Street), took in the widowed Alfred DeRosa and his three young children, John, Christine, and Rose.  Franklin Cacciutto, grandson of Nicolina and Francesco, remembers the household:

As by far the most successful immigrant member of the Cacciutto, Rullo, Bologne family, he [Francesco] supported most everyone in his huge brownstone on Carroll Street. He adopted my Aunt Chris and Uncle John [and Aunt Rosie], orphaned children of Nicolina's sister, and it is Aunt Chris who best invokes his strong and generous spirit when she speaks of him even today with unbounded love and gratitude. It was to his great Sunday dinner table that the wider family converged weekly for the eight-course meals created by my father and his grandmother [Rosa], who regularly began cooking on Thursday for the Sunday feast. Francesco would arrive mid-afternoon from the Navy Yard, entering the great dining room to cheers, scooping me up--his first-born grandchild and namesake, and making me laugh by dandying me in the air to "Ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling." Thus, my Brooklyn nickname. These Parnassean meals are still legend for those who remember them.

Then, in 1945, after thirty years of marriage, Nicolina joined Maddalena and Rosa in widowhood.  Francesco's sudden death is described by his grandson Franklin:

He [Francesco] worked seven days a week during WWII, dying just before the end of the war from a terrible injury--a crushed leg--that was the result of a shipyard accident. He was killed by a bloodclot that escaped from his leg and reached his heart.

Nicolina lived in the parlour floor, and she had a wooden crucifix box which opened up in a slightly secret fashion and inside was a small white handkerchief and a small glass bottle of holy water.  I will never forget that. I also remember Nicolina always had a radio playing the Italian AM station here in New York which still exists.  It has mostly news from Italy and commercials of interest to Italians living in New York.

Rosa Rullo and Michael Lania
 

Michele Lania was born in Santa Maria Capua Vetere on November 14, 1852.  His parents were Giuseppe Lania and Rosa Stellato.  His great-grandson Franklin reports:

It is said that he was a master carpenter who became a boat builder, very intelligent, and a bull in physical strength.

Michele and Rosa stayed in Santa Maria Capua Vetere for the next twenty-five years.  They had six daughters:  Maria Giuseppa, called Juanine or Josephine, born April 22, 1884;  Nicolina (see above);  Giovanna, born January 19, 1888;  Carmela, born January 13, 1890;  Maddalena, born March 16, 1892;  and Raffaela, born June 9, 1894.  The six Lania daughters were followed by two children who did not live long:  a single son, Giuseppe, born March 3, 1897, who died at age 2;  and another daughter, Maria, born May 10, 1899, who died at age 7.

In the earliest years of the 1900s the Lania family began the slow process of emigration to New York, beginning with the two oldest daughters, Juanine and Nicolina.  Michele made the journey sometime before 1909;  it is possible that he may be the Michele Lania who sailed on the S.S. Germania in 1907, although some of the information does not match.  Giovanna, Maddalena, and presumably Carmela followed over the next few years.  Last to arrive were Rosa and youngest daughter Rafaella, who disembarked on October 11, 1909.

Once in New York Michele found work on the Brooklyn docks, where he went by the nickname of "Mack".  The family settled into a large brownstone on Carroll Street in Brooklyn, which they would eventually share with the husbands and children of several of the Lania daughters.  Michele, who was known for his toughness, at some point appears to have begun shaving a few years off his age;  in the 1920 census he gave his age as 66, when he was really 68, and when he died on March 22, 1932, at age 80, his tombstone gave his year of birth as 1862 rather than 1852.

Rosa outlived her husband by another 20 years.  Her great-grandson Franklin says:

I can remember my father's grandmother, a frail, very quiet, dreamy old woman in black, but whose affection for us was eloquent when we kissed her hello.  She is said to have been very artistic and highly skilled at all needlecrafts.

If you know any of the information on this page to be wrong, or if you are a relative that I have somehow left out, please let me know.  This story has been told with much assistance from Franklin Cacciutto, Kathleen Caccuitto, Nicholas D'Amico, Lee Montesano, Alphonse Falcone, Carmen Bulone, Anthony Cacciutto, Christine DeRosa Falcone, and the gracious Ufficiale di Stato Civile of Santa Maria Capua Vetere, Signore Gasparino Arciuolo.

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