Immigrant Ancestor Joseph Mecone

Joseph Mecone was my great-great grandfather. Through genealogy research, census records and family information, we know that he was born February 1860 in Province of Campobasso, Italy and he died on the 21st day of April, 1920 in Centre County, Pennsylvania. He married Elizabeth Magyar circa 1885 and they had nine children - John; Mary; Christina; my great-grandmother Pasqualina, or Lena, as she was known; Joseph Frank; Thomas; Elizabeth; Paul and Frank Carl Mecone. Lena was my father's grandmother, on his mother's side.

Naturalization records filed in Centre County, Pennsylvania on the 24th day of May, 1890 document "The Petition of Joseph Macon, a native of Italy and now an inhabitant of Centre county, in the State of Pennsylvania, respectfully represents that he sailed from the port of Naples on the 17th day of April one thousand eight hundred and eighty-three and arrived at the city of New York in the United States of America on or about the 8th day of May 1883 and that he was born in the province of Campobasso Italy and is now upwards of 30 years of age, and that he was born a subject of the King of Italy and owes allegiance to King Humbert and that he is now settled in the said county of Centre, State of Pennsylvania, and that it is BONA FIDE his intention to become a citizen of the United States, after having complied with the acts of Congress in such cases made and provided. It is signed Joseph Mecone. The Declaration dated the 17th day of September, 1892 granted Joseph Macon citizenship and is again signed Joseph Mecone.

Because names were changed as our ancestors came to America, tracking him back further has became somewhat of a challenge. From the dates above, I assume that he married Elizabeth after arriving in America. I did locate a young 23-year-old Giuseppe Micone who traveled in the Steerage compartment on the ship Archimede which, left the port of Palermo Italy and, arrived in the USA on the 3rd day of May, 1883. Could this man be my immigrant ancestor? Possibly.

Poppy Campbell

My grandfather's name was Dougald Alexander Campbell and he was born March 19, 1908 in Detroit, Michigan to Alexander D. Campbell and Therressa May Flora. Raised in Detroit and the youngest of seven children, he married my grandmother, Florence Pascarella, on November 9, 1929. He served as a Detroit Police Officer from January 1931 until March 1956, moved to California and then worked as a Security Officer for McDonnell-Douglas in Huntington Beach from December 1956 until 1970. I can remember running through their house, trying to find a place to hide if I was there and Poppy was due home from work. My favorite spot was the bottom shelf of the linen closet, towels piled in front of me, holding my breath and trying not to laugh or squeal as he walked around the house calling out, "Where's Susie? I thought she was here", always knowing exactly where I was. I was five years old when Gramma and Poppy gave me my first Bible in 1963 and Poppy always made sure I had a quarter for the offering plate on Sunday when I went to church with them. After church we would go home and play checkers out in the den, under the window on the bench seat. He passed away February 18, 1970 at the age of sixty-one and is buried at Westminster Memorial Park.

Florence Pascarella

My grandmother was born March 31, 1911 in Rome, Oneida County, New York. She was the oldest of nine children born to Michael Pascarella and Lena Mecone. She died August 8, 2004 in Huntington Beach, California and is buried at Westminster Memorial Park in Westminster, not far from the Huntington Beach home she lived in. She descends from Italian immigrants who came to the United States in the mid 1880's and her actual birth record shows the spelling of her name as Filomena Pasquarello. She married Dougald Alexander Campbell when she was eighteen years old and had two sons; Charles Alex and my father, Thomas Dougald Campbell. I remember visiting gramma at her house and the accordian that she kept in her closet. Gramma would sing and play songs on it then, as kids, we would strap the heavy instrument to us and work to pull and push it back and forth hoping to get just a sound or two from it. She told stories of how well her father, Michael, played the accordian and how his gypsy blood led him to believe in fortune tellers and séances, something that her mother, Lena, scoffed at. Gramma remembers attending séances with her father when she was young and how much she enjoyed them because there was always music and she could dance. She loved to dance.

Campbell Bible

My paternal grandfather's name was Dougald Alexander Campbell. I am assuming these fragile pages were extracted from a Bible that may have belonged to his parents, since their marriage is one of the first entries documented. It is my grandfather's handwriting that reads Dad Died June 5, 1943 and Mom (ditto) July 23, 1948. "Dad" would have been Alexander D. Campbell who was born October 11, 1858 in Glencoe, Ontario, Canada and actually died on June 3 in Detroit, Michigan but was buried June 5, 1943. "Mom" was Theresa May (Flora) Campbell, born September 12, 1871 in Amber, Mason County, Michigan and died July 23, 1948 in Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan. They were married August 29, 1886.

Married in Tijuana

My mom, Janet Wray Stansberry, was barely seventeen years old when she met my father, Thomas Dougald Campbell, at a roller skating rink in Huntington Park, California. The Skating Rink was located on Pacific Boulevard right next door to a diner called Chili Junction where she and her friends hung out. It was the middle of December 1955 and he was almost twenty years old. She left high school and married him four weeks later on January 17, 1956 in Tijuana, Mexico.

Growing Up Graham

I don't remember my father but have studied enough photographs to see the resemblance in my sons. Thomas Dougald Campbell was a 23-year old salesman for the Encyclopedia Americana Company when he drowned on October 15, 1959 after he and two companions; Roy Yates, 40, of Carlsbad and Harold Graham, 32, of San Marino were caught in an undertow while swimming near Oxnard in California. The other two men managed to swim to shore. A newspaper headline on Friday, October 16, 1959 in the Oxnard Press-Courier, "Friends Can't Save Man, Nearly Drown Themselves" and articles in the Huntington Park Daily Signal, "H.P. Man Drowned Off Oxnard" (October 16, 1959) and "H.P. Man's Body Found in Ocean" (October 26, 1959) tell the story of how he, a non-swimmer, was wading in waist deep water at the beach when he was caught by a riptide and dragged out.

Three frogmen, two Navy crashboats from Port Hueneme and a Navy helicopter from Point Mugu searched the area, aided by a light plane flown by Ed Deidrich of the Sheriff's Air Rescue Squad. The search ended at sundown without locating the man's body. Members of the fire department rescue squad used the resuscitator on the exhausted Mr. Graham until his strength returned. 'I saw Campbell just under the surface and pulled him up. He was almost unconscious and was having trouble breathing. I could just see him dying right there and there was nothing I could do about it. He kept sliding under the water and I'd pull him up again. Finally all the strength went out of me and I had to let him go.' The search was resumed this morning.

His body washed ashore nine days later at Seaside Park in Ventura. He left my, then, very young mother with three daughters all under the age of three. She eventually married Harold Graham and had three more children.