Domenico Rega

• General Notes
  • The Rega family came to America from Calvanico, Italy. Calvanico is a small town in the foothills of the Apennines Mountains in the province of Salerno
    
    Domenico Rega and two of his brothers, Antonio and Rosario, first came to America in the 1890s, sailing from Napoli. After arriving in New York they made their way to Western Pennsylvania, first settling in the Fayette County towns of Connellsville and Dunbar. Eventually the Rega’s settled primarily in Mt Pleasant, where there are numerous Rega’s to this day.
    
    Domenico was born on the 1st of November, 1863 in Calvanico, Italy, the son of Sabato Antonio Rega and Stella Montefusco. His grandparents were Amato Rega and Stella Citro Rega and Antonio Montefusco and Stella Conforti Montefusco. The family had resided in Calvanico for generations.
    Donenico married Maria Angela De Rosa on March 15, 1891. In 1892 their first child, Aniello, was born. He was followed soon after by a daughter, Josephine.
    Italy in the late 1800s was a very unstable country. The country had adopted a free trade policy. This policy encouraged the development of agricultural exports but seriously damaged the development of textile manufacturing and other industries in the north. In the south free trade destroyed all the industries that had developed earlier in the century. Italy thus became especially vulnerable to a European agricultural crisis caused by the arrival of cheap North American grain and South American beef in the 1870s and 1880s. The collapse in farm prices devastated small farms throughout Europe, and in Italy the scale of the damage was immense. The first major waves of Italian immigration to North and South America began at this time. The Rega’s were part of this massive migration.
    A passport application from 1919 for his son Sabato has given details to the family’s first arrival and departure from America.
    This application details Domenico’s arrival in 1895, his subsequent naturalization as a United States citizen on January 6th, 1897 at the Court of Common Pleas in Uniontown, Pennsylvania.
    Domenico returned to Italy with his family in 1904.
    
    By the time Domenico returned to Italy in 1904 he and Maria had 4 more children: Assunta (1896), Michele (1898), Sabato (1900) and Antionetta (1903). Their final 3 children Carmela (1906), Pasquale (1909) and Annina (1912) were born back in Calvanico.
    Ellis Island immigration records shows Domenico returning to America in 1905 with his brother Rosario, returning to Connellsville.
    Another Ellis Island record shows Domenico arriving in America in 1909 with his son Aniello. On this trip he was help up at immigration for a day for a medical condition marked as ‘LPC’. This stood for ‘Lame, Physical/Lungs, Conjunctivitis (Eye infection)’. Upon a further medical inspection he and Aniello were released the next day.
    
    He returned to Italy again in 1912, coming back in 1913, returning again and arriving finally in 1920 with his 2 of his daughters, with the rest of the family arriving in 1921.
    The family settled in Mt Pleasant in 1920, but later moved to Jeannette.
    He worked in a shoe repair business with his son Patsy in Jeannette. Domenico was a tall, stout man for his time. In the mid 1930s Domenico died of a heart attack and is buried in Ascension Cemetery in Jeannette.
    

Click here for details of Domenico's family with Maria Nina

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