The Tucciarone Family Reunion

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On October 15, 2011, the Tucciarone family held their first family reunion in Edgewater, New Jersey. The Tucciarone family first arrived to the United States in the early 1900s. They were originally from Minturno, Italy, an ancient village about an hour north of Naples. They settled in East New York.

Giovanni Tucciarone, the first patriarch to raise the family in the United States, had mixed feelings about his adopted country. He enjoyed the opportunities but was annoyed by the rushed pace. In the 1910s, he decided “to Hell with his country!”, packed the family up, and moved back to Italy. Upon docking at Naples, Giovanni was seized by military police and conscripted in the Italian Army to fight against the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

He spent the First World War fighting along the northeastern Italian border and as a prisoner of war in Austria. After the Armistice he took a long ride down from central Europe and through most of the Italian peninsula. Upon being reunited with his family, he declared “to Hell with this country!”, packed the family up, and moved back to Brooklyn.

The descendants of the first Tucciarones to settle in the United States are now concentrated in the Northeast, in states like New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island.