Death, Italians, and the Power of a Euphemism
Some people assimilate and buy property. Another person gets really mad and kills someone.
Last time I didn’t tell you about the Italians. They were the Andriuzzis (sometimes the Andruizzis), my paternal grandfather’s family, though later, in America, they dropped an i and become the Andruzzis. Such is a hazard of assimilation: you’ll shoot an i out.
Does the loss of that i symbolize a loss of self? Let’s not be sentimental. Fun fact: Names were almost never changed at Ellis Island. Rather, people changed their own names, often for the purpose of sounding more “American.” I hope we don’t have to do that anymore.
Anyway, Francesco and Margherita (née Russo) Andriuzzi and their son, Giuseppe, immigrated in 1898 from Calvello, in southern Italy. Can I get a “Hell, yeah!” for all the immigrants and refugees? It’s a brave move to leave behind the familiar and go far away, into the unknown. And it seems especially brave to a person who never leaves her house. Mentioning that for a friend.
Really, though, the Andriuzzis had little choice. Because Italy was a land of hardship, a place rife with poverty and lack of land and overpopulation. And things were especially dire in Calvello, where the hills were alive with, well, hills.
Most Calvellians (Calvellios?) were born on the side of a hill. The Street View on Google Maps shows a place of steep ascent, like the price of groceries. The highest point in Calvello is at the elevation of the moon. People who live in the town often develop Calvello knee, a permanent bending of the joint, from all the walking up and walking down. In fact, Calvello is Italian for “aching calves and other parts of the leg.”
So it’s no wonder that my ancestors decamped for flatter terrain. They left Big Italy by way of Naples and made their first home in the Little Italy of the Big Apple, at 50 Spring Street. What’s there now is a Cava. From Calvello to Cava. A strange erotic journey? Hey, now, that’s my family you’re talking about.
By 1920, the Andriuzzis had moved to Brooklyn. American-dream alert! They owned a house at 1440 59th Street, in Borough Park, down the street from a Dropsmoke vape store that (just guessing) probably wasn’t there. Francesco had become Francis, and Giuseppe had become Joseph. Margherita had given birth to five more children. She died in 1925, when she was about fifty years old.
Mysteries to solve: Where is Margherita’s death certificate? What was Francesco doing in the United States between 1877 and 1880? And why was Giuseppe/Joseph a bachelor at age fifty-six, never married, living with his ninety-year-old father? Gay uncle? Is it OK to say that I hope so?
The most scintillating thing I told you last week was that Joseph B. Grinder, my great-great grandfather from another part of the family, killed one of his children. I think that’s a not-recommended type of parenting, but I don’t have kids, so what do I know?
The child whom Grinder killed was his oldest son, Jospeh C., nine years old. The boy’s death certificate lists his age as eight, a miscalculation that may be almost as sad as the boy’s death if you’re a former copyeditor with no sense of proportion. Alas, some form-filler was having a bad math day. Yu wont fnd any erors here.
In 1893 the Grinder family lived in the Southwest quadrant of Washington, DC. There were six children, ages one to ten. Grinder worked on the railroad all the livelong day. His wife, Ida, kept a grocery store at home.
The family lived where Grinder had grown up, at 257 Third Street SW—a house on the corner of C Street, which is easily discernible on a real-estate plat, unless you’re an idiot, which I am, apparently. Note to self: A 1 is not a 7.
Who doesn’t like a plat? Someone with a bad platitude. You’re welcome.
The Grinder house and most of the original buildings of Southwest DC were razed in the mid-twentieth century. How do you recast destruction—of buildings, of communities—and the eviction of mostly Black and Brown and impoverished people as a good thing that should definitely happen? You call it urban renewal. Never underestimate the power of a euphemism.
If you’d like to see photos of pre-“renewal” Southwest, check out the Joseph “Not Grinder” Owen Curtis Photograph Collection.
But you’re not here for a history lesson—you’re here to read about a killing. That’s a little morbid and kind of demented. Not that I care. So I’ll tell you how everything happened. Will you indulge a change in tense?
It’s October 1, 1893, a Sunday. At 9:00 a.m., the Grinders are at home, though they would have done better to go to church. I say that as a devoted heretic.
The Washington Post breaks down the onset of catastrophe: Grinder is a “liquor-crazed father” who has drunk “to excess.” He will be roused to “a drunken fit of anger.”
To be fair, the Washington Evening Star makes no reference to drunkenness in its own telling of the Grinder debacle. So which account to believe? Only one of those papers is still around. Make of that what you will.
Whatever Grinder’s state that Sunday morning, he goes into the grocery store, looking for money to (probably) “spend for liquor.” Ida protests her husband’s attempt to raid the till. They argue vigorously. The children scream. Ida flees her husband and runs to her room.
And here’s where I think, Joseph, don’t be a hero. Save yourself. Because he tries to protect Ida by stopping his father from pursuing her. He shakes his fist at his father, a big act of defiance from a small person. That Joseph is moved to defend his mother is heartbreaking. In a flash everything goes very wrong. Grinder grabs his son and knocks the boy the ground. Joseph’s head hits the floor. His skull fractures.
Imagine the mood that settles over the house: guilt and fear and anger and sadness. And hope. Because death is not immediate. There is a terrifying interim of waiting, like waiting for someone you like to text you back, but actually terrifying.
Joseph’s health declines. He vomits and develops a headache. Ida puts her son to bed. Facial paralysis takes hold of the boy, and he falls into a state of semiconsciousness.
Early the next morning, the doctor visits. He returns twice, later that day. But it seems that the only remedy for the patient is time, and time is not on his side. On Monday, October 2, around 4:30 in the afternoon, Joseph dies at home.
It’s the worst of bad math days, a grievous equation: the Grinder family reduced by one. A funeral is scheduled for October 4, but before then, things turn gossipy. Around the neighborhood, people are talking about Joseph’s death, and the police get wind of the rumors. They arrest Grinder and take him to jail. The coroner begins an investigation.
Next time: The trials and fibulations of Joseph B. Grinder.
PS: Leave a like or a comment if you’re feeling it and you want to give a certain writer a hit of dopamine. Nopamine? That’s totally cool. And thanks to all the new subscribers. You’re the best, but you already knew that.
Hey, @Robin Stewart! Thanks for the restack. It’s an honor.
I liked never underestimate the power of euphemism regarding urban renewal! I like you humor.