By Jack Major
Anyone reading this must have stumbled upon this page accidentally or by Googling one of the several last names that will be mentioned eventually — names such as Chiovitto, Lanzetta, Guadagno and Glielmi. I have no vested interest in any of these folks, nor in their descendants. Almost everything I learned about them appears on this page. Eventually.

So, you may ask, what is this page doing on a website that began as a Major and Smolinski family project? The reason is my curiosity, which was piqued by a newspaper article I found while researching my hometown, Solvay, New York, on fultonhistory.com, a website that is both amazing and frustrating. It's free — though I send contributions from time to time — and when it is not shut down by a hacker attack, it provides access to millions of pages from hundreds of old newspapers, most of them from New York State. The frustration comes from an inconsistent search engine, pages that are difficult to read, and a home page that isn't particularly reader friendly, but is butt ugly.

However, with perseverance, patience and experience, the user can strike gold time and time again. Then what becomes frustrating are the newspapers themselves. There are obvious errors in the reporting, and where competing newspapers are concerned, you'll often find conflicting stories. Just as often you'll discover stories that aren't followed to conclusion, which gets me to this page's first story, the one that lured me to a detour that introduced me to several Italians who arrived in the Syracuse area in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

BUT LET ME go back to the beginning —  a 1907 story about a lawsuit over the incident that occurred in my hometown. It was the headline (below) that caught my eye. I was intrigued, but what appeared under the headline was, forgive the expression, a "smartass story," written by an anonymous reporter who thought the incident was funny (yet somehow missed the most amusing element). However, what happened certainly was not funny to the people involved.

Some blame for the writer's attitude must be shared by a defense attorney who used "a badger game" to describe the incident that triggered the lawsuit. What's a badger game? My favorite example was memorably dramatized in the 26-hour television adaptation of James Michener's "Centennial" many years ago when a married couple, played by Anthony Zerbe and Lois Nettleton, set out to fleece a wealthy man played by Sandy McPeak. The idea was for the wife to lure the man into bed, where they'd be discovered when her husband showed up "unexpectedly." The husband would then offer to forget the incident — for a price.

That is not what happened in the Solvay incident, which became clear when I looked for more information and found myself on a crazy trip back and forth through time with some colorful, often conniving and violent characters who were trying to get along in a new country where they couldn't speak the language and didn't know the rules — or simply chose to ignore them. But that was later. Here is the story that started it all:

Newspapers are supposed to clarify things. Reading this story made me feel like my brain was trapped in a blender set for "turn into mush."

But I wanted to find out what happened next, and another story told me the judge ruled in favor of Lanzetta. So either that judge had been paid off or, much more likely, the reference to Filippo Vacco and Josephine Chiovitto as Romeo and Juliet was highly inappropriate and a very bad joke. The Journal writer must have relied too much on Vacco's account of what happened the day he was caught in bed with Mrs. Chiovitto.

As I said, the writer missed the funny part: Chiovitto didn't come home early and catch his wife cheating; he suspected it beforehand and was hiding under the bed when she and her lover entered the room. They thought Chiovitto had left for work at the Solvay Process Company.

Chiovitto wasn't playing any badger game with Vacco — not for a measly $53 that went to a third party. The husband really wanted to know the truth about his wife, and, after having made the discovery, he threatened divorce. He told his wife to leave the house, and later that day she and Vacco took a trolley to the city, though that was far from the end of the story, which also was missing the fact Mr. and Mrs. Chiovitto had three children.

PERHAPS the most interesting character mentioned in the above newspaper article was James Lanzetta, who was not a lawyer, but a self-appointed intermediary in situations involving Italian immigrants. An immigrant himself, Lanzetta spoke English very well and acted as an interpreter, often in court proceedings. He didn't do it for nothing.

Lanzetta was for awhile one of Central New York's most prominent Italians, an entrepreneur who was a banker, a steamship ticket agent, a real estate agent and a newspaper publisher. But it was suspected, particularly during Lanzetta's early years, that he took advantage of his fellow Italians by charging them for services they really didn't need. So it was in this case, though it was ruled that he was entitled to the money Vacco had paid him, a classic case of buyer beware.

While Lanzetta operated legally, at least one Syracuse judge had spoken out in court against him and others who offered a similar service for a fee. The judge said his court provided an interpreter, usually Syracuse policeman Pasquale Bennett (whose real name must have been Bennedetto), who was paid by the city.

It was typical for Lanzetta to view Vacco's lawsuit as a put-up job by Joseph Ray, publisher of a competing Italian-language newspaper. In 1908, the two men sued each other for libel, and both won, though Lanzetta came out ahead. He was awarded $400, while, in his lawsuit, Ray was awarded only $21. Ray and Lanzetta were bitter rivals who verbally attacked each other at every opportunity.

Interestingly, I could find no mention in the Syracuse newspapers that Lanzetta, through his marriage to the former Constance Glielmi, was loosely connected with one of Syracuse's most famous 19th century murders, committed by his father-in-law, Antonio Glielmi. And Lanzetta's mother-in-law, the aptly named Lucrezia Glielmi, was a central figure in two killings. But Lanzetta's own problems were waiting in the future, after his wife's death, when his relationships with two young woman would prove stormier than anything experienced by Dominic Chiovitto.

BACK TO Josephine Chiovitto and Filippo Vacco, whose last name began appearing in newspapers as Vacca, which apparently was the correct spelling. His first attempt to live with Josephine Chiovitto did not go well. They may have gone to Syracuse, but Vacca continued to hang around with friends in Solvay, where the chief of police, Michael Casey, was on a crusade to disarm Italian immigrants, who often carried hidden guns and knives.

On Christmas Eve, 1906, Solvay Constable Carmen Louise arrested Vacca for carrying two concealed weapons — a revolver and a stiletto. Three days later, the Syracuse Post-Standard added confusion to the man's name by reporting: "Carmen Vacca, or Felepowachi, was yesterday fined $25 and sent to the penitentiary for 90 days for carrying concealed weapons."

I assumed the "Carmen" came from the first name of the arresting officer, while the "Felepo" came from Vacca's real first name, Filippo. But wachi?

Anyway, Vacca was sent to the Jamesville Penitentiary, after which Josephine Chiovitto meekly returned to her husband — temporarily. It appears Vacca's prison vacation was cut short in February, which allowed him to start his unsuccessful action against James Lanzetta. A month after that was settled, Vacca was arrested because he hadn't paid $17.80 in court costs from his lawsuit. Friends came to his aid.

By June, things went from weird to weirder.

THERE WAS no clear explanation of what had transpired between the Chiovittos and Vacca from the time of the bedroom incident, so I am taking a guess based on tidbits from a few short stories about court appearances during the previous six months.

First, Josephine Chiovitto and Vacca began their romance six months before April. Then Chiovitto sent his wife packing in December, but welcomed her back a few weeks later when Vacca was sent to prison. In the meantime, Chiovitto filed for divorce, but on February 13, when it came time for a court appearance, he told the judge that he and his wife had reconciled.

It had been reported, early in 1906, that Chiovitto was constructing a building that would include a first-floor grocery store and living quarters on the second floor. A year later, perhaps shamed by his wife's affair and the way he discovered it, Chiovitto apparently decided to look for work elsewhere, and chose Chicago as the place to make a new start for his family.

Well, you know how that worked out. He went to Chicago and she moved in with Vacca. Upon Chiovitto's return, there was a confrontation, and this time Chiovitto punched Vacca, who sought a warrant for assault in the third degree, but the case was settled out of court. At that point, Chiovitto again initiated divorce proceedings and decided to remain in Solvay, where he would become a fairly successful owner of a saloon on the village's west side. You can't go wrong operating a saloon in Solvay.

Chiovitto's mother lived in Solvay, and helped him with the children until he remarried. Stories to this point mentioned only the Chiovitto's eight-year-old daughter, but the couple had three girls — Elizabeth, Lucy and Catherine. All of them remained with their father.

MEANWHILE, Josephine Chiovitto was pregnant by Vacca, who showed up in newspaper stories with various first names — Philip and Philippo, in addition to Filippo.

THAT WAS the last story I found about Filippo Vacca and Josephine Stefano Chiovitto.

On the other hand, Dominic Chiovitto opened his saloon, re-married and had another daughter, though the marriage didn't last. Maria (later Mary) Chiovitto was described as her husband's "young second wife" and she negotiated a separation deal, probably in 1919, that netted her a settlement estimated at more than $15,000. She bought a farm in South Bay, near Oneida Lake.

But Dominic Chiovitto's death, on December 20, 1920, triggered a legal battle over his estate, with his estranged second wife claiming she was entitled to manage that estate.

The Syracuse Journal, on May 11, 1921, reported another interesting detail being discussed in court:

"From 1915 to 1918, Domenico Chiovitto had taken out five different 20-year endowment policies with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. His pretty second wife was the beneficiary in each one. Later he changed the policies so that only one was payable to her and the rest were made in favor of his children."

Maria Chiovitto lost every battle but one — she was granted custody of her 10-year-old daughter, Teresa. That fact she could not read or write English was given as the reason she lost her effort to manage her late husband's estate. She later married Alexander S. Manilla, and when she died in 1961, her obituary in the Syracuse Post-Standard said she was survived by her husband, her daughter, Teresa, and three step-daughters, the other Chiovitto children, who had all married and were living in Solvay.

A JURY in Kings County believed Miss Guadagna was telling the truth, and awarded her $10,000 in the breach of promise suit. Lanzetta had no intention of paying this money, though he did make good on the judgment in the other matter — child support, for which he was obligated to send the woman a few dollars every week until her child was seven years old.

While his lawyer appealed the $10,000 award, the banker systematically began siphoning away the cash and property in his estate. By August, 1918, two banks had foreclosed on his property, and in September, Lanzetta was sentenced to six months in New York's Ludlow Street jail for contempt of court for non-payment.

But that was just the half of it. Before he was hauled away to jail, he attempted to skirt the issue. According to the Syracuse Herald, "he married Miss Beatrice Vernis of 2301 First Avenue, the Bronx, a rarely pretty girl and an heiress in her own right. With his new bride, he set up housekeeping in the state of New Jersey, apparently confident that having disposed of his property and taken up his residence in another state, he was free from his old sweetheart."

However, he and his new wife were lured to New York City by a dinner invitation, and when he crossed the state line, he was picked up and taken to jail.

WHEN RELEASED in mid-March, 1919, Lanzetta continued to claim he was the victim of a frame-up. Besides, he could not pay Miss Guadagna because he was broke. He also insisted the woman had a husband and child in Italy.

But then there was the matter of the woman he had married just before he was put in jail. Oh, that, said Lanzetta. He didn't actually marry that woman, but he did put a marriage notice in an Italian-language newspaper in New York to throw the woman's husband off her trail. This didn't make sense, especially since Lanzetta said the woman used a fake name in the notice. He didn't explain how her husband in Italy, if there actually was one, would know from reading the bogus wedding announcement that the bride with a name he did not recognize was actually his wife.

The woman, identified by the Syracuse Herald earlier as Bernice Vernis, was actually Diana Beatrice Tavernese Palumbo. She claimed to be convinced she had become Mrs. Lanzetta, and after his release from jail, she sued him for non-support.

Lanzetta left the country in 1921 and may have spent the rest of his days in Sicily. He died in 1939, and I have yet to find an obituary in a Syracuse newspaper. By the time his troubles with women had come to a head, Lanzetta handed most of his family responsibilities to his son, Thomas, who turned 20 years old while his father was serving his contempt of court sentence. Thomas, incidentally, was educated in Florence, Italy, from the time he was six years old until he was 13.

Margaret Mary Lanzetta, a sister of Thomas, graduated from the Syracuse University Medical School and became a doctor in Pittsburgh, marrying Carl William Littler, a mechanical engineer.

As for her father, James Lanzetta . . . he certainly led a wild and crazy life. but I happened to discover he had nothing on his in-laws, Lucrezia and Antonio Glielmi, who need their own page.