My great grandfather, Pasqual Ursini, moved to the United States from Barri, Italy. He was a teenager, and moved here with his father in approximately the year 1900. They came through Ellis island. After arriving in the United States, they stayed with Pasqual’s brother Frank, who owned a home/distributing company for Italian merchandise. The home operated as a halfway house of sorts for family members who were immigrating, before they could get a job and get settled. Pasqual got his citizenship in the 1920s. His father was killed by runaway horses while working on the railroads in the midwest. It was there that he met his first wife and had a son. He moved out to CA around mid 1920s, his first wife did not move out with him and died of pneumonia. He met his second wife around 1930 in California and got married in Modesto.  He built a house there and bought 1 acre of land. In 1935, he started a canning company in Escalon with other family members and family friends, which was sold in 1937 because Pasqual wanted to expand and the other business partners did not. After the canning company, he bought and sold crops. He then bought more acreage of land in the Valley, buying 80 acres of land in modesto in 1943. There, he primarily grew peaches, and also some grapes. He packed and shipped his own fruit from there, and used the pigeon label on his boxes. Him and his wife had my grandpa, and continued to live in Modesto and work on the ranch for the rest of their lives. My grandpa and his half brother sold the acreage right around the time of the housing market crash in 2008. 

– Amanda Ursini

Relationship:  Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more