by Maggie Fazeli Fard
Published in Community Life
It’s lunchtime, but on this dreary spring day, it looks like dusk is falling outside. Dwight de Stefan of River Vale is sitting in a Westwood café, clutching a photograph fondly. It is clearly one of the favorites in his collection, if his care to protect it from a frothy vanilla latte, precariously filled to the rim, is any indication.
No, it isn’t a picture of his young son, nor any other family member. In fact, it’s the kind of picture that looks like it should have no sentimental value at all. It’s a black-and-white long shot of what appears to be a shallow, rocky ditch. In the background is a smattering of rough-looking buildings against a mostly rural landscape. Beside the ditch stand three figures, one man and two children; none are related to de Stefan.
And yet, for de Stefan, the photograph tells stories: the story of a distant people, the story of a borough coming of age, the story of his own family, and the story of the Pascack Valley as he knows it today.
The storylines converged in the late 1800s, de Stefan says. Essentially, a group of Italians left their homes and livelihoods in a province known as Basilicata , an area that de Stefan describes as the anklebone of the boot-shaped Italian peninsula. Worn and weary, the Basilicatese made their way to America, to New York City, and found work in the industry that defined the Industrial Age: the railroad.
At the time, the railroad was winding its way through northern New Jersey, and many of the Basilicatese were hired as railroad maintenance workers in Etna, formerly Kinderkamack, currently Emerson. Etna, a hamlet of a larger area called Township of Washington , was dominated by Democratic families of Dutch and German descent, but remained largely unsettled. Camps were set up on the east side of town to house the Italian workers during the week so as to save on daily transportation costs to and from the city.
“Basically what happened was the old Dutch and German families didn’t want to build up Emerson,” says de Stefan. “The Republicans, who controlled the railroad and were developing surrounding areas, were in the minority.”
This meant there was fresh air, streams full of fish and open land, and Etna quickly became a playground for the Italian immigrants who returned with their families on weekends to have picnics, fish and play baseball – much to the distaste of residents who preferred to quietly observe the Sabbath.
But the potential was obvious enough to anyone paying attention. The Basilicatese immigrants, living in dark, dirty and overcrowded conditions in New York City , were clearly enamored with bucolic Etna, where open space was ready for the taking. It was a golden opportunity to make money and win votes. George A. Weaver was paying attention.
“He was a Republican who wanted to bring in people,” de Stefan says of Weaver, who in 1891 bought up and began subdividing the land along what is today Palisade Avenue, Ackerman Avenue and southern Hasbrouck Avenue in Emerson.
“He gave the Italians very reasonable terms. He and Malcolm Angell, they filed deeds and wanted to build a community. There was an element of politics,” explains de Stefan. “You bring in immigrants and you’re nice to them, and you’ll get votes.”
The rest, as they say, is history, albeit one that reflects an early religious, ethnic and political struggle. There was talk of merging with Westwood, where the Dutch and German Democrats still held a majority, in an effort to quell the growing number, and power, of Emerson’s Italian residents. There were even efforts to outlaw sporting events on Sundays, says de Stefan, musing that “the Protestant kids probably just wanted to play baseball, too.”
And not least of all, de Stefan believes that Etna’s name change to the more Anglo-Saxon Emerson is an example of outright bigotry.
“For some reason, the name of Kinderkamack was changed to Etna, but not to attract the Italians,” he starts. “This is before that. By a twist of fate, these Italians were coming into an area with an Italian name. But the original [Dutch and German] residents came to despise the name of their own town and changed the name to Emerson.”
De Stefan cites a front-page editorial in the Hackensack Republican, dated July 1, 1909: “Etna will soon be a shadowy name in history, faintly discernable through the nimbus of its transient notoriety… No, Kinderkamack is not going to be restored to the map; but Etna is to be sponged off. And the new name is suggestive of old-time patriotism.”
“Suggestive of old-time patriotism,” repeats de Stefan with a nod.
His point, however, is a disputed one, and de Stefan acknowledges that he has argued it with numerous people including Emerson’s own town historian, Bill Wassmann, and his late wife, Muriel.
So, there is the story of a people. And the story of a town. But what of de Stefan’s family, and of the Pascack Valley? Those require a closer look at the picture in de Stefan’s hands.
The ditch is Ackerman Avenue as is appeared on April 18, 1909. The building on the right is the Block House (Emerson Hotel) and Linwood School is visible in the far center. The figures are members of the Di Trani family, from Moliterno in Basilicata . The vested man is Charles, pictured playing baseball with Domenick and Anthony. Charles Di Trani was a piano tuner who, in 1906, became the first Italian-American elected to council in the Pascack Valley .
Oh, and the house to the far left – that belonged to Alessio Sapanara, great-grandfather of both de Stefan and fellow Pascack Valley official John Sapanara.And they’re not alone. Including de Stefan, formerly the mayor of River Vale, and Sapanara, the current mayor of Hillsdale, a total of nine Pascack Valley mayors can trace their lineages back to Basilicata . The other seven are Nicholas Paradise, elected Emerson’s first Italian-American mayor in 1918; Frank Pascarella, James Pricolo, Philip Ambrosini and Steve Setteducati, all former mayors of Emerson; Anthony Pascarella, a former mayor of Woodcliff Lake; and Joseph Blundo, the current mayor of River Vale. Sapanara, de Stefan, Ambrosini and the Pascarellas, in particular, can trace their ancestries to the same village, Armento, in the District of Basilicata.
Pascack Valley’s part-Basilicatese heritage lives on in names like Falotico, Pavese, Ramagli, Solimando and Bamond, as well as in buildings like Assumption Church, erected in 1904 as Emerson’s first Catholic house of worship, and the Armenian Home for the Aged, which once belonged to the Pascarella family.
“This community [of Italian immigrants] contributed to the development of the Pascack Valley ,” says de Stefan. “I remember so many of these people, but my son wouldn’t. You fade into oblivion, unfortunately. I admire that the descendants of the early Dutch and German in this area have really preserved their history. I think other contributors should also be remembered.”
More information can be found in “Emerson: From Basilicata to Etna” by Dwight de Stefan, available at the Emerson and River Vale public libraries.
Tagged: history, immigration, pascack valley, river vale, westwood