Bella Ruozzo Leardi

On November 30, 1907 Bellonia Ruozzo left the port of Naples aboard the steamer the S. S. Roma with her husband, Vitoliano Leardi and their four year old son, Luigi, to embark on a new life in America.  On their ships manifest they stated that their birthplace was in the Province of Caserta, Campania, Italy.  When Vitoliano was asked for the name of the nearest relative still in his home country, the steamship clerk wrote his reply as, “states that he leaves none”.  The Leardis’ reasons for leaving Italy are similar to the four million who left a country that offered very little to its poor Southern citizens.  Understanding the misery they would face if they stayed in Italy, it was a logical decision to seek a better life and follow Bella’s younger sister Anastasia Ruozzo Pirone to America.  She had already settled with her husband, Pietro Pirone, in Lowellville over a decade earlier.  The Leardi family landed at Ellis Island on December 14, 1907.

To support their family Vitoliano found a job at the Sharon Steel Hoop Company and they bought a home at 120 E. Jackson Street and it would be here that Bella and Vitoliano would add eight more children to their family between 1909 and 1922.  The Leardi family was a large family, but not uncommonly large for the time.  Bella gave birth to three boys and six girls — Luigi (Louis), Teresa, Ann, Carie, Irma, Nick, Anastasia Irma and the twins Lawrence and Novella who were born shortly before Bella’s 45th birthday.  The couple’s seventh child named Irma died in 1916 when she was only 13 months old.  In honor of the lost Irma, they named the next baby girl born in 1920 Anastasia Irma who became known as Irma Leardi Carchedi.

When the twins were not yet four years old, Vitoliano died suddenly at the age of 59 from a stroke, leaving Bella a widow at age 49.  Fortunately their oldest son Louis had a job as the Sharon Steel and with his wages he helped support his mother and younger siblings enabling the family to stay together and keep their home.  Eventually all the Leardi children grew up, married and had children of their own.

The year 1948 was a good one for the Leardi family when Louis was elected the first Italian born mayor of Lowellville.  It may not have been exactly the lift Bella had imagined when she stepped foot in America some forty years earlier, but it was to be a long and good life.

Bella is remembered for her beauty both inside and out.  Notably she was a skilled midwife for nearly 60 years and helped deliver many babies in the village. At the age of 89 she delivered her last baby, her grandson, Vito Carchedi, who was born in Lowellville in 1967.  Her later years were dedicated to her children and her grandchildren.  Her home on Jackson street was the extended Leardi family hub.  It was here that Bella would live long enough to experience the joy of 23 grandchildren and 28 great grandchildren giggling and running about her home.  At the age of 92 Bella passed away leaving behind a family who loved and cherished her and a community full of grateful mothers for her help in bringing their little ones into the world.

From Remembering……
(possibly from The Hometown Journal, Lowellville, Ohio
Article given to me by my sister-in-law