By Wilton Hudgens
2 June 2018
I spend a lot of time just turning pages deep within the poorly constructed links to Civil Registration microfilm for various locales in Palermo, Sicilia, Italia that are found at familysearch.org. A great deal of these records in Civil Registration are disorganized and not indexed making it a "needle in a haystack" hunt.
While searching for a marriage record for Antonino Sansone and Rosa Comella (buried at Calvary Cemetery in Memphis, TN), I came across an 1891 marriage record for a Giuseppe Catalano. It turns out that this Giuseppe Catalano was a brother of another person I'd done research on in my large tree at ancestry.com. In the file for their marriage was a death record for his wife's (Maria Gentile) father - Leonardo Gentile.
Leonardo Gentile's death record caught my eye; there was a mention of Contra Costa County, California. Like many other Sicilians, Pittsburg in Contra Costa was one of the areas that my Favazza relatives moved to. The record seemed to state that Leonardo died at Diamonte Nero (meaning "Black Diamond"). This also caught my eye. He was stated to have been buried at Antioch, Contra Costa County, California, United States of America.
Searching around online turned up a fair amount pointing toward the Black Diamond Coal Company which was huge in California in the mid to late 1800s. The East Bay Regional Park website states, "From the 1860s to the turn of the 20th century, Black Diamond was the site of California's largest coal-producing region."
I searched around on findagrave.com for cemeteries listed for Antioch, California and turned up the Rose Hill Cemetery. It's been a bit confusing, however. After looking at a map, it appears that Rose Hill Cemetery is closer to Nortonville than Antioch and that it was also established as a Protestant burial ground. This doesn't necessarily mean that Leonardo wasn't interred there. The most likely place that Leonardo would have been buried is Holy Cross Cemetery. Unfortunately, that cemetery wasn't established until many years later.
Looking further through the Civil Registration documents, I found a dedicated file for the death of Leonardo Gentile. In it was a certified copy of the Contra Costa County Coroner's report which stated that Leonardo had been shot through the right breast by a pistol in the hand of Lorenzo Forio on 9 Oct 1883. The body was interred the same day in the Antioch Cemetery in Contra Costa County. The best I can surmise from this is that Leonardo was buried at Rose Hill Cemetery in spite of him being a Catholic.
For the moment, I have been unable to locate anything referencing the murder, the fate of Lorenzo Forio, newspaper articles concerning the matter, etc. The only documents, thus far, having any information about the death of Leonardo Gentile in California are housed across the world back in Termini Imerese, Palermo, Sicilia. We may never know what the circumstances of Leonardo's murder were. He was killed about nine years before his daughter Maria would wed Giuseppe Catalano.
There are a number of links that pop up referencing Rose Hill Cemetery as being haunted and also the scene of vandalism and theft over the years. There are several possiblities of why Leonardo's grave may not be marked with a stone. One is that he was likely a poor immigrant worker without the funds, another is that the stone was destroyed by vandals and it's also possible that it was stolen if it ever existed. It may even be that there was a simple wooden marker that was destroyed by the elements.
This information truly is a rare historical treasure as I've learned that no original records for the Rose Hill Cemetery have been located as of yet. Many of our ancestors seem to disappear out of sight and into the dark waters of history without a trace. The record of Leonardo's death renewed my hope of finding answers for some of my own ancestors that walked into infinity leaving little to no clue of their fate.
Sources:
"Italia, Palermo, Termini Imerese, Stato Civile (Tribunale), 1862-1910," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L9M8-MXZL?cc=1947613&wc=MDB6-9P8%3A245880801%2C247844101 : 20 May 2014), Termini Imerese > Allegati (vari) 1891 > image 313 of 1070; Tribunale di Termini Imerese (Termini Imerese Court, Termini Imerese). Accessed May 30, 2018.
"Italia, Palermo, Termini Imerese, Stato Civile (Tribunale), 1862-1910," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-89M8-Q9M2-Y?cc=1947613&wc=MDB6-SWL%3A245880801%2C247931102 : 20 May 2014), Termini Imerese > Allegati (vari) 1891-1894 > image 360 of 3137; Tribunale di Termini Imerese (Termini Imerese Court, Termini Imerese). Accessed May 31, 2018.
https://www.ebparks.org/parks/district_publishes_book_about_rose_hill_cemetery.htm. Accessed June 2, 2018.
http://www.cfcsoakland.org/locations/holy-cross/ . Accessed June 2, 2018.
https://www.findagrave.com/. Accessed May 31, 2018.
http://www.hauntedhouses.com/states/ca/rose_hill.htm. Accessed June 2, 2018.
http://www.hauntedplaces.org/item/rose-hill-cemetery-2/. Accessed June 2, 2018.
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