Interview with Frank Simonetti Sr. and Angelina "Angela" (Audino) Simonetti

Description

Frank Simonetti Sr. talks about his arrival in the United States from southern Italy in 1914 and his eventual arrival in Grand Junction, Colorado in 1918, where he began a long career with the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. He remembers a fire that burnt down the D&RG icehouse, the railroad shop strike in 1922, and working a seven-day work week for thirty years. He recalls different kinds of locomotives. Angela Simonetti recalls growing up in the Italian neighborhood near Whitman Park, attending the Emerson and Lowell Schools, and learning English from a patient teacher at school. She remembers marrying fellow Italian immigrant Frank Simonetti at the age of 18. She talks about doing laundry by hand, butchering hogs, making soap, gathering ice from near the ice house, and other aspects of life as a homemaker from a young age. She recalls her immigrant journey on the train that brought her across the country to Grand Junction as a girl. Angela and Frank speak about the different Italian families that lived in their neighborhood near Whitman Park, including the Arcieri, Rasso, Sazio, Salzo, Stranger, and Valdino families. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado.