One in a collection by Allen Bachoroski,
Local Historical Writer,
Tales Along the
Highway of Legends
Note: This
is one in a series of historical stories about local families
in the Trinidad region.
Click here to find out more
about how these stories were collected.
The small town of Grimaldi, Italy, is a cluster of weather-aged
stone buildings that nestles in the rolling hills in the
southern Italian region of Calabria. Through its woods
thick with chestnut trees herds of goats and cows wander
along its dirt roads shared with ox driven carts. The
five thousand or so inhabitants of Grimaldi live a very
simple, rural life in a town whose closely-huddled buildings
area a vestige of the feudal preoccupation with security.
In this idyllic but secluded hillside town Giuseppe Garibaldi
Maio was born in 1866. As a young boy he entered the local
seminary to study for the priesthood. After a few years
he decided to leave the seminary and to continue his education
at the University of Cosenza where he graduated around
1886. Giuseppe then entered the military school in the
southern Italian city of Bari where he completed his training
with the rank of Captain.
Returning to Grimaldi, Giuseppe met and married Maria
Antonietta Anselmo. It was not an easily arranged marriage.
Antonietta came from an aristocratic Tuscan family from
Florence that had settled in Grimaldi. Giuseppe came from
much humbler origins but his university education and
his military rank moved the Anselmo family to accept him.
Guiseppe and Antonietta were married in 1898 in Cosenza,
the regional capital of Calabria.
Soon after his marriage, Giuseppe entered the Italian
Consular Service and received as his first mission the
post in Sao Paulo, Brazil. It was there that the Maio's
first two sons were bore, Victor (1899) and Emillio (1901).
Six months after the birth of Emillio, Giuseppe was transferred
to the Consular Office in Denver, Colorado where he took
up his post as Italian Consul in 1902.
Southern Colorado at the time was the final destination
of hundreds of immigrant Italians who settled in the area
to find work in the coal mines. The area was also particularly
attractive to a number of Calabrians who found the terrain
around southern Colorado quite similar to the rolling
hillsides of their native Italy. It was Trinidad that
Giuseppe was transferred in 1904 as Consular Officer to
assist the hundreds of newly-arrived Italians with problems
of immigration and citizenship. In 1919 Giuseppe received
title of cavalier from King Victor Emmanual III for his
meritorious service to the Italian immigrants in Colorado.
So large was the immigrant population of Trinidad and
the surrounding Las Animas County that shortly after taking
up residence in Trinidad, Giuseppe began an Italian newspaper,
Il Corriere di Trinidad. It was in Trinidad also that
five other sons were born to the Maio's: Armando, Silvio,
Franscesco, Giovanni, and Mario. An only daughter, Derna,
died at the age of two of spinal meningitis in 1913.
What made life in Trinidad so pleasant for the Maios
was the [presence of many relatives and friends who also
immigrated from Calabria, from the towns of Aiello, Grimaldi,
and Cosenza. These Italian paisane formed deep friendships
that bonded their lives through social religious, and
commercial activities. Giuseppe was an avid outdoor sportsman
and never missed a hunting or fishing season accompanied
by his Italian compadri or by several of his sons who
inherited their father's love for the Colorado mountain
streams.
In 1933 Giuseppe retired as editor of the Il Corrierre
and enjoyed retirement up to his death in 1941. Four of
his sons -- Emillio, Silvio, John, and Mario -- transformed
the Italian weekly into an English language daily newspaper,
The Morning Light, which published until 1953. In the
same building the oldest son, Victor, opened a print shop.
Giuseppe lived to see all seven of his sons become successful
in a variety of commercial and civic enterprises. His
widow,Antonietta lived until 1967.
(Note:
if you have Photos of this family or know of anyone that
does, please have them get in touch with us so that we
might share some photos of the family here)