A Casa de Familia

About the Book

There has been many books and movies about the most well known gangsters and bootleggers from the prohibition era. We have all heard of Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Dutch Schultz, Johnny Torrio to name a few. However there were smaller bootleg operations all over the United States that supplied booze to the people in every corner of the country. This story is about one such group that operated on the east coast in western Connecticut and Massachusetts.

As a kid, being brought up in an Italian family, I heard stories about goings on in the family during the the bootleg era and the early 1900's. The older family members were reluctant to talk about it or even admit that the family was involved in bootlegging. While growing up, I heard bits and pieces of family history that even at a young age perked my interest in what went on in the family in those days. However the bits and pieces were so incomplete that it left large holes in the story. During a trip to Australia in 1997 I met with some older relatives that shed some light on the history of the family. While in Australia I wrote a 40 page newsletter about what I thought happened. I sent copies of this newsletter to each family household.

Upon my return to the U.S. my sister showed me a copy of a 1924 Waterbury Connecticut newspaper detailing the killing of my grandfather. She found the newspapers in the Waterbury, Connecticut Library and resisted the librarians demands to leave because it was closing time, while she made copies of the newspapers.

The articles in the newspapers supplied information that made the story a little more complete. Even with this information the story had many holes in it. I have written this story as a historical novel. Though the story is based on real events, and some real people, the majority of it is fiction. I hope you, as a reader enjoy the story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Joseph C. Marvici

About the Author

I was born and raised in Springfield, Massachusetts and was named after my grandfather in the Italian tradition that named the first son after his grandfather. My father Pasquale was also named after his grandfather. Though my mother was not Italian we were raised in the Italian tradition and live in close proximity to the family. Springfield had a large population of Italians back in the 1950's. I was always proud of being Italian and was always curious about my family history though the past was seldom talked about and always mysterious. I left home and got an apartment with a friend at the age of 17 which was frowned upon by the family as the tradition at that time was to live at home until you got married. My Father found out where I was and caused a terrible scene where I ended up having to live with my sister and was not going to be allowed to live on my own. I moved to New York City within 2 days of that event and afterwards moved Boston and then Washington, D.C. and then back to Boston. It was from Boston that I left with friends in1969 heading for San Francisco and eventually settling in Denver, Colorado. I worked for several years in Denver in the concrete business as a foreman until I was able to buy land in British Columbia, Canada.

Moving to British Columbia in 1973 I worked in the concrete business for several years before changing occupations, becoming a faller in the logging industry and in the 1990's operated my own logging business.

Having played guitar and wrote songs for many years I recorded a Cd of original music in 1993 and since then produced five more Cd's, publishing more than 50 original songs, the last two being solo recordings under the name of Mudcat Joe. I currently live in Prince Rupert, B.C. and operate a home repair and renovations business called Add-A-Man Handyman Service.