Okay. So I have some good news. I had some bad news but then I had good news again.
The good news:
1. The deceased Girolamo Guarraggi's parents lived in Montreal or the surrounding area for a period of time, longer in Mattia Di Giovanni's case, as she outlived husband Pasquale by 27 years. Both parents, along with Girolamo's brother Gerlando, are all interred at
Le repos Saint-François d’Assise cemetery in Montreal -- I checked the cemetery entries; please let me know whether you want screenshots of these.
DOBs/YOBs and DODs/YODs for Girolamo's parents and brother:
Pasquale Guarraggi: 1920 to 1991 (I hadn't checked the exact DOB and DOD on Ancestry yet but I'm sure B. has these)
Mattia Di Giovanni Guarraggi: November 24, 1924 to December 13, 2018 (
http://www.complexeloreto.com/en/obitua ... guarraggi/) <-----(the Loreto is owned by the Rizzuto-Renda clan, with directors periodically rotating; longtime principal and part-owner Freddy Ruscitti retired a number of years ago)
Gerlando Guarraggi: 1946 to 2018 per the obituary link B. posted upthread (funeral-home visitation at the Magnus Poirier location on Pie-IX in Montreal)
As an aside, in 2018, Mattia's funeral took place on December 17 and son Gerlando's on December 20. Given the December 18 date Gerlando's obit was posted, he might have died the day after his mother's funeral, maybe even the same day. Their funeral-home visitations were at different chapels, the funeral Masses were at the same church in Montreal, and the funeral services were at the same cemetery.
2. Girolamo's still-alive sister-in-law Maria Sciara Guarraggi, who is married to Gerlando, is indeed the daughter of the Pietro Sciara who was killed in Montreal on Feb. 14, 1976. She is one of five children born to Sciara and Rosalia Triassi, who was injured but survived when Sciara was gunned down. The most important piece of information that helped confirm the biological relationship -- and I never expected this type of item to be definitive -- will be found at
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/1032524 ... ia-sciara/.
The following part of Gerlando's obituary that B. posted was the most helpful for me in determining who else rounds out Sciara's family, as I already knew that Sciara's wife bore him four daughters, with Eleonora being the oldest and married to a Giovanni Scalia (who died in Montreal in 2017 and had his funeral-home visitation at the Loreto): "sisters-in-law Eleonora, Antonina (Pietro), Caterina (Pasquale) and Giuseppina, his brother-in-law Pasquale (Lina)". (I did not know that Sciara and Triassi had a son.)
Sciara's cemetery entry lists Rosalia as his wife but not that her grave is in the same concession at the
Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery in Montreal. His age was cited as 60 in newspaper articles written about his murder, and †Pierre de Champlain provided this age in a number of his books. Kristian Gravenor, the Montreal blogger and occasional chronicler of organized crime in Quebec (see coolopolis.blogspot.com), lists in one blog post an age of 59 for Sciara at the time of murder, but I don't know Gravenor's source. Rosalia's age was listed in newspaper articles as either 53 or 54, with the latter appearing more often.
While now there are various accounts of when the Siculiana-born Sciara moved to Cattolica Eraclea (CE) to live, what is relatively certain is that he and his wife, along with some their children, lived in CE and that some of his and Rosalia's children married individuals with ancestry from CE whose surnames are associated with mafia activity in that town and outside of it, including in Canada and the US. I haven't yet established whether Sciara's wife was born in Siculiana, CE, or elsewhere. It should be noted that last century, intermarriage between men and women of different
comuni in Sicily was not unheard of, especially when photos became more readily available and affordable to the working poor: a man and woman often got married based on whether they liked the photo of the other person that had been exchanged. This photo exchange was also practised in the diaspora, and it could be the case that the woman was still in Italy, while the man was abroad.
In the early 1970s, law enforcement in Quebec was already aware of the networks that were formed by Sicilian men of honour in the province who descended from different
comuni in Sicily. Ribera, Montallegro, Siculiana, CE, and even Palma di Montechiaro were mentioned by the authorities. In Canada, both Nick Rizzuto Sr. and Alfonso Caruana saw their criminal and financial acumen grow under the tutelage of a Sicilian man of honour in Montreal who arrived in the country before they did -- and this man was neither from CE, nor Siculiana, nor Castelvetrano.
Pierre de Champlain has written that Sciara was a made member of the Siculiana Family who fled to Canada to avoid Italian authorities who were searching for him so as to put him in prison and have him undergo the harshest possible conditions again. In Canada, over a 10-year period from 1966 to 1976, Sciara faced three deportation orders -- he was previously forced to leave Canada in 1966 and 1970, and he had appealed the third deportation order some time before he was murdered. His immigration matter was well known in Canadian legal circles, as was that of Vincenzo Prata of Toronto.
Nick Gentile's time in CE from 1962 to 1964 is quite interesting -- he didn't just hide out there -- and the substantial documentation about what he did while in CE has already been provided by other researchers; so I can't really add anything new to the subject except to speculate he might have crossed paths with both Sciara and Nino Manno in CE.
estimated YOBs for Sciara and his wife, as well as DOD for Sciara:
Pietro Sciara: 1915 to February 14, 1976
Rosalia Triassi: 1921 to ?
Search tips for those looking to flesh out the Sciara family tree more or to find additional details about individual members:
- Use both
Sciara and
Sciarra in your search terms
- Do not be misled by the January 13, 1896 DOB for Sciara that is stated in the
Sentenza Caruana Cuntrera PDF floating around online
- Do not use any of the following supposed
first names for Rosalia that are found in both English and French articles in which Sciara's wife is mentioned in relation to his murder: Tissa, Trissa, Triasse
- Do not confuse the online obituary for a Montreal woman named Rosalia La Para (née Triassi) for the obituary for Sciara's wife -- the two women are very likely related but are not the same person
