Al Capone

A lot of Italian immigrants, like many immigrants of all nationalities, came to the New World with very few items. Many of the immigrants were peasants escaping the lack of opportunity in rural Italy. Gabriele Capone, Alphonse’s father, was one of 43,000 Italians who arrived in the U.S. in 1894. He was a barber by trade and could read and write in his native language. He was from the village of Castellmarre di Stabia, sixteen miles south of Naples. Gabriele, who was thirty years old, brought his pregnant twenty-seven-year-old wife Teresina , his two-year-old son Vincenzo and his infant son Raffaele. Unlike many Italian immigrants, he did not owe anyone for his passage over. His plan was to do whatever work was necessary until he could open his own barber shop.

Gabriele's ability to read and write allowed him to get a job in a grocery store until he was able to open his barber shop. Teresina, in spite of her duties as a mother, took on sewing piecework to add to the family coffers. Her third child, Salvatore was born in 1895. Her fourth son and the first to be born and conceived in the New World was born January 17, 1899. His name was Alphonse Capone. A block from Al's home was the parish church, St Michael's, where the Reverend Garofalo baptized him several months after his birth.