About The Original Blog

First, I hope that all of those family members That I have badgered to get photos and information understand that I am not being a pain in the neck just for my own amusement. I want this to be a resource for your future generations. As I have no children, this is really for all of you that share my heritage if not my name. I have found it a privilege to know each and every one of you, and am so happy to have known so many of the people in this work, even if it was only briefly in some cases. Those I do not know or do not know well, live as long as my memory holds out in stories told by my elders, and I hope that this site will help you all to live on in others' memories and pride of heritage. We are a wonderful, weird, funny and interesting family.


This site contains only photographs. It is better for the original blog to do this separately as the original's flow will be better. Please remember that I can only do so much of this without your help. Please make sure that you send all your old family photos to me as soon as possible in order to preserve them for future generations. The originals will all fade away, but as long as we can get people to maintain this site when I am gone or to transfer them all to new formats as the technology changes, they can be available to generations in the future. Please help me with photos, stories and biographies to be posted on the sites. This photo is me on the quay at Santa Marina Salina where I first came home.

Rosa Cusalito and Giuseppe Cafarella

Giuseppe 1840 - 1923 Rosa 1846 - 1942

Father and mother of the six Cafarella brothers and Sister Josephine See her sister late in the blog Caterina Cusalito. This is seen spelled Cusalito, Cusolito and Cusilito on different documents.

Rosa Cusolito and Maria Giuseppa Cafarella

Rosa and her daughter Josephine.(Maria Giuseppina) Josephine never married. She was quite tall as was her brother Tony.

Bert, Tony, Frank, Joseph, Tom and John Cafarella

Tom(Gaetano) was the first to arrive in New York in 1899. He continued north to the Boston area. The others arrived later as did the parents and Josephine.

Standing left to right: Bartolomeo(Bartolo or Bert), Antonio(Tony), Francesco(Frank). Seated left to right: Giuseppe(Joseph), Gaetano(Tom) and Giovanni(John)(My grandfather)

Gaetano Cafarella arrives in New York

1899

The Six Brothers Pose 2

Left to right standing: Giuseppe(Joseph)(murdered in his store in 1924), Bartolo(meo)(Bert), Gaetano(Tom), Antonio(Tony)notice he is slumped down so as not to tower over the others), Giovanni(John) and seated is Francesco(Frank).
I never saw this version till just the last few years. I had to work on this a lot as there was a large scratch across it.

Three Brothers out of the six

Frank, Bert and Tony

Francesco 1883-1949

Bartolo(meo) 1876-1948

Antonio 1888-1983

This too was new to me until a few years ago.

Maria Giuseppa Cafarella

May 25, 1891- Malfa, Salina - March 15, 1984 Malden, Ma.

Josephine was tall. Can you tell? I am not sure if this picture was in Salina or here in Malden somewhere. Quite romantic looking.

Josephine and Tony Cafarella

I think everyone in the family loved to garden to some extent. Many had grapes, perhaps it was in their blood. Neither ever married.

Tony and his sister Josephine Cafarella

This is more the time period I knew them, but I would have been pretty small.

Antonio Cafarella and his cousin Tom Sangiolo

Antonio Cafarella 1888 - Malfa, Salina - 1983 -Malden, Ma.

There is some debate as to whether this is Tom or some other sibling. It is marked on the back, Tony Cafarella and his cousin Sangiolo. Tony is seated.
Anerio Cincotta recently confirmed that this is Tom Sangiolo.

Mitchells in 1958

Mary, Dick and Bill Mitchell with Queenie on Franklin Ave in Houlton Maine 1958. This is the first house that I truly remember.

Uncle Phil

Philip Cafarella at Mary R. Mitchell Burill's wedding 1959. Unkie was well known as a pianist and organist in Maine at Ricker College, the local churches and on the radio. He was well known in the Boston area as well, with his own radio show. He had Tuberculosis of the bone when young and never had full use of his leg.(Right side I think)

William Cafarella on Park Street in Houlton Maine. 1957
Uncle Bill went to an agricultural college after the war. He did not get too much use from the degree. He was in a plane patrolling the waters off Georgia when his plane went down, apparently shot down. He was plagued by Epilepsy from then on. He was a belly gunner. He was never a large guy, so that job made perfect sense as the space would have been tight. Park street was the house,number 44, that Uncle Phil lived in for years after leaving the house they all shared with Grammie on Fair Street. the house is not in the picture.

William and Philip Cafarella at the Houlton airport waiting for Charlotte to come for a visit...Do they look thrilled? 1940s Charlotte was after Uncle Bill. She showered the youngsters with gifts, flew up from Massachusetts to visit. Almost always unwanted. She had a fearful temper as I understand. The Airport in Houlton was a substantial affair for the area, but it housed German POWs during the Second World War.

Mary and Fred Burrill

Mary Rose Mitchell Burrill at her wedding reception at 4 Bowdoin Street in Houlton. With her is her husband Fred W. Burrill, Grammie and Mom in the background left. May 28, 1959...also happy birthday Sis. She was always referred to as "My little doll" by my mother. The name Dolly stuck and she was saddled with it for years and years. Poor thing hated it and cringed whenever she heard it. I still have a hard time calling her Mary, but it is getting better.

Dick and Bill

Richard Bruce Mitchell and William Cafarella very late 1930s ...Lttleton Maine. I think that Uncle Bill liked my father. This was in Littleton, Maine.

My sister Mary and Uncle Bill Cafarella

Mary Rose Mitchell with William Cafarella at Uncle Phil's house on Park Street in Houlton Maine. 1958

Kathleen Cafarella and Mary R. Mitchell

Kathleen Cafarella and Mary R. Mitchell on Park Street in Houlton. 1958

My mother was a frustrated artist.

Drawings by Mary Carolina Cafarella Mitchell

Little Mitchells

Richard Bruce Mitchell and Mary Rose Mitchell
When Dick turned forty, I took the mate to this photo that had just Dick in it to the Pioneer Times. This local paper ran it as a congratulations for his birthday. I was so proud of getting him like that. He was not as upset as I thought he would be though.

Three Mitchell Siblings

Richard Bruce Mitchell, Mary Rose Mitchell Burrill and William P Mitchell on the deck of Mary's house on Merrill Road in Freeport in The mid-80s. As I get older, I am told that I look like Uncle Phil, but I cannot for the life of me tell who we all look like in this photo.

You can tell which one is me because I am the most beautiful.

Pretty woman

Mildred Cafarella Borghini Sinor early 80s left and 1958. She is just as nice a person as she looks here.

Three siblings 2.

Mary R Mitchell Burrill, Richard B Mitchell and William P Mitchell in the mid 80s

Mary Rose Mitchell Burrill

Left and right are graduation photos from 1958. She had been quite ill prior to this Picture, but I still think she was beautiful. The younger photo is up for debate, but look at the eyes.

Lowell P. McLaughlin and Mary Carolina Cafarella Mitchell McLaughlin

This was taken on my graduation day in June of 1971. She was fairly deep into disability from MS at this time. She rarely went out of the house. She attended the graduation and the flowers were given to her by my senior class.

My father Richard Mitchell died in 1955. Paul married my mother a few years later. He basically raised two of the three children as if they were his own. My mother was sick for years and years and he dealt with her problems, rebuilt an enormous house and held a good job all those years. He could also make a pretty good spaghetti sauce after a few years of tutoring. Not easy for a Scottish, Welsh, French mutt from northern Maine.

Uncle Joe the Marine

Joseph Gaetano Cafarella ... When Grammie's marriage was not working out, she turned to Uncle Joe to be her surrogate husband. He worked on building the house in Medford, worked to support the family and became the authority figure in the family. She really expected too much from him. He eventually joined the Marines and continued to support the family though with a bit more of a life of his own. One only needs to mention his name to family members and neighbors to start the stories of how wonderful and heroic a man he was. I owned a parrot and could not leave him at home when we traveled. Uncle Joe loved to see him, but he always had nightmares for weeks after we left. The jungle noises reminded him of the jungles in the Pacific. Uncle Joe, a member of Edson's Raiders, was involved in most of the famously harrowing battles of the South Pacific.

John Cafarella

My grandfather in Malden. Married to Mary Rosa Cincotta, the marriage did not go well and by this time he was living with his siblings in Malden while she and her children lived on Palmer Street in Medford. He was a well known barber and maintained a shop on Washington Street in Malden. I assume that these pictures are in the yard of one of the Cafarella houses in Malden, perhaps in and around Chestnut and Sterling Street. He and his mother, Rosa Cusalito, died within hours of each other. Col. Joe said that he came home on leave in 1942 to find both his grandmother and uncle in caskets in the livingroom.

The three of us.

Mary Rose, Richard Bruce and William Philip Mitchell(in the carriage) in Littleton, Maine. 1953

Uncle Joe as a baby

Joseph Gaetano Cafarella.

William R. Cafarella

In the back yard in Medford. The territory around the house, then basement where Grammie lived was like a wilderness in last of the Mohecans. I came along much later and even then I remember it being wild and wooded. There were goats and chickens, flowers and shrubs and planted and volunteer tomato plants all over the place. I wondered at grammie's skill because the soil there is not very good and very rocky. The story goes that Grammie bought the lot which was surrounded by swamps and brought the family to live the first winter in a tent!

Bill was the youngest. As you can see he is standing in the garden that produced more rock than anything else.

Grammie with Mary and Dick Mitchell

Mid 1940s on Palmer Street in Medford. She really did not change much in appearance after that. Of course her people did not seem to age really. She always had that halo of white hair that developed all around her face, but the rest was jet black even in her last years. Believe me, some of the things she went through would have whitened my hair! However, she was built like a barrel for the rest of her life. 11 pregnancies would do that to anyone, but the family seems to follow that trend.

Revere Beach

Mary Rose Mitchell with her uncles William(left and right) and Philip Cafarella. This had to be 1941 or 2. See Uncle Phil's stiff right leg.

Mary Augusta Robb Cafarella

Aunt May on Palmer Street in Medford Ma. Late 30s. Probably the brightest woman you will ever meet. Her kids all have that quality as well, but Aunt May's big claim to fame was her respected position in Addison Wesley for all those years. Think about reading all those books for work, and what she absorbed on top of her already enormous bank of knowledge.

She was involved in her community and her home as well. She was using her "Brights" in a time when women really did not have that many opportunities. My favorite family member I think.

Mary Cafarella

My mother in the early twenties. She became Mary Cafarella, Mitchell McLaughlin. This does not look to me like Palmer Street in Medford. Prior to that I think they lived in Melrose Ma.

Johnnie

John Cafarella in the sink of Grammie's house on Palmer Street in Medford(in the basement). Everyone needs an embarrassing photo or two floating around. The house on Palmer street was lived in as a basement for years. I think Grammie would have been very comfortable there because the houses on the islands are little more than masonary cubes joined to other cubes sometimes. In any event It served them well.

The crew in Littleton.

This is the Stillman farm in Littleton, Maine. This seems to be the work crew for the Campbell farm. My father Richard Bruce Mitchell is on the far left with the dog. On the ground is my uncle, William Cafarella.

Bill and John

John Cafarella and William Mitchell in Medford. Notice the kid(me) grabbing the dog's tail.

Palmer Street in Medford

Bill Mitchell held by Charlotte. Nancy and John Cafarella standing in the driveway at Grammie's house on Palmer Street in Medford. By this time the house had been completed on the outside. Uncle joe had still to complete parts of the inside and there was much foil still showing from the insulation. This would be about 1955. Charlotte was in hopes of marrying Uncle Bill Cafarella though any of them would have been OK with her. She was not encouraged after a while. Still, she was generous to the kids. She gave me a gold filled baby bracelet..now lost.

The Johnnie Farm

Stages of building of Grammie's house in Littleton Maine. The Johnnie farm was named after the child that Grammie was carrying when her daughter Jennie burned to death. She fell on a set of stairs trying to get to Jennie and John was born with severe handicaps. He died in his teens. Obviously he had help, but for the most part this was built by my father. A stranger looking building, you never saw, but I suppose it was following Grammie's directions and needs. To get to this house, which sat on 100 acres, you had to turn off the Campbell road, pass through the fields belonging to my father's employers, the Campbells, and at the end of their fields you came to Grammie's boundary. Vehicles had a very hard time there, especially at the end. It sat on the Canadian border as did our plot of land.