Robert Laird Russo's Story

Robert Laird born in Long Island - US, during the last few years he was living in Madrid (Spain). He contacted me because he was looking for a transfer from Naples to Positano with a stop at Herculaneum, and another one from Positano to Naples train station. He asked if it was possible to have a quick stop in Sant’Agnello next to Sorrento at the Santa Maria delle Grazie Church to see where the great grandparents Giuseppe Russo and Maria Michela Gargiulo were married in the 1900. 

Maria Michela Gargiulo was born on 20 June, 1876 in Sant’Agnello, Sorrento, Italy. Giuseppe Russo was born April 15, 1864 probably in Piano di Sorrento, he was the son of Vito Russo and Maria Michele Pontecorvo.  Maria Michela Garguilo’s family was in the silk business (we still have this business in Sorrento area), raising silkworms.  Giuseppe and Maria emigrated to New York in 1901.  Most of Maria’s family stayed in Sorrento and there are cousins alive as of several years ago - Pina Gargiulo, her husband Giovanni Luisi and Anna their daughter; Lucia Gargiulo and his husband Salvatore Maresca. I contacted the sacristan of the church in Sant’Agnello, his name is Franco, explained everything to him and I gave him all the information Robert sent to me. He agreed to meet me and Robert at 4.00pm after the visit of Herculaneum. When we arrived Franco, the sacristan, was already there and the Church open for the visit. Franco took us in the sacristy where Robert surprised, found the register of marriages that took place in that Church from the 1818. We find the registration, of course it was not easy to read all the details of the marriage registration because the book was very old, but enough to have some more information to bring with him, like the exact year of the wedding that was in the 1897 and not in the 1900, the date that was August 28, who were the witnesses of marriage and more.  Robert asked for the visit of the Church he didn’t expect that welcome, he was visibly and sentimentally proven.

February 28, 2020