Six Letters:
Translating the Luigi & Caterina Prestini Letters of 1919.
(Part
One of Two)
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A Group Project
by
Wally
Lee Parker
with
Paul
Erickson, John & Angela Barbieri, and Christina Percoco.
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First printed in Clayton ♦ Deer Park Historical Society’s newsletter, the Mortarboard — issue #99, July 2016 & issue #100, August 2016.
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For some time, the Clayton/Deer Park Historical Society has had in its possession six letters exchanged between Clayton’s Caterina and Luigi Prestini shortly before Luigi’s death in early 1919. Following is the story of the letters’ donation to our group, of their translation from cursive Italian into English, and what they have to tell us about the parents of Battista and Leno Prestini.
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… the family ...
On the 19th of May, 1906,
Luigi Prestini, formerly of the town of Besano in the extreme north of Italy,
arrived in New York aboard the steamship La Savoie — homeport, Havre,
France. He’d left his wife, Caterina,
and two young sons, Battista, not yet two, and Lino (Leno), age three months,
back in Italy. It’s believed he came at
the behest of friends and family, one of whom, his brother Ferdinando, had been
living in Spokane since 1899 — as indicated by the 1900 Federal Census.
Luigi Prestini: September 17, 1880, Besano Italy — March 19, 1919, Spokane, Washington. (Image from C/DPHS photo collection.)
Luigi’s intended destination was entered in the La Savoie’s “ships list” as the town of Barre — located in an area of the State of Vermont renowned for the quality of its architectural granite. His contact at Barre was identified as Andreo Celti, a brother-in-law. And it’s believed that soon after settling in, he began working in the local stonecutting industry.
Born in Besano on September 17th, 1880, Luigi was just 26 years old when he landed in America. Reportedly over half the men immigrating from
Italy in those years intended to eventually return to the old country. Their reason for coming to the United States
was economic — to earn money for the families still in Italy, or to save enough
to start a business or buy land after returning home. If that were ever Luigi’s plan, it appears to
have changed by the 2nd of May, 1908. On
that date the S. S. La Provence arrived in New York’s harbor with Caterina and
the two boys on board.
Caterina (Andreoletti) Prestini: February 21, 1884, Besano, Italy — September 10, 1961, Spokane, Washington. (Image from C/DPHS photo collection.)
A memoir written in later life
by Luigi’s son, Battista, states that the family left Barre in 1911, and,
crossing the United States by train, relocated to a rural settlement of largely
Italian families just west of the town of Buckeye in the northern part of
Washington State’s Spokane County — where Luigi’s brother, Ferdinando, had a
small farm.
Luigi purchased 10 acres of land
from his brother — reportedly with the intent of clearing it for farming. But within a year or two Luigi obtained work
at the Washington, Brick, Lime & Sewer Pipe Company’s terracotta plant at
Clayton. He then loaded whatever the
family owned onto a wagon and drove the team north to the — at that time —
growing town.
At first, they lived in company
housing. Then purchased an old house on
the town’s east side. And that’s where
they were living when, very early in 1919, Luigi became critically ill.
… the illness ...
According to Battista’s memoir — the original of which can be found in the Stevens County Historical Society's archive at Colville — his father was suffering from “a displaced stomach, so doctors tried a rest home cure. But result no good.”
Battista’s rough notes then add, “So doctor decided on an operation. Operation success, but father placed in ward with patients with broken legs and arms and nine days later died of pneumonia.”
The term “displaced stomach” identifies a very real and often critical condition known in the literature as gastroptosis.
One of the simpler explanations
of this condition comes from the August, 1919, issue of The Workmen’s Compensation Law
Journal,
where, recorded as part of a “petition to reopen” a previously closed case, a gentleman identified as Doctor
Witherell testified that he discovered upon examining the claimant in said case a “condition of
gastroptosis, or an enlargement and downward displacement of the stomach.”
The details suggesting such a diagnosis were explained by Doctor A. M. Calloway in an article appearing in the January 15, 1910, issue of The Therapeutic Gazette. The doctor stated — regarding an external examination of a patient with gastroptosis — “Inspection will reveal a more or less diffused bulging; the thinner the individual, the more marked the bulging. In marked gastroptosis a groove may be seen extending from the navel to the ribs, which represents the lower curvature.”
Regarding tests to confirm the
diagnosis, Doctor Calloway continued, “The most valuable of all methods in determining the position
of the stomach is by the use of the x-rays.
Having had the patient swallow a pint of milk containing an ounce of
bismuth subcarbonate (a
radiopaque contrast medium)
he is subjected to an examination with the fluoroscope, or a radiograph, is made.”
It was noted in most of the
early literature that thinner people — in 1919 that group being composed
primarily of women — were more likely to show the harsher symptoms of the
disorder. It was stated that in severe
cases the displacement often arose from an injury to the visceral elements that
provided suspension to the stomach. As
for what might cause such injury, pregnancy was often cited, and, for both men
and women, heavy lifting was mentioned.
Italian men of that period were
often both smaller in stature and thinner in mass than the average. And Luigi’s work in the stone quarries of
Vermont, as well as Clayton’s terracotta works, would have clearly involved
quite a bit of heavy lifting.
The January 26, 1901, edition of
the Philadelphia
Medical Journal
states that “pain,
indigestion, and vomiting, with chlorosis (also known as “green sickness” — chlorosis being an obsolete term currently identified
with hypochromic anemia),
headache, palpitation, nervousness, etc., form the common group of symptoms.”
As for treatment, the
Philadelphia Medical Journal states “rest in bed, with massage and proper diet, will relieve many
of these patients of their distressing symptoms. If the dilation is great, lavage (stomach pumping) and even reefing may be required.”
The noted “reefing” is a surgical procedure which
reduces the size of the stomach.
As for what to do if none of the
above works, the medical journal suggested gastropexy, which it defines as a
surgical procedure that involves “the fixation of a displaced stomach in its normal position. This is usually accomplished by the
coaptation (fitting
together)
and fixation of a considerable area of the stomach wall to the anterior
parietes (indicating
the walls of a cavity or hollow organ). In some cases, it
may be possible to reef (fold
over and suture to reduce the size) the lesser omentum (the membrane covering the abdominal organs).
It is usually necessary to fix the colon and other displaced organs at
the same time.”
The above seems to suggest that
this, with its vast array of potential complications, would not be an easy
surgery even by today’s standards. And
that’s likely why the doctors began with the least invasive treatments — among
them the “rest
home cure”
noted in Battista’s memoir.
… the sanitarium’s matron ...
This “rest home cure” also explains why four of the six Prestini letters — those posted by Caterina — were addressed to the Lewis & Clark Sanatorium, W. 2404 2nd Avenue, Spokane.
An ad (note spelling of sanitarium) found in The Genesee News (Genesee, Idaho), January 23, 1920.
An article in the October 13th, 1920, edition of the Spokane
Chronicle described the institution as a place that is “devoted to mild medical cases,
special diets, and specializes in rest cure and convalescent cases” — which appeared to be just what
the doctor ordered.
As for the institution’s matron,
Ella B. Meyerhoff, her history is very incomplete. We believe she was born in Nevada around
1882. The first note of her so far
located was the following from the October 21st, 1916, issue of the Colville Examiner.
“Miss Ella Meyerhoff, former matron
of the Colville Sanitarium, is building a hospital at Kellogg, Idaho, where she
had been a nurse for a number of years.
The hospital is to be modern in every way, with Turkish baths and all
equipment found in up-to-date hospitals.”
The above states that Miss
Meyerhoff was a nurse, as well as a sanitarium “Matron.”
While we might assume this meant she was a well-trained, credentialed
professional in the medical arts, we can’t state such with certainty since the
standards of the time weren’t necessarily what we’re accustomed to.
Sources state that the Colville
sanitarium was founded in 1905 by Doctor Lee B. Harvey. The facility was not an insignificant
addition to the city, as Dr. Harvey’s obituary — copied from the January, 1917,
issue of Northwest
Medicine: Journal of the State Medical Associations of Oregon, Washing, Idaho,
and Utah
— suggests.
“Dr. L. B. Harvey, of Colville,
Wash., died December 17, 1916, from acute nephritis. This was said to have been induced by
exposure to cold weather in visiting a patient in an inaccessible part of the
country. He was born in Montgomery Ala.,
in 1868. He graduated from Marion Simms
Medical College, St. Louis, in 1890, and immediately began practice at
Colville. Ten years ago, he built the
Colville Sanatorium, the first hospital north of Spokane. In years of practice, he was the oldest
physician in that part of the country.”
We do know that the Colville
sanitarium continued on for at least a year after both Doctor Harvey and Miss
Meyerhoff were gone. As for whether Miss
Meyerhoff was successful in establishing a sanitarium at Kellogg, Idaho, we’ve
no evidence. However, we do have evidence
that Spokane’s Lewis & Clark Sanatorium was in operation at least as early
as April of 1918. And we have reason to
believe that Miss Meyerhoff did have an “interest”
in that institution at that time — meaning that she was functioning as the
manager. And we believe she continued in
that role till the end of 1921 — at which time the long-term lease the
sanitarium held on its Browne’s Addition location expired, and the institution,
at least under the Lewis & Clark name, appears to have dissolved.
By that time Ella B. Meyerhoff
had a new name, Mrs. James O’Brien. We
believe she and her family stayed in Eastern Washington thereafter, with both
her and her husband being buried at Spokane’s Holy Cross Cemetery — he passed in 1944, she in 1966.
… in Browne’s Addition ...
The building the sanitarium occupied — which still stands as an attractive part of Spokane’s historic Browne’s Addition — has its own history. It was built for Annie and Reuben Weil, owners and managers of Spokane’s Palace Department Store. Sources indicate construction on the family residence was completed in 1905, the same year Reuben passed away. In 1910 Annie married Adolph Weil, brother of her first husband. The family apparently suffered a financial setback, so in 1912 the department store was sold, and around the same time (certainly before the spring of 1913) the Weil’s home was converted into the Palace Hotel. Annie operated the hotel until she and her family moved to California in February or March of 1917. After that — but prior to April, 1918, (as noted in the following paragraph) — the hotel became the Lewis & Clark Sanatorium.
An article in the April 28th,
1918, edition of the Spokesman-Review says the building was sold as an
investment to mining engineer Arthur Booth for $25.000. The article noted that “the house is built of sandstone and
brick, contains 18 rooms and is one of the most elaborately built in Browne’s
Addition.” It also noted that the building was being “used by the Lewis & Clark
sanatorium under a long lease.”
A clue to the building’s
capacity as a sanitarium appears in an article in the October 13th, 1920, issue
of the Spokane
Chronicle
where Mrs. (Ella B. Meyerhoff) O’brien is quoted as saying, “We have 26 beds, but in an
emergency can take care of more than 30 patients.”
… finding the Prestini letters ...
On August 17th, 2011, an article appeared in the Deer Park Tribune announcing that the local historical society, the C/DPHS, had acquired a significant cache of Prestini family artifacts. As society president Bill Sebright related, “at Mix Park during (the recent) Settlers Day, John and Pat Colliver told us they had purchased a trunk at the (Battista) Prestini estate sale in the 1980s. They wanted to donate the contents to the society.” Among the items “were pictures of Leno, his brother, Battista, and parents — Caterina and Luigi.” In addition, “There were many postcards and letters written in Italian.”
The letters translated in this
article were contained in six stamped envelopes — though only one of the
envelopes carries a legible timestamp, and one other’s stamp doesn’t appear to
have been canceled. Three of the
envelopes were addressed to “Luois”
(as spelled) Prestini — with a fourth spelling the first name “Luis” — and all four continuing with
the Lewis & Clark Sanatorium address.
Two others were addressed to Mrs. Caterina Prestini, Box 154, Clayton,
Washington. All the letters inside the
envelopes, with one exception, were dated: those dates beginning on February 21st,
1919, and ending on March 9th, 1919 — the last date being ten days before
Luigi’s death. The one exception,
enclosed with one of Caterina’s letters, but written by neither Caterina nor
Luigi, will be explained later.
As for the contents of the
letters, all were written in Italian.
After several initial attempts
at finding a translator, attempts that included posting images of the
handwritten letters online, our hope of finding out what was being said
languished.
… translators found …
Renewing our attempt, the society printed a scan of one of Caterina Prestini’s letters in the April, 2016, Mortarboard — along with a continuation of our ongoing plea for a translator. When prepping each issue of the Mortarboard for publication, it’s standard procedure for the editor to send a proofing copy to the members of an editorial advisory group for corrections. In this case the proofing copy, sent in mid-March, was only gone a day before the following came back from editorial group member Paul Erickson.
“I know a couple in New York who may
be able to help translate the letters.
Angela Barbieri has been in the United States for 40 plus years but
speaks with such a heavy Italian accent you’d swear she just got off the
boat. Her husband, John, speaks Italian
as well — his parents grew up in Italy.
John and Angela still travel to Italy with some frequency.”
High-definition scans of the
entire set of letters were forwarded to Paul.
A few days later he wrote back, “I’ve learned from my New York/Italian friends, John and
Angela, that John’s family is from northern Italy and Angela is from southern
Italy. The Prestini dialect in the
letters is from northern Italy, and John seems to easily read and understand
the writing. I think they are having a
good time with the project.
“Nothing too earth shattering from
the two letters translated so far, but John does say that Leno’s artistic
skills make sense, since northern Italy is known as a granite cutting area,
etc. And that the blank scraps of paper (Caterina appears to have) inserted (into the envelopes) may have been sent so Luigi had
something to write a reply on.”
The last comment above was in
response to that fact that
every bit of the
Prestini letters — the envelopes and every scrap of paper inside, written on or
not — had been scanned and made available to the volunteer translators.
Paul wrote, “John, a pharmacist, noted that
Luigi had stomach surgery. He said that
there were no antibiotics back then, so people could often die from something
as simple as a follow-up infection or pneumonia. He also noted that Caterina was very
supportive in her writing, and that her words and punctuation show she has
above average skills or education.”
Paul’s letter added, “The Barbieris also have an Italian
niece (Christina
Percoco)
in Philadelphia with a PhD in Languages, and they will let her look at their
translations when they finish.”
On the first of April, John
Barbieri forwarded translations of the first two letters. He began this missive with his initial
feelings about the full set of Prestini letters.
Regarding the first four, those
penned by Caterina and posted to Luigi in the Lewis & Clark Sanatorium, Mr.
Barbieri wrote, “Mrs.
Prestini’s letters have good punctuation and vocabulary. She writes ‘classic Italian’ — not a dialect
— which suggests more education than the typical individual born in the
mid-1880s in northern Italy. We believe
that the typical person in northern Italy at that time had about a third-grade
education, and these four letters seem to be written by someone with more
formal education (then
that).
“Her letters — encouraging her
husband to stay positive and be strong — do not seem to be written by a
depressed individual.
“Mr. Prestini’s letters, while using classic Italian words, are not well written — poor punctuation and misspellings.”
The translations of the Prestini letters will appear in the Mortarboard’s next issue.
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Addenda:
Sanatorium, Sanitarium, or Sanitorium?
Besides her letter, the envelope posted by Caterina on February 21st, 1919, also contained the two scraps of paper reproduced below. There’s no evidence that these scraps were otherwise related to this particular letter or were even original to this envelope. One of these scraps is a 4x4¾ inch prescription form apparently signed by the physician listed at the top of the form — R. J. Kearns. Printing on the back of the form indicates that the prescription form itself originated at “Murgittroyd’s, Riverside Ave. and Post St., Spokane.” A drug store with that name existed at 731 West Riverside from 1905 until 1925. The other note was scribbled on the back of the upper part of a check deposit slip from Spokane’s Traders National Bank. Organized in 1885, this bank merged with the Spokane & Eastern Trust Company in 1914, assuming the latter's name. The slip is 3⅝ inches wide, and the length remaining after the bottom was torn away is just over 4 inches.
Regarding the prescription form — translated from the cursive, it appears to read “3/17 — 1915, Rec’d from Mr. Louis (Luigi) Prestini the sum of $50.00 on acct.” The assumed writer, Doctor Robert J. Kearns, arrived in Spokane in 1904. A 1903 graduate of the Northwestern University Medical School of Chicago, Doctor Kearns appears to have spent his entire career in Spokane, passing in 1949.
Regarding the note written by an unknown hand, it states “Dr. A. A. Matthews (spelling corrected), 7th floor, Paulson Bldg., Spokane.” The named doctor appears to be A. Aldridge Matthews, a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Baltimore. He arrived in Spokane in 1903 to intern at St. Luke’s Hospital and remained for the rest of his career. The doctor published a number of medical papers, including at least several detailing surgeries of the stomach and abdomen. He died in 1940.
While it appears that Luigi may have been under Dr. Kearns’ care in the years prior to his surgery, we can’t state for certain whether Dr. Kearns — or Dr. Matthews for that matter — did in fact perform Luigi’s surgery. All the above remains coincidental and only speculative as regards the events of 1919.
Link to Part Two of this article.
https://thebogwenreport.blogspot.com/2022/08/six-letters-translating-luigi-caterina_22.html
Prior Articles Regarding Prestini Letters.
http://thebogwenreport.blogspot.com/2011/11/leno-prestini-files-1-letters-looking.html
http://thebogwenreport.blogspot.com/2011/11/leno-prestini-files-2-letters-looking.html
http://thebogwenreport.blogspot.com/2011/11/leno-prestini-files-3-letters-looking.html
http://thebogwenreport.blogspot.com/2011/11/leno-prestini-files-4-several-lost.html
http://thebogwenreport.blogspot.com/2011/12/leno-prestini-files-5-letter-for.html
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