Ti Family: Maria Catarina Teti Gallippi

CHAPTER 3

VOYAGER MARIA CATARINA TETI GALLIPPI

(April 13, 1879 – July 23, 1951)

Background- Maria Catarina Teti Gallippi, the Teti Family

NOTE: The following information was graciously provided by cousin Tony Teti who lives in Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada just outside the city of Toronto. He lives with his wife Tina, near their three children and seven grandchildren. Tony is the grandson of Maria Catarina’s brother Antonio. Without his generous sharing of information, our family would not have known the lineage of our Grandma Maria Catarina Teti’s or our Grandpa Giuseppe Gallippi’s families.

Before beginning Maria Catarina’s story, I want to salute Giuseppe. He had such an adventurous life, and his stories would have mesmerized us as children

Catarina was the great, great, great, granddaughter of Domenico Teti & Caterina Urso. Her great, great grandparents were Antonio Teti and Lucrezia Borgia Teti. Antonio and Lucrezia had five children. Francesco, the oldest, married and lived in the Teti family home in Filogaso. (For five years, when Giuseppe was working in Brazil and then in America, his wife Catarina & his daughter Victoria lived in that home with Francesco and his wife.) Domenico, the second son, may have been the conduit through which the Gallippi and Teti families learned of the Larimer Avenue community and the work available in Pittsburgh in the 1800’s. Giuseppe, the third son, married and had two children named Antonio and Maria. Vincenzo, the fourth son, was our Great Grandfather. He married our Great Grandmother Vittoria Tarascio. The fifth and final child born to Antonio and Lucrezia Borgia was Caterina, the only girl. Caterina lived to be 100 years old and was the only woman in Filogaso who owned a Singer Sewing Machine. She sewed many garments for the community while she lived in her home in Filogaso with her 20 cats. (See the Teti family tree on

Family stories relate that her oldest son Francesco emigrated to America in 1913, got into trouble with some unsavory characters, was harmed in a knife fight, disappeared and was never heard from again. Domenico immigrated to Argentina and also got in with a “bad” crowd, disappeared and died early in his life in Argentina. Vincenzo stayed in Filogaso. Lucrezia emigrated to Argentina and has a daughter Gelormina. Giuseppe, emigrated to Argentina, worked as a laborer and married Caterina, an Argentinian woman. After several years, he left Caterina in Argentina and returned to Italy bringing with him grape vines to help replenish those that were destroyed by disease, and olive trees to plant in Filogaso. He then married Theresa Tarascio and had two children, Lucrezia and Caterina. The youngest son Antonio stayed in Filogaso, married Francesca Nano and had 10 children. They were Vincenzo, who lives in Toronto, Canada with his wife; Francesco; Lucrezia, who lives in Toronto, Canada; Giuseppe; Domenico, who lives in Toronto with his wife Paola; Crescenza, Carmelo, Caterina, Immacolata and Pasquala, who all live in