Italian Catholics from Grimaldi settle in Utah

Courtesy photo/Marianne Fratto Brunatti

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Among those shown are members of the Joe and James Jacketta families, the Frank Fratto family, and the John Mayo family. Also pictured is Fortunato Anselmo, Vice Consul of Italy of Salt Lake City from the 1920s to the beginning of the World War II and again from 1950 to 1965. 

DRAPER — Monsignor Joseph Mayo’s recent assignment as pastor of Saint John the Baptist Parish prompted Marianne Fratto Brunatti and her sister, Diane Fratto Chase, both parishioners of the parish, to find the family history book and, in particular, a photograph of the Italians who immigrated to Utah from Grimaldi, Italy during the early part of the last century.

Pictured in the photo are their mother, Teresa Jacketta Fratto; their grandmother and grandfather, Anna and Guerino (James) Jacketta; and Msgr. Mayo’s grandfather, John (Giovani) Mayo.

John Mayo’s son, Deacon Silvio Mayo, is Msgr. Mayo’s father. Deacon Mayo retired earlier this year after 27 years as the diocese’s chancellor.

John Mayo lived from 1878 to 1956. At 19, he immigrated to Columbia, Utah, in the 1930s. He lived in a boarding house in Columbia (now East Carbon), going back and forth to Italy "until finally bringing his wife, Antoinette and two of their three children to America with him," said Deacon Mayo, who was born in the United States. "They eventually moved to Salt Lake, where my father worked at the Macaroni Company with my older brother, Joseph Mayo. The Macaroni Company was owned by Tony Ferro.

Deacon Mayo’s grandparents also immigrated to Utah from Grimaldi. His grandfather, Joseph Mayo, was one of approximately 200 men and boys killed in the "Winter Quarters" mine disaster in Scofield May 1, 1900; he is buried in Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery.

"It is so sad," said Deacon Mayo. "My grandfather came to America and worked harder than he ever did in Italy, only to die at a young age in the mine. My grandmother never liked living in Utah. She didn’t learn English, and returned to Italy after my grandfather died."

In her research, Chase found that the Italian immigration was one of the largest influxes of southern and eastern European groups into Utah. While some immigrated in 1870, the bulk of Italians came to Utah from 1890 to 1920 in response to demands for unskilled labor in the mining and railroad industries.

Brunatti and Chase’s grandfather, Luigi Fratto, was a miner who immigrated to America from Cosenza, Italy at 18 to work in the coal mines in Virginia. He saved enough money to return to Italy to marry Maria Martire. While back in Italy, Luigi became a goat rancher and he and Maria had four children, including Brunatti’s and Chase’s father, Frank Fratto. Luigi and his family returned to America when Frank was 9 and eventually moved to Stockton, Utah, where the family continued goat ranching. They had two more children in Utah.

Frank Fratto learned goat ranching from his father and carried on the trade in Draper, peddling goat milk and cheese to Carbon County. He even shipped his products to the Midwest via the Union Pacific Railroad.

Brunatti’s and Chase’s maternal grandfather was Guerino (James) Jacketta, who immigrated to the U.S. from Grimaldi when he was 18 in 1899. The name is Iachetta, but the "I" was mistaken for a "J" and the "h" was mistaken for a "k" at Ellis Island, so the name was changed.

Jacketta became a miner. In 1920, his wife and children joined him in America. One of the children was Brunatti’s and Chase’s mother, Teresa Jacketta.

"Teresa was 8 when she traveled 14 days in third class on the upper deck of the ship from Italy," said Chase. "The ship was crowded, they had little food, and her grandmother caught a cold. They went through Ellis Island, where they were herded like animals before a long journey on the train to Chicago, then Ogden, where their father and his friend, John Mayo, met them and took them to Scofield."

Four years later the family moved to the Bingham area, where Teresa graduated from high school. Jacketta moved the family to Bountiful in 1932 to farm, selling fruit and vegetables out of a stand in front of their house.

Teresa Jacketta and Frank Fratto married in 1934 and had three children: Marianne, Guery and Diane. The family moved to Bountiful in 1943.

In 1961, Guerino Jacketta, 80, was honored as the oldest naturalized citizen in Utah after a long career in the mining industry.