The Old World meets the New in Joe Scinicariello’s backyard. Born in Italy, Scinicariello grew up the son of an agriculturalist father who grew tomatoes and olives not only for their family table but also as a business. They moved from coastal Gaeta to the United States in 1955 on the encouragement of an uncle but didn’t leave behind their interest in the land.
“(My uncle) wrote to my father, and my father, the wheel started turning,” Scinicariello recalled on a late morning seated at his dining room table. “With five boys, he didn’t know what kind of life we’d have there (in Italy).”The family landed in New York with no money or grasp of the English language and settled in Williamsport, where Scinicariello met his future wife, Ann Marie, when he was placed in her sixth-grade class as a 15-year-old immigrant.
