As the firstborn son in the family, Fred Cappello’s father originally named him Salvatore after his grandfather. But his mother deeply wanted her son to “blend in” so she paid a nun 50 cents to change his name to Frederick. This wasn’t the first name change the family faced, although not at Ellis Island as one may think, but at St. Philomena’s elementary school. Irish nuns there changed Fred’s father’s and siblings’ surname from Coppola to Cappello.

Grandfather Salvatore Coppola landed in South Philadelphia after immigrating to the USA from Avellino, Italy at just 17 years old. He moved to Lansdowne for a “job promise,” Fred shares. “He was a pick and shovel guy, a gravedigger. My heart goes out to him. What a hard worker, they all were. I get the chills when I think about them.”