Casa Emigranti Italiani 

FRONT AND BACK COVERS OF THE AUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY OF ANTONINA UCCELLO WHICH I AUTHORED IN 2014.

PAUL PIRROTTA

Link to Connectticut Women Hall of Fame page for Ann Uccello!

ct women hall of fame

Mayor Antonina "Ann" Uccello joined Mayor Segarra of hartford on 4-23-14 to lead the celebrations for the grand opening of the exhibit on Italian immigration o0rganized by Casa Emigranti, Italian American Society of CT, MECA.

Over 125 people showed up and Mayor Uccello was by far the "star" of the show: people simply love her story, her accomplishments and her contribution to Hartford and indeed the State.

On 10-15-13 Mayor Paolo Amenta of Canicattini Bagni and I met with former mayor Uccello at her residence!

The meeting came about as the result of a letter which I had sent to Ms. Uccello some 12 months previously, requesting an interview. I had never heard from her until last week when out of a blue sky came a much welcomed phone  call from Ms. Uccello as a follow up to my letter!

As luck would have it Mayor Amenta was visiting Hartford and Ms. Uccello wal all too happy to receive us both!

She is 91 but her mind is as sharp as ever and she surprised us both by speaking the original sicilian dialect she must have learned as a child from her parents who came to Hartford from Canicattini!

Attached are some photos and shortly I will publish a video!

Ms Uccello and Paolo Amenta

Ms. Uccello with her nephew David and his wife and Paolo Amenta

Ms. Uccello, Paolo Amenta and I.

Former Hartford Mayor Uccello Parties

by MARYELLEN FILLO on MAY 21, 2012 ·

Former Hartford Mayor Ann Uccello turned 90 on Saturday and was feted with a party at Chatfield in West Hartford with about 100 friends and family. Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra, with Uccello and WFSB anchor Dennis House, presented her with a key to the city.

Uccello is not quite done celebrating however. She told guests she plans to stop by the new Russian Lady in Hartford this week, which is, of course, on the downtown road named in her honor, Ann Uccello Street.

Uccello, elected mayor in 1967, was the city’s first woman and the first woman in America to be the mayor of a major city. She was also the city’s last Republican mayor,

And by the way, this for sale on Ebay this week, a press photo of the trailblazing politician circa 1967.

Hartford Courant EDITORIAL

Trail-Blazing Former Hartford Mayor Ann Uccello Turns 90

May 18, 2012

As the story goes, the young executive at G. Fox went to her boss, Beatrice Fox Auerbach, in 1963 and said she'd like to run for Hartford city council. Since the council met on Mondays, a day the famed department store was closed, Mrs. A gave her blessing.

What followed was one of the most remarkable — if all too brief — political careers in Hartford history. The woman was Ann Uccello, a daughter of Italian immigrants and a Republican. She served two terms on the council before being elected mayor in 1967 — a remarkable accomplishment for a Republican in a heavily Democratic city (she remains the city's last Republican mayor) and for a woman in a city that had never elected a female mayor. Indeed, she was the first woman to serve as mayor of a capital city in the country.

She was elected again in 1969, and began getting national attention. She ran for Congress at the urging of President Richard Nixon in 1970 and came within a whisker of defeating the vaunted Democratic machine. When she left office in 1971 to accept an appointment at the Department of Transportation in Washington, she strongly recommended the city shift to a strong-mayor system. It took three decades, but it happened.

Intelligent, courageous, graceful under pressure, Miss Uccello, as the newspapers always called her, championed better housing, job training and protecting children from lead paint, among other things. She returned from Washington in 1977 to help run the family's insurance business, and remained active for years on boards and commissions, with her party and with her alma mater, St. Joseph College. The city council renamed a downtown street in her honor.

Miss Uccello turns 90 Saturday. Please join us in wishing her a happy birthday. As her former campaign manager and fellow G. Fox alum George Ducharme put it in a recent interview, "She was, and is, somebody special."

God does work in mysterious way!

About 18 months ago I started a website dedicated to capturing the stories of emigrants who like me came from Italy to the USA and in particular the Hartford area (http://casa-emigranti-italiani.org/) !

The project keeps branching out into new directions and one such direction took me to Ms. Uccello: Mayor of Hartford from 1967 to 1971, the first woman mayor in Hartford and possibly the first female mayor of a large city ( 160,000 in population back then)! Ms. Uccello a Republican, lost a congressional election to a heavily favored Democrat by just 1,100 votes and would be brought to D.C. by President Nixon!

Ms. Uccello's parents were both born in Canicattini Bagni ( Siracusa, Sicily) as am I and I felt that such an accomplishment should be part of my site. I did so by adding a number of articles from the Hartford Courant which chronicled her career!

In May 2012 current Hartford Mayor Segarra presented Ms. Uccello the key to the city on the occasion of her 90th birthday and he also announced that Ann Street would be changed to Ann Uccello Street!

I decided to write a letter to Ms. Uccello indicating the work I was doing with my web site and asking if it would be possible for me to see her! I did not hear any response and I went on expanding my project.

Fast forward to October 11, 2013, 5pm or so, I am sitting in my study working on some stories. My cell phone rinks, just a number visible and one that I do not recognize but I answer any way!

From the other end of the phone comes a firm but polite voice identifying herself, explaining that she was calling me almost a year later and referring to the letter: I almost fell off my chair!

I informed Ms. Uccello that the current Mayor of Canicattini Bagni was visiting Hartford as part of the 2013 Columbus Day celebrations. Very generously she invited both myself and the mayor for lunch on the 15th!

I think I danced my way down the stairs from the study to the main floor and I am sure my wife figured I had flipped! I explained what happened !

At 91 Ms. Uccello is a sharp woman, extremely intelligent, capable of speaking fluent Sicilian and with a memory of events and places in our home town which was astounding! She remembered the address where her father and her mother lived. She pulled out a picture book from a trip to Sicily in 1950 and recalled places and events!

She told us one very revealing story .

Her father had five daughters and a "friend" would tease him by remarking that since he did not have any boys his last name soon would disappear! After one such comment, Antonina went to her father and said: "Dad, don't listen to that fellow, someday the name Uccello will be well-known ". You could see the emotion on her face and hear it on her voice as she said with justified pride that they had named a street after her!

I could see traits of her that she must have used all her life! Very attentive to details; a competitive spirit ( she told us of another story when she was running and said " I run to win"); a graceful manner of speaking that put us at ease, as if we were talking to someone we knew for years and years!

Her mother came from a well to do and highly educated Sicilian family while the father was a self-educated man and a shoemaker by trade!  They made sure their daughters would have access to education, travel and work opportunities which were not common at all to immigrants and especially so to women!

But I was most surprised by her ability to speak Sicilian, which I am sure she does extremely rarely, and her "Italianity": She is Antonina Uccello, Ann just a name used in politics.

The newspaper clippings of the day may have captured the Mayor! We saw her human and family side!

From L to R, Mayor Amenta, Ms. Uccello and I!

 Ann's father, Salvatore Uccello.

Ann's mother, Josephine Bordonaro Uccello.

Passport picture for their return trip to Hartford from Canicattini in 1927

UCCELLO'S GRANDMOTHER , 1950

Vinnie and Ann with their maternal grandmother in Canicattini Bagni in 1950.

 Ann tried skiing one winter but it was not to be!

1956, Mr and Mrs Uccello with their grandson David.

Mr and MrsUccello and four of the girls.

The girls clowning around, 1940's.

1965 the Fountain Ball at City Hall.

 Jil's wedding, 1962.

1967 the 5 Uccello sisters and their cousin Nellie.

1968, on the steps of City Hall, Mayor Uccello meets protesting black youth following the Martin Luther King assassination.

Mayor Uccello in Washington  in 1971 with Italian Ambassador to the USA Ortona, receiving the Cavaliere della Repubblica Italiana award

Here in a 1974 photo with visiting Italiana President Leone, Mrs. Leone, Secretary of State Kissinger and Ms. Uccello.

 2012, with Mayor Segarra

UCCELLO. JOSEPHINE (BORDONARO) UCCELLO:

07 Aug 1995

UCCELLO. Josephine (Bordonaro) Uccello, 94, cherished and esteemed wife of the late Salvatore Uccello, passed into eternity Aug. 5, 1995. The youngest of five children of the late Gaetano and Filomena (Vasquez) Bordonaro, she was born in Canicattini Bagni, Italy, Aug. 14, 1900. Following her marriage in Italy in 1920, she came with her husband to Hartford where Mr. Uccello was established in business. They made their home and raised five daughters, one of whom, Antonina ("Ann") became the first woman Mayor of Hartford. A member of a politically prominent family in Canicattini, Bagni, Josephine Uccello brought her political acumen to her daughter's political campaigns, participating with skill and wit in campaign strategy meetings held around the dining room table of their Branford Street home. Unlike many immigrant mothers of her generation, she encouraged her daughters to seek higher education as a means of leading more meaningful and fulfilling lives. She was keenly interested in their various fields of endeavor. Late evenings would find mother and daughters discussing art, child psychology, literature, current events, politics, and operas, many of which she knew by heart and sang with the exuberance of a soprano diva. A dynamic and gracious hostess, she enjoyed entertaining, was a superb cook, and extended her warm and generous hospitality to all who came to her home. She saw God's image reflected in mankind and in the beauty of nature which never ceased to enthrall her. She was a past officer of the Principessa Maria Pia Society; a member of the Italian-American Association; and the Hartford Republican Women's Club. She is survived by her five devoted daughters and three sons-in-law, Vincenza Uccello and Antonina Ucello of West Hartford, Carmela and Russell Gustafson of Avon, Virgilia and Alfred Martini of Easton, Nellie and Stephen Romaine of Wethersfield; a grandson, David Gustafson of West Hartford; a granddaughter and her husband, Laura (Gustafson) and James Sweeney of Simsbury; two great-grandchildren, James and Alison Sweeney; and several nieces and nephews. She also leaves many dear friends among the patients and administrative, nursing, and support staffs at Hughes Convalescent Home of West Hartford, where she received warm, loving care for the last six years of her life. On her behalf the Uccellofamily extends to Hughes profound gratitude. The funeral will be Wednesday 10:15 a.m., from the Molloy Funeral Home, 906 Farmington Ave., West Hartford, with a Mass of Christian Burial, 11 a.m., in the Church of St. Peter Claver, Pleasant Street, West Hartford. Burial will be in the family plot at Mount St. Benedict Cemetery. Friends may call at the Funeral Home, Tuesday, 3-5 and 7-9 p.m. Memorial donations may be made to St. Joseph's College or to the Hartford Public Library.

UCCELLO, VINCENZA A

21 May 2004:

Vincenza A. Uccello, 83, of West Hartford, Professor Emerita and Director of the Saint Joseph College Art Gallery until her retirement in 2002, died suddenly Tuesday, (May 18, 2004) at Hartford Hospital. A native of Hartford, she was the eldest of the five daughters of the late Salvatore and Josephine (Bordonaro) Uccello. For over 38 years, "Vinnie" as she was popularly known, devoted her time and talents to bringing the world of art into the lives of all the members of the Saint Joseph College Community and beyond. Vinnie graduated cum laude from Saint Joseph College, obtained a M.A.L.S. from Wesleyan University and a M.F.A. from Villa Schifanoia Pius XII Institute Florence, Italy. Additional study was a lifetime pursuit done in many different countries and at many different educational institutions including Yale University where she did a visiting faculty fellowship. She started her career at Saint Joseph College in 1964, building the fine arts program, serving as the first Chair of the Department and inspiring her students with knowledge and her enthusiasm for her subject. Her countless College exhibitions enhanced her students' understanding of and appreciation for art. Recognizing the need for galleries to house the College's magnificent art collections, she worked tirelessly to make the dream of an art center a reality. Saint Joseph College honored her in many ways-conferring on her the Distinguished Alumna Award, the title of Professor Emerita, and awarding her the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa. A passionate advocate for the arts, she received the Distinguished Art Advocate Award from the Conn. Art Education Association in 2002. The talents Vinnie displayed in her professional career were only a portion of her gifts. She was a superb artist. Her work in a variety of media and techniques has been displayed in numerous solo, juried and invitational exhibitions throughout Connecticut and the United States. Three of her works were included in American Painters in Paris, an exhibition held in Paris, France as a bicentennial tribute to the United States. Since 1977 she concentrated her efforts on the creation of unique and beautiful handmade paper art and received well-deserved acclaim for her work in this medium. Her handmade paper book entitled "A Summer Story" was acquired by the New York Public Library for their rare book collection. Vinnie belonged to many professional organizations and was a past president of the Conn. Women's Artists Association. Vinnie is survived by her loving sisters, Antonina "Ann" Uccello, with whom she made her home in West Hartford, Carmela Gustafson and her husband, Russell, of Avon, Virgilia Martini and her husband, Alfred, of Easton, and Nellie Romaine and her husband, Stephen of Wethersfield. She also leaves her nephew, David Gustafson and his wife, Jacqueline, of West Hartford; her niece, Laura Sweeney and her husband, James and their children, James and Alison, all of Simsbury; and many dear cousins. Funeral Services will be Saturday, May 22, 9:15 a.m. from the Taylor & Modeen Funeral Home, 136 South Main Street, West Hartford, with a Mass of Christian Burial to be celebrated at 10 a.m. at the Church of St. Peter Claver, 47 Pleasant Street, West Hartford. Burial will follow at Cedar Hill Cemetery, Hartford. Friends and relatives will be received at the funeral home TODAY, 3-5 and 7-9 p.m. In lieu of flowers, at the family's request, contributions in her memory may be made to the Saint Joseph College Art Gallery, 1678 Asylum Avenue, West Hartford.