Bird of Passage: Savino Beiletti

Like migrant workers today Italian “birds of passage” left their homes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries to find work in other countries.  During this time, cities across America needed workers to build railroads, mine, farm and perform hard labor jobs, many under dangerous conditions.  Many Italian immigrants during the great migration (1880-1924) to America were young men in their teens and twenties.  They left Italy, their parents, wives and children, with the intent to make money, save money and return home.  Many traveled to America in the early spring, worked until late fall, and then returned to home for the winter, and warmer weather.  Some made multiple trips over many years. While many immigrants decided to stay in America—later sending for relatives and/or friends in Italy to join them in their new homeland—around 20 to 30 percent returned to Italy permanently.

In 1902, Savino Beiletti came to Colorado where he found work in the Las Animas County mines.  He was seventeen.  Four years later he married Anna Caldera in Trinidad, Colorado.  Anna, short for Annunziata, immigrated from Sicily in 1898 at the age of ten.  She came with her mother Dominica and siblings Giuseppe and Arcangelo. The family passage was paid by Anna’s father Antonio, already living in Ludlow, Colorado. In 1904, Antonio Caldara became a naturalized U.S. citizen in the Trinidad District Court; Fred Pinamonti and E. F. Menapace of Trinidad were witnesses.

By 1910, Savino “Sam” and Anna Beiletti were living in Rameyville (also known as Ramey). Located near Berwind (and later the Forbes Tent Colony), Ramey was funded by William H. Ramey and later operated by the Huerfano Coal Co. A small mining camp town, Rameyville included modest houses for the families of miners who worked at the Ramey Mine. In 1910, Sam and Anna were living next door to Anna’s parents.  Sam and Anna’s father Antonio were both employed at the Rameyville Mine: Sam as a driver and Antonio as a mine laborer. In 1910 Sam and Anna had two children, daughters Annie and Mamie.  

In the 1890s, miners and their families had few housing options in southern Colorado with some miners building their own shelters and others boarding (or renting rooms in houses).  Around 1900, southern Colorado coal mine owners rapidly developed their own towns—including Walsenburg, Hastings, Tabasco, Berwind, Ludlow, Aguilar, Segundo, Ramey and Sopris.  These towns, financed by the mine owners included houses rented to their employees. Often built out of wood or concrete, a typical house included four rooms—one with a chimney—good wood work, lath and plaster walls and opportunities for bathing.  These “company towns” also included company owned stores, that accepted company script (or money) as payment.

By 1914, Las Animas County, Colorado was the center of major labor conflicts that culminated with the Ludlow Massacre.  Ludlow, a company town owned and operated by the Colorado Fuel & Iron Corporation was located about 18 miles north of Trinidad.  In September of 1913, the Ludlow tent colony (also known as the Forbes Tent Colony) developed after some 1,200 coal miners and their families were evicted from the Ludlow town and company housing during a strike.  The strike continued for months and overtime the conflict escalated until on April 20, 1914, the Colorado National Guard and Colorado Fuel and Iron Company guards attacked the Ludlow tent colony killing seventeen individuals, including five men, two women and eleven children.  

Sam and Anna Beiletti and their children survived the Ludlow Massacre.  By 1918, the family was living in Ludlow with Sam employed by the Huerfano Coal Co. (the same mine operator at Ramey or Rameyville, not far from Ludlow).  Around 1920, Sam Beiletti decided to return to Italy with his wife and five children. According to Sam’s grandson Savino Beiletti, this was a decision he questioned for many years.

Reader note:  This article originally appeared in Andiamo! in March of 2019