Everything but the gondola
A look at how Italian settlers shaped the Milwaukee area of today

by Nina Balistreri

It was 1947. The skies were dark and gray. Rain started to softly patter on the last of the fishermen as they paddled to land shortly before the storm set in. The American Liberty Ship docked at the shore of Palermo, Sicily beside the Mediterranean Sea. Joe Dentice, 17-years-old, waited anxiously with his mother and three youngest siblings to board the boat. The Sicilian natives were the last of their immediate family to move to America. Thoughts of his future home, Wisconsin, flooded his head and he waved good-bye to his small hometown of Sant’Elia. The American Liberty Ship would pull into New York harbor 17 days later and Dentice would soon be reunited with his father and siblings in Wisconsin.

As early as the mid-1800s, the state of Wisconsin became a desirable destination for many Italian immigrants. Inexpensive land, economic opportunity, industrial jobs and a free political and religious environment were just a few of the reasons for the rush of immigration. As newcomers to America, many ethnic groups tended to bunch together in certain areas of Wisconsin and create a community of their own. These communities included the Irish in Sheboygan County, Germans in Ozaukee County and Polish immigrants in Milwaukee’s south side, to name a few. According to the Milwaukee County Historical Society, Italians primary settled in two areas in the city. The immigrants from northern Italy clustered near the Bay View area on the south shore. A larger number of southern Italians, primarily Sicilians, dominated the Third Ward, just south of downtown Milwaukee.

“When I came to Milwaukee, my father already owned property on the east side of Milwaukee on Jackson Street,” said Dentice. “The neighborhood, we were all Italians. I met some kids that came the same time I did from Sicily who I hadn’t known before; they lived three, four doors down from me. We found out that this place in Milwaukee called the Third Ward was another big Italian and Sicilian neighborhood, and there was another group of kids out there, so we started communicating with them and played a lot of soccer.”

In these distinct communities, the ethnic groups were able to preserve not only their culture, but their language, customs, traditions and even their businesses. Ethnic groups had the opportunity to open their own grocery stores, manufacturing companies or become retailers or wholesalers of fruit, vegetables, wine and other products. “On my block there were two Italian grocery stores and a butcher shop. The next block, another two Italian grocery stores and another butcher shop. All of the owners came mostly from Sicily,” said Dentice. When Dentice’s father came to Milwaukee a year before Dentice arrived, he was planning for his family to go into the produce business in Wisconsin. In 1948 his family was able to purchase a truck to make deliveries and develop a successful produce company. Dentice worked for his father from the beginning and dealt with every nationality. He started delivering to small villages near Milwaukee, including Shorewood, Whitefish Bay and Wauwatosa, and eventually made trips to northern Wisconsin and Upper Michigan.

However, ethnic groups did not only buy from or provide items to only their own ethnic culture. Dentice and many of his Italian friends often shopped at the other neighborhood stores. There were also many stores owned by Jewish immigrants in Milwaukee, he mentioned, and they carried everything from shoes, to clothes, to food.

With so many ethnicities along the shore of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin, one might assume the different heritages and customs would cause tensions among all the ethnic groups.  Yet for the most part, Milwaukee residents tolerated and respected each other’s differences, Dentice says. However, soccer, every Italian’s pride and joy, was an exception. “We used to fight with the American kids whenever we played ball,” said Dentice. “This is true because they didn’t want us to play soccer because they thought it was a foreign sport only. They told us, if you want to live in the United States, you have to play football, baseball and basketball. The Americans used to steal the ball away from us.” Because soccer was a sport not foreign to many from eastern and western Europe, the Italians were able to organize soccer leagues and make good friends with peers of different ethnicities residing in and around Milwaukee. If one was to look at the old (and even current) soccer teams of Milwaukee, one would notice their names – the Croatians, the Hungarians, the Bavarians, the list goes on. Each of the teams reveals an ethnic settlement in Wisconsin.

When Dentice wasn’t working or playing soccer, he was often hanging out with his friends and family. On Saturday nights, Dentice and 15 of his friends would go to the Eagles Club, or the George DeWine Ballroom, in downtown Milwaukee. It wasn’t just an Italian hangout, but a place to meet Americans and other ethnic groups. Dentice and his friends would often plan trips to Madison and Wisconsin Dells and hunt in Janesville every Sunday just for fun. When they were playing soccer, they often played at Juneau Park on Milwaukee’s lakefront, which still exists today, although at the time it was next to a small airport. The boys would often go to theaters downtown as well as in their neighborhoods, especially the Riverside and Pabst Theaters in Milwaukee, still popular today.

Religion was also an extremely important part of Dentice’s life and the Italian lifestyle and culture. The new residents of the Milwaukee area were in need of a priest who spoke Italian, so they opened Our Lady of Pompeii Catholic Church downtown. In addition, residents of the east side of Milwaukee built St. Rita’s Church for themselves. The Pompeii Church, commonly known as the “little pink church,” was eventually destroyed in 1967 to make room for Highway I-794.

close this window to return to CURB