How Did the Giunta Family Name Change

Letter from Great-Uncle Frank Giunta to his Niece, my Cousin Bette Jane

Dear Bette, 7/15/93

Received your letter of Jul. 8 and was happy to hear that your lineage pleased you. Of course I expected you would have more questions to be answered so will try to give them to you to the best of my ability. My birthday is June 2, 1902. As to the other birthdays I must do some investigation in as much as I do not have that information on hand. As for the different spelling of our name, it seems that I always run into it seems like people want to know why we all spelled it another way. So I will explain it to you. The proper surname is Giunta. You must understand that when my parents imigrated [sic] from Sicily, that they could not speak a word of English. All imigrants [sic] of that age were tagged at Sicily, so when they reached U. S. at Ellis Island the imigration [sic] authorities read the tag. They were then hearded [sic] in a room to await for relatives who were here to pick them up. Accordingly they went to New York and boarded a train for Chicago, Ill. So all children were born in Chicago, Ill.

When I was 4 going on 5 yrs. A truant officer came and told my mother I was to be enrolled in school. So I went to the Andrew Jackson school and was placed in first grade. The teacher asked my name and I said Giunta. She said how do you spell it and I said I don’t know, because while I spoke English I did not know at that time how to read and write. I told my mother about it and she could not help with the spelling. So she said, tell them your name is Giunta. So I told the teacher what my mother said and she said I will spell it out for you. So she did and do you know what she came out with Guinte so from then on I was Guinte. And no matter where we moved to regardless of what the others used my name Francis Anthony Guinte. As we moved around the west side about 6 times it still was the same. However when we moved the 7 time we landed on the Southwest side of Chicago in a suburb named Chicago Lawn. In this section was two of Pa’s brothers, Joseph and Tony. Joseph was married to an American girl of Italian descent who did not like the name of Giunta because it sounded foreign. So she prevailed upon Uncle Joe to change to Ganta. So when we moved to Chicago Lawn there were two families of Gantas so they prevailed upon Pa to change to Ganta so that all families name would be the same. Only I stuck by the name that the 1^st grade teacher said it was. However it was pronounced Guinta until I got into 6^th grade. This teacher said that I was pronouncing is wrong. She said the correct pronunciation was Guinte. So I became Guinte. However I became acquainted with a man who was educated in Italy and imigrated [sic] here who was a teacher of Music, and I asked him what the correct pronunciation of Giunta was and he said it was Giunta. So as it stands as of now, part of the family is Ganta and I am the only one who still used Guinte. However if it didn’t entail so much litigation I would have it changed to Giunta, as it now stands on my Soc. Sec. I am under Guinta but on R.R. Retirement they refused to accept Giunta and said my business name was Guinte. So I am both. I trust that this explains the mixed names but the true name is Giunta, my mother’s and father’s grave stone is Giunta and my wife and my grave stone is Giunta so that should settle it once and for all.

Now I can go on with the rest of your letter . . .

So as soon as I can things I will send them to you. Moving here from Palm Spring has been hectic and I haven’t got my wits together. I suppose you wonder why? Well for two things, Earth Quakes and where my roots are.

These sheets I am writing on used to be my note sheets that I wrote on when attending Traffic Meetings. Used for questing and for rebuttal and for pro’s and con’s before the I. C. C.

There is a lot to tell you because so many years have gone by. Like the times I used to play with your father and your Aunt Sylvia. At one time we only lived four blocks apart so it was very easy to walk over to Pearl and play with them both. We lived close for several years and then we moved to Chicago Lawn. How Uncle Mike became and Iceman and how we had a horse to pull the Ice wagons and how one of the horses had a colt we called Pony Jim and there was the Big Black Stallion. He was a Prize. Of streets that were not paved and of cinder sidewalks of course this happened so long ago. When we lived on Aberdeen and May sts. Street Cars were pulled by horses. Our light at night was by Kerosene No electricity, no Gas, no Radio, Stoves were wood and coal burning. They called those days the Victorian Age in the turn of the Century.

More Much More to Come

God be with you

Love

Uncle Frank.