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Knife, Pocket

Object number2015.20.9

Manufacturer WESTACO

MediumMetal/Celluloid

Credit LineGift of Mary Antol

DescriptionPocket knife shaped like a woman's high-heeled boot. Silver-tone metal with celluloid faux brown wood panels on each side. Two knives fold out; one is larger with pointed tip and one is smaller with dull tip.DimensionsFolded: Width 1, Length 3.188, Depth 0.375;
Unfolded: Width 0.688, Length 5.5, Depth 0.375.
MarksEach knife has maker's mark inscribed at base "WESTACO".
Historical NotesPart of a collection that documents the Helpy and Cordasco families, originally of San Donato di Ninea, Calabria, Italy. Frank Helpy (born Francesco Apa) immigrated to McKees Rocks in 1897 at the age of five and he attended the Irish Catholic grade school where the nuns changed his last name from "Apa" to "Helpy." He went back and forth between the United States and Italy as a young man; during one of his return visits to San Donato, he married Filomena Capolupo. Helpy operated a cobbler shop in Pitcairn to support his wife and four children in Italy. When the political situation in Europe became tense in the 1930s and Fascism was on the rise in Italy, Frank decided his family should relocate to live with him in Pitcairn. Frank's daughter, Rosalia "Rosalie" Helpy, along with her mother and three siblings moved to United States in 1935; because the children were born to an American father, the family did not have to pass through Ellis Island. Frank eventually closed his cobbler shop and opened Helpy's Tavern and operated it until his death in 1966, after which his daughter Rosalie and her husband, Joseph Cordasco, took over the bar until it's closing in 1993.

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