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Tool, Food Cutting

Object number2015.20.7

MediumWood/Twine/Unknown material

Credit LineGift of Mary Antol

DescriptionHandmade "piaettino" (Calabrese dialect) or "pettine" (formal Italian) used for making turdilli, a Calabrese cookie. Ladder-shaped. Two long wood side pieces with many thin wood "rungs" running perpendicular between. Side pieces are wrapped in treated twine.Dimensions3.625 x 0.5 x 17.625 in. (9.2 x 1.3 x 44.8 cm)
Historical NotesThis tool is part of a collection of household items that are related to Rosalie Helpy's baking. 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. Rosalie was fourteen when she came to the Unites States and only knew Italian. Through the help of a teacher named Miss Hockenberry, Rosalie's English improved. The same teacher also helped Mrs. Helpy study for her American citizenship test. 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.

Previous owner Rosalia Helpy

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