• Donald Colongeli, oral history transcript, 9/25/2017

    Author(s):
    Evan Faulkenbury (see profile)
    Editor(s):
    Alex Gerstle, Kortnee Gilmore, Matthew Henry
    Date:
    2019
    Group(s):
    SUNY Cortland Oral History Archive
    Subject(s):
    Oral history
    Item Type:
    Interview
    Tag(s):
    Wickwire, 1890 House Museum, Cortland NY, SUNY Cortland
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/1cr3-cq59
    Abstract:
    Interviewee: Donald A. Colongeli Interviewer: Kortnee Gilmore, Alex Gerstle, Matthew Henry Date: September 25, 2017 Location: SUNY Cortland History Department, Cortland, New York Length: 52:53 Mr. Donald Colongeli has lived in Cortland for all of his life. He is the child of two Italian immigrants. His father arrived in the United States when we was 17 and his mother came when she was 16. Mr. Colongeli also has 3 brothers, two of the have unfortunately passed on, but all of them, including Donald, served in combat. Mr. Colongeli was scheduled to go to both Korea and Vietnam during their respective conflicts, but never saw combat, for which he is thankful. Mr. Colongeli is married and has three children, Jim, Susan and Don. He has owned several businesses in the Cortland area during the time of the Wickwire factory, but he is mostly proud of his food supply service which shipped foods and ingredients both across the country and internationally. Mr. Colongeli also ran for public office in Cortland at one time. His wife’s father worked at the Wickwire factory and his wife recalls hearing stories of the factory and some of the incidents that happened there, including a time when a man was pressed in-between one of the cranes. Mr. Colongeli had an interaction with Chester Wickwire at one point in his life when he sold him a pair of shoes. He recalls how large the Wickwire factory was and how it employed many people in the Cortland area. He also recalls all of the various nationalities that were in the area during his childhood, including families from Italy, Russia and Poland. Mr. Colongeli also recalls stories that his wife told him about how her father would bring home fellow coworkers from the Wickwire factory for dinner and homemade wine. The city of Cortland remains a very important element to Mr. Colongeli and he remains optimistic that the city will one day return to the way it was before.
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    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    5 years ago
    License:
    Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
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