LA GRANDE EMIGRAZIONE DEL 900
Lola Celli
The mystery of the red shoe
di Ermanno Salvatore Traduzione di Rita Di Benedetto
This story begins in 1930 when Michele Celli and his wife Ida Franceschetti
decided to migrate to America with their two children, Felice seven and Lola nine.
They were originally from Molise region, in Italy, all born in Vastogirardi,
a small town located near Agnone in the province of Isernia. In those early years
of the new century most of the towns in the southern Italy regions were empty,
only women were left, with their missions of raising children and taking care of animals.
The men, those able to work, had all migrated to America and even Vastogirardi had
known the great exodus to the New World. They left to join relatives and friends who,
for some years, had found accommodations in American cities and villages.
Ida Franceschetti as well saw her father Dominic, sister Gasperina and nephew Anthony,
five years old, setting off to the new world. It was February 1st , 1921 when the three
emigrants sailed from Naples to Boston, on board of the ship "Canopic".
At first they stayed with Domenico Spognardi, Gasperina’s husband, who had meanwhile
found a job in Akron, Ohio. A few months later, on May 10th, Ida's other brother
Romeo also left for America, he was 25 years old. At the immigration offices,
in Ellis Island in New York, where he arrived on board the steamship
"President Wilson," Romeo said he was a doctor and was staying with his father Domenico.
Meanwhile, Ida was left alone with her mother Adelina, in Vastogirardi,
the girl had married young and was waiting for her brothers to call her.
The years passed by and Ida went on sewing some dresses for women in the village.
Her husband Michele had already gone to America in 1922 and stayed with a cousin
Florian Amicone who lived in Torrington, Connecticut, but a year later decided to return to
Vastogirardi. Several years went on and finally in 1930 a letter came from Ida's brothers.
They told her to come and join them in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where they had set up house
on n.1842 S. Broad Street. They were fulfilling a dream. Ida, Michele and their two children
Felice and Lola left Vastogirardi with the little luggage they could carry.
It had been snowing and it was very cold in the mountains, after travelling for two days,
they eventually reached the port of Naples where the steamer “Conte Grande” was waiting.
They left at night, on 11th December 1930.
That Thursday on the deck, for "southern
Italians third class passengers", it was really cold. After nine days at sea they
arrived in New York harbour. On the dock at Ellis Island there were Gasperina and
Romeo waving white handkerchiefs so their sister could see them.
was December 20 and was snowing in New York. Christmas was approaching and after many
years the family was finally reunited again. In December 1930 the U.S. Census was released.
The Americans were 123 million. Compared with ten years before, there was an increase
of 17 million. Many of them had arrived at Ellis Island as "immigrants", and then during
that decade they had become American citizens. Ida and Michele became U.S. citizens too.
A few years after their arrival in New York, they had lived for a short time in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, then they moved a few miles from Columbus, to Grandview Heights, a beautiful
town in Franklin County, Ohio. Ida continued to sew, while Michele made his way as an
excellent carpenter.
Through their sacrifices their two children were able
to attend the best schools in the State. Felice had graduated in chemistry
and became one of the best researchers from Ohio State University. His sister,
only twenty-five, taught home economics at West Mansfield High Schools in
“Logan County”. She spoke five languages, was 5 feet 4 inches tall
(1 meter e 65 cm) weighed 115ibs. (52kg) she was a very beautiful girl.
And here is where the "Mystery of the red shoe” begins. It was February 23, 1946.
A year before Lola had moved to West Mansfield, about fifty miles from Columbus.
This move allowed her to be closer to the school where she was working, but
Lola always use to go back with pleasure to visit her parents’ in the
Grandview Heights house, where she happily grew up together with her brother Felice.
Once, during “President Washington's Birthday Holiday” "the girl went to spend the
weekend again with her parents; that Saturday morning she left their home in West
Third Avenue to go shopping in Columbus, her mother needed a few feet of fabric for
sewing curtains and asked her daughter if she could go to town. Lola had only to
walk more or less a hundred yards to the bus stop, but she never made it there
because she went missing. Her disappearance is still shrouded in mystery even after 63 years.
The girl vanished into thin air without leaving a trace. "A disappearance is never closed,"
keep repeating until today those detectives who worked on the case for many years:
"For us it will always be an open case until some kind of solution is found.
" Some remember this case as "The mystery of the red shoe" because a witness,
who passed by while riding a motorcycle, said he had seen the young teacher
discussing animatedly with a man in a car on Olentangy River Road, shortly
after disappearing from the bus stop in Grandview Heights. "During the fight
I saw a red shoe flying out of the car’s window," the biker told the detectives
in charge of the initial investigation. Indeed that day Lola was wearing a grey coat,
a hat, also grey, and a pair of red suede shoes with "Cuban." heels. This evidence made
the Police suspicious, because actually that day Lola was wearing a pair of red suede shoes,
but no shoe was ever found in that stretch of road. On 28 February 1946, five days after
the girl’s disappearance, about two hundred students from the High School, where Lola used
to teach, combed the banks of the "Scioto River along with the staff of the Columbus Police
Department. But Lola's body was never found. In the months and years numerous reports
on this mysterious disappearance piled up, in most cases they were about alleged sightings
and evidences that first inflamed and then put off the hopes of family members and
acquaintances to find her safe. One informant reported that Lola was selling cutlery door
to door. 
A couple of witnesses from Ironton, a city more than one hundred and twenty
miles from Columbus, said they saw her dining at a local restaurant. To further confuse
the Police investigations, anonymous letters of suspected serial killers were also sent,
claiming to having killed her or cut her to pieces. Several years later, a local newspaper
published some photos of a wedding that had just been celebrated. In the page dedicated
to the newlyweds and their guests, there was a picture of Lola Celli, but the
picture’s caption reported the name Bernice Sherr. A big mistake or a stupid joke?
On May 5, 1946, three years after the young teacher disappearance, human bones were
found during excavations at the sides of the Olentangy River. That discovery made
the investigators suspicious, because it happened a few miles from where Lola was
seen for the last time. Unfortunately, from the forensic tests carried out at the
University Hospital of Columbus, emerged that it was a skeleton belonging to a man
6 feet tall (about 1 meter and 80 cm). In 1949, a Californian woman, who was Ida
and Michael Celli’s neighbour, said that her husband and 4 year old son had disappeared a
few days after Lola was last seen. But there was no evidence confirming the theory that
the fugitive husband and the girl were lovers.Today it could be easily defined as a
case without a trace or as they say in a A decade after the disappearance,
a bailiff of the Court of Franklin County revised the theory of a love flying,
saying that Celli had fled to escape a severe and oppressive family and was happily
living within 300 miles from Columbus, but not being able to prove the theory, retracted
his statement. More than sixty years have passed since that February 23rd, 1946.
television series a "Cold Case." Inspector Harper, who has followed for years the case,
said with resignation that Lola Celli could be anywhere or nowhere, a victim of a crime
or simply a young woman afflicted by pangs of love. A case full of mystery, charm,
innocence and danger that has held the breath of several generations of
Italian-Americans and created a legion of do-it-yourself investigators.
"There is no time limit to solve a mystery”, so have always claimed the local detectives,
who have dealt with the case. In fact, even today, the "Mystery of the red shoe” is an open
case. Who knows if anyone after reading this old story can help us unravel the mystery?
Michele Celli, Lola’s father, died on January 15, 1955, aged 58. Her mother,
Ida Franceschetti, died thirty years later, on the 21 October 1985. They left from
Vastogirardi, a small village in central southern Italy in 1930 and never, either
them or any of their children, ever returned again in their native town.
info@vastogirardiefriends.it
