One Immigrant's Story

Meet George, one of the truly Good fellas

I have a really good story to share with you - coming soon, I promise. First, I need to share the story of George Fabian.

George is now 93 years young. His father, Antonio Fabbiano, came to America from Sicily in 1913 with nothing. Before you knew it, he was fighting in WWI as an American soldier, which is when his last name was changed to Fabian. After the war, he married a young woman from his Sicilian town, who had also made it to America, and they had two children.

George was the oldest, the son of Italian immigrants. He, too, fought in a war for America, the Korean war. Unable to find work afterward, he became an orderly at a hospital, where he met his Norwegian wife. Eventually he built a shoe repair shop, just like his father had, and spent the rest of his working days as a cobbler.

He put three kids through college by working as a cobbler. “The kids have done well,” he says, and then gives all the credit to their mother because he was working six days a week. More than that though, he firmly believes the mother is the primary influence in children’s lives. He may be right. But there’s also no denying how profoundly George impacted his kids as well.

George’s oldest daughter, Mary, married my cousin, Wayne. As he says in the video, Mary may look like her mother, but she’s her father through and through. It is this relationship with her father, and her father’s Sicilian heritage, that is the basis for the story I will tell you next.

But first, meet George. George is one of the truly Good fellas. These 19 minutes will make you hapy, likely laugh, and maybe even tear up at the end. A special shout out to Dick Geier who produced this film twelve years ago.

Food for thought:

The story of George’s father is a common story. America was built on immigrants. During what history calls the “great wave” of immigration, between 1880 and 1930, approximately 28 million immigrants came to the U.S.

As George says in the video, his father immigrated to where he was told “the streets were paved with gold”. Instead, he discovered that not only weren’t the streets paved, he was expected to pave them.

Immigrants have largely done the jobs that Americans don’t want to do. Yet immigrants have always faced discrimination here. Why do you think that is?

Are you the child of immigrants? Your parents? Your grandparents? What has your experience been?