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Place of Birth
Tampa, Florida
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Place of Death
Hillsborough Co., Tampa, FL
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Burial Place
Tampa, FL
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Occupation
Clerk
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Antonino and Andenzia Tripolino with sons Peter and Philip, 1924. The original caption called Antonino a fine citizen and Tampa's first Italian electrical contractor.
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Antonino Tripolino's World War I draft registration card, 1917. Courtesy of the National Archives, via Ancestry.
Antonino Tripolino, known as Tony, was the son of Pietro Tripolino and Maria Restivo. His World War I draft card and later census records give his birth as July 28, 1893, in Tampa, but no birth certificate has been found, and family research suggests he may have been born in New Orleans, where his parents married in 1890. He rarely spoke about his parents or his early life, which has made his story one of the family’s hardest to trace.
On April 17, 1915, he married Andenzia Romano, a young woman from his father’s hometown of Contessa Entellina. Together they raised five children: Peter, Mary, Philip, Antoinette (Lena) and Joe.
Tony registered for the draft in Tampa during World War I, and he spent his whole adult life in the city. Records list him as a peddler, a clerk and an electrician. Around 1938 the family lived at 2323 Twelfth Avenue. Census and city records find him in Tampa in nearly every year from 1917 to 1945.
Andenzia died in 1958, after 43 years of marriage. Tony lived nearly two more decades and died in Tampa on December 31, 1977, at 84.