Vincent Phillip Romano

Place of Birth

Contessa Entellina, Palermo, Sicilia, Italy
Place of Death

Tampa, Hillsborough, Florida, USA
Burial Place

Ybor City, Hillsborough County, Florida, USA

Vincenzo (Jimmy) Romano at about 14 or 15, Tampa, around 1921.
Vincenzo (Jimmy) Romano and his wife, Rosina Guida Romano, Tampa, about 1939.
The Romano siblings at Aunt Carmen and Jimmy Barcelona's 25th anniversary, Ragan Park, Tampa, about 1957. Left to right: Rosa Romano Palacio, Domenico Romano, Carmela Romano Barcelona, Vincenzo (Jimmy) Romano, Andenzia Romano Tripolino and Salvatore Romano.
Romano men at the 1940 New York World's Fair. Front, left to right: Philip Romano, unknown, Leo Guida and Vincenzo (Jimmy) Romano. The man in back is unknown.
The family reunion trip to Contessa Entellina, 1975. In front, left to right: Mary Tripolino Lazzara, Anna Romano Bruno (in blue), Rosina Guida Romano and Ralph Lazzara Jr. Behind Mary is Vincenzo (Jimmy) Romano; behind Rosina is Antoinette (Lena) Tripolino McKendree.
Family reunion in Darby, Florida, 1975. Seated in front: Antoinette (Lena) Tripolino McKendree and Joe Belluccio. Second row: Bill McKendree, Katie Romano Pullara, Nina Romano Belluccio, Mary Tripolino Lazzara and Lacy Marie Lazzara (kneeling). Third row: Vincenzo (Jimmy) Romano, Rosina Guida Romano, Philip Tripolino, Carmen Romano Muley, Rosa Romano Palacio, Carmela Romano Barcelona and Lena Romano Leto. Fourth row: Joe Pullara, Jim Leto, Dominic Muley and Ralph Lazzara Jr.
Vincenzo (Jimmy) Romano and Peter Tripolino in Darby, Florida, about 1975.
The wedding of Ralph Lazzara Jr. and Mary Tripolino, Tampa, about 1939. Left to right: unknown, Ralph Lazzara Jr., Mary Tripolino, Rosina Guida, Vincenzo (Jimmy) Romano, Antoinette (Lena) Tripolino, unknown, unknown.
The America, which brought Antonina Marino Romano and the younger children in 1914.

Vincenzo Romano was born on December 3, 1907, in Contessa Entellina, Sicily, one of the younger children of Filippo Romano and Antonina Marino. In America he went by Vincent, but to the family he was always Jimmy. Records show him coming through Ellis Island in 1924, though he may first have come as a boy in 1914, when his mother brought the younger children to America.

His first years in America took him to New York rather than Tampa. The 1930 census finds him in the Bronx, living with cousins Leonard and Mary Asmundo and working as a telegraph boy. By 1932 he had joined his brothers and sisters in Tampa, and that year he married Rosina Guida in Hillsborough County. Jimmy and Rosina made their home in Tampa, where the census found them in 1940 and 1950.

Jimmy stayed close to his sister’s family for the rest of his life. He and Rosina stand in the wedding party of his niece Mary Tripolino in 1938, and in about 1975 he was photographed in Darby with his nephew Peter Tripolino. He died in Tampa on January 12, 1983, at 75, and is buried in Ybor City.

Jimmy and Rosina, known in the family as “Little Aunt Rose,” lived on Shadowlawn Avenue in Tampa, where they often hosted big family gatherings. Rosina’s mother lived with them into her nineties and spoke only Arbëreshë, the old Albanian dialect of Contessa Entellina. There was always a bowl of plums in the foyer, and the family played huge poker games together, everyone laughing and cursing good-naturedly.