Family Tree

Through many years of research I've been able to add more than 200 people my family tree. I have made this tree available to everyone in the family to add to it, so please do. Here's the link---


www.myheritage.com/site-186492162/cenatiempo

March Letters

Here are the last letters he received while he was in jail. What I found to be interesting was that some of these letters were written on Famous & Barr reception desk letter head. The building to my knowledge still exists today in Downtown St. Louis. 
An interesting fact about that Famous Barr/ Macy building was that in 1930, artist Fred Mizen had painted a Santa Claus for use in various print ads for the Christmas season, including the Saturday Evening Post. Santa was depicted as a department store Santa in a crowd drinking a bottle of Coke. The department store happened to be Famous Barr Co. in St. Louis, Mo. (a division of May Company). And, this particular depiction happened to be the worlds largest soda fountain at the time. And as a little girl many, many decades later my mother would take my brother and I to the Famous Barr "Winter Wonderland" exhibit as a special holiday treat. Just a side story.

Anyhow...

Here they are.
One other thing, I did post the last letter with these simply because of the letterhead even though it clearly stated she doesn't know the date :)

I really enjoyed reading these letters. I have some other random things that I will also be posting that was in the cigar box. It was great to see the penmanship of the time and the stationery, and just simply imagining the era. I hope that anyone else reading enjoys them too!

February's Letters

Here are February's letters:

These letters are from friends and family. Also, a letter written FROM Joe showing interest in used educational books. This is the only document I have in his own handwriting. 

He received letters from friends as far as Michigan. 

Notice the letters from his own shop letterhead :)

Hello Joe

Joe Cenatiempo is listed as owning/managing 2 businesses

Joe's Place ~ 9800 St. Charles Rock Rd., St. Louis Missouri
&
Hi-Pointe Auto Supply Co. ~ 1008 McCausland Ave., St. Louis Missouri

Both addresses still exist today, however I doubt they are the same buildings as back then, but I don't know. You can look them up online.

I am not sure what happened to either of these businesses once he got out of jail. But there is record of him owning Hi-Pointe Auto Supply Co. from 1926-1928.

Being that he was in jail from January through March he received several letters. I am going to post them in order month by month. He must have gone to jail shortly after the article was written about the sentencing.

Here are January's letters

In the letters he gets, I noticed some interesting things:
 1. Cousin Margaret says 'much love from my mother and dad and all', which tells me she comes from a bigger family than just one brother as my Grandmother Margaret did so this Margaret is not my grandmother. Plus my grandmother Margaret would have only been 11-12 yrs old at this time. Leaving only 1 Cousin left.
The oldest child of Joseph and Louisa Cenatiempo, Margaret born in 1904 from a decent sized family making her 24 yrs old. YAY! a mystery of mine solved! And here is her letter, the oldest letter in the box.

2. The return address is 1020 Forest Ave., St. Louis Mo. ~ the same address most of these other letters come from. Bill Cenatiempo (which never heard of until these letters), and a "Little-Bit" that I think I know who she is now. Most of their letters were mailed together, however I don't believe they were "together". Little-Bit talks about her soldier boyfriend Richard. And at times they both talk about working at the shop, which seems to be the Automotive Shop. So this tells me that "Little-Bit" is a younger lady. One envelope has on the return address Miss R. Cenatiempo from 1020 Forest Ave. Margaret had a sister named Restituta she was born in 1908 making her at this time 20 years old. Which does seem appropriate and with a name like that I can see why she would be called "Little-Bit". See for yourself and correct me if I am wrong.

as always these doc.'s are in the photo album for closer views, but if you click on them in here they get pretty big. Also, I think of the language of the time, and the stories these letters tell are entertaining and somewhat humorous! I love to look at these and imagine who was writing and what they might be wearing, dressed in those days of old, and hear them speak these words. It's like taking a step back in time. I hope everyone loves to read these as much as I do. Enjoy!