Among the many marriages in my grandmother Marianne Maire Caprotti‘s large family, one caused a sensation: one of her mother Fernande Kampmann Maire‘ s sisters, her 19-year-old aunt Lucie Amélie, married an American!
The betrothed, civil engineer Julien O. Ellinger, who appears with her on 8 December 1893 before the deputy mayor of Épinal was in fact born in Baltimore thirty years earlier, on 12 October 1862, the eldest son of the late Samuel and Emma Wolfe. In the New York City census of 1910, Julien’s parents are reported as having been born in Germany, while their son was already in Maryland: it is safe to assume that the Ellingers were also Alsatians (the name is common in the area), and emigrated overseas, while maintaining close contact with their relatives who remained in France.
Julien (Julian, in his homeland) brought his bride and newly born son to America. Thanks to a disembarkation list that has remained with us, it is easy to conjure up in the mind images of early 20th century footage of the arrival of European passenger ships at Ellis Island in New York harbour, amidst the waving of handkerchiefs and a profusion of festive confetti. On 29 July 1895, first-class passengers disembarked from the ship ‘La Bourgogne’ amid general admiration, and among them were engineer Julian O. Ellinger, his wife Lucie and their 10-month-old son Alfred.
The couple settled in New York, in Manhattan, where their aunt Lucie, according to census records, lived for at least 25 years with her husband (who died in 1926) and their two children, Alfred Mallarmé Ellinger (1894-1972, probably named after his maternal uncle, Rear Admiral Alfred Mallarmé, to whom his mother was very close), and his daughter Marcelle Ellinger married Raisbeck, (1898-1999).
In June 1947, my grandfather Peppino Caprotti and grandmother Marianne made that same trip, going to visit their aunt Lucie and cousins in Montclair (New Jersey), where Alfred lives, a pleasant residential area not far from New York and from which one can admire a perfect skyline of the city, which someone fixed in a beautiful drawing still lovingly preserved today by my uncle Claudio Caprotti, my father Bernardo’s last brother. Upon their arrival from that trip, the grandparents smile next to their now elderly aunt Lucie and cousin Alfred (photo above).
That meeting marked an epochal date for Peppino and for Manifattura Caprotti: ‘His [Peppino Caprotti’s] masterpiece materialised after the Second World War. A cousin of grandmother Marianne’s, who had emigrated to the United States, had joined President Harry Truman’s staff and Peppino was able to put his advice to good use in obtaining Marshall Plan funds. Manifattura Caprotti was thus able to purchase state-of-the-art mechanical looms, once again becoming an excellence in the national textile industry. Success opened the doors of Milanese circles for Peppino and his grandfather also showed remarkable financial skills, investing in the stock market and building up a considerable fortune that his three sons later used to buy control of Esselunga.” (Caprotti, “The Bones”, p. 40).
Instead of America’s mythical uncle, we have his cousin, no less valuable.
p.s.: the discovery of what Granny’s cousin’s name was and what he really did was after my book was written. Alfred did not work for Truman but had a senior position in a prestigious American bank that gave him important connections.
Sources:
ETAT CIVIL – ARCHIVES DES VOSGES, EPINAL, ‘Mariage Ellinger Julien O. et Kampmann Lucie Amélie, 1893 déc. 8‘.
ELLINGER, Julian O., card in MyHeritage.
“Lucie Amélie Ellinger (Kampmann) (1874 – d.)”, card in GENi.
“Mrs J O Ellinger, ‘New York Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island), 1892-1924’
“Lucie Ellinger in household of Julian Ellinger, New York State Census, 1905” and “New York State Census, 1910”
‘Alfred Ellinger‘, entry in AncientFaces.
Bibliography:
CAPROTTI, G:, “Le Ossa dei Caprotti. Una storia italiana’, Milan, 2024/3.
ID., “I Caprotti: dal tessile – con la Manifattura – all’Esselunga“, 27/09/2025.
ID., “Mio nonno Giuseppe Caprotti, detto Peppino (1889- 1952), la Prima Guerra Mondiale, la Manifattura tessile e l’Esselunga“, 27/03/2024.
