Our Story - The Past

The three brothers, Bob, Rich and John, are the latest in a continuous line of Puglieses to make Italian sausage. Their grandfather, Alfonso, was born in 1879 and first came to the United States in the early 1900’s. He worked various jobs in an effort to save enough money to bring his family to the United States. He was one of the hundreds of Italian immigrants who helped to construct the Rockville Bridge, widely regarded as the longest stone-arch bridge in the country. After returning to his native Italy, he emigrated permanently to the United States. Arriving on September 10, 1909, he was accompanied by his wife and infant son, Virgilio, the brothers' oldest uncle. During those early years of the twentieth century he had become a United States citizen as attested to on the ship’s manifest when he returned in 1909.

As a young boy growing up in the 1950’s, Bob would watch his grandfather, father, and uncle make sausage in the back room of the family grocery store in Steelton, PA. Sitting at the end of the production line, Bob would spend his time listening to his grandfather talk about the family history of making sausage. Those conversations produced many interesting facts.

As a young boy in the 1880’s, Alfonso sat at a similar production line watching his father and grandfather make sausage. Likewise inquisitive, he asked his grandfather where he learned to make sausage. Alfonso’s grandfather replied that he too had learned from his father and grandfather. Probing for even more information, Alfonso further learned that his grandfather’s grandfather (the brothers' great-great- great-great grandfather) had started making sausage sometime in the 1830’s.

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After the family grocery store closed in the mid-1960’s, the brothers’ father continued to make sausage for family and friends. Rich worked alongside his father learning everything he could about the Pugliese way of making sausage. Upon his father’s death in 1994, Rich continued his father’s tradition of making sausage for family and friends.

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This information is corroborated by an old business card that was used by their father and grandfather during the 1950’s. Included on the card is a line that reads, “a family tradition for over 100 years on two continents.”