So in effect the Calabrians and maybe the Neapolitans,kept their thing more secret in America and maybe in Canada ,than the Cosa Nostra did? And even when some of them did get caught commiting crimes,their memberships in the Camorra or N'Drangeta we not suspected or divulged,although they might get mistaken as Cosa Nostra members?
Seems like only recently, maybe when Getty's grandson was kidnapped in 1970s that anybody ever heard of them,and for the most part weren't asware of just what they'd become or maybe already were in the sense of their power,ruthlessness,etc? Do you think any other long time secret criminal clans of some other organization will come to light?
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Thats a very good assessment Havana. Because, in fact, Getty's grandson getting kidnapped by the Calabrian "Mafia" back in the 1970s, when they later cut off the kid's ear because his tightwad grandfather didn't wanna part with the ransom money and had to be "convinced" so pay, so his grandson wasn't sent back to him piece by piece, first exposed the N'drangheta (Societa' Onorata) and was really when the world first became aware of who they were....And they just grew in power from there.

To the point, that today, some fifty-years later, they are the acknowledged "powerhouses" of the Italian underworld.

Thats a very good assessment Havana. Because, in fact, Getty's grandson getting kidnapped by the Calabrian "Mafia" back in the 1970s, when they later cut off the kid's ear because his tightwad grandfather didn't wanna part with the ransom money and had to be "convinced" so pay, so his grandson wasn't sent back to him piece by piece, first exposed the N'drangheta (Societa' Onorata) and was really when the world first became aware of who they were....And they just grew in power from there.

To the point, that today, some fifty-years later, they are the acknowledged "powerhouses" of the Italian underworld.
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Does the term "La Santa Mama" mean anything? Years ago,I was watching a Kirk Douglas movie "The Brotherhood". Douglas was Sicilian born but had lived in America. He visited Sicily and liked the old ways better than in America where themodern guys killed old timers. So in Sicily Douglas met in a cave with a group of old mafiosi. They were telling him thast they countedon him to get revenge for "La Santa Mama" At least I thought that's what they said. My grandmother was starting to get alzeimers but I asked her what it meant. She said it was the Black Hand

Havana, "The Brotherhood" was a great movie. Lol. I especially like toward the end when Kirk Douglas hands the lupara to his kid brother, then sits on the rock, turns his head away from his brother, and instructs him to do what he has to do....It was rudimentary in many ways, but back then, which was way before The Godfather was ever released, it was a classic. I watched it several times as a kid.

And as your grandmother correctly advised you, "La Santa Mama," and so many other abstract terms used over the years, all essentially describe the same thing, "La Fratellanza" (the brotherhood.)

And she knew exactly who they were, living across the street from their hangout but even with alzheimers would say more than "Nevermind'

I have no doubt. She probably knew many of them from having grown up or resided near them in Syracuse for much of her life.

Yes,but at the time I never knew that she lived in that exact neighborhood. I had thought she lived in another area,until a couple years ago,when a friend that does some geneological search for me as his hobby,found her family on an old census,which was not where I thought she ever lived .But matched where I'd learned later that the gangsters lived. Chronologically,I knew neither hers or the hangout's location at the time she talked about La Santa Mama being the name they used .. At some point years later I realized where the gangsters lived.And then recently (last couple years that she had lived somewhere else besides her family's .homestead that we all used to go when I grew up. Earlier years they lived liiterally across the same Street ,probably the distance of a half block away. And those guys probably lived all around her,maybe same building. Growing up she had mentioned their presence as something she was terrified of.She liked telling us kids scary stories

Sure, if she grew up there, she went to "grade school" with them, hung out with their brothers and sisters after school, went to the same social functions, etc., etc.

All the old neighborhoods were the same.

She was my only Grandparent born here in America. I believe most if not all of the gangsters were born in Italy,and more her father's age. However I suspect that they had probably had younger guys ,maybe as young as 15 or 16 involved in their membership,probably also younger immigrants,maybe sons of the older ones.

I don't think many her age went beyond grade school as I think you suggest.. Even though she and her siblings were forced to put English first,and even though she was born here,even she only went as far as the local grade school,and married at about 16.

But yes ,she probably did know and grow up around and play with those gangster' kids,many of whom probably became the more modern types of criminals during and/or after Prohibition who she evidently was not as fearful of ,except for probably some individuals.Probably because their rackets became less violent in nature rather than murders,stabbings,kidnappings,gang wars,etc that those Originals were involved in

So you and your family all come from Syracuse? Interesting. Do you currently still reside in Syracuse today?

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,No,outside of Syracuse,but the family did once live in Syracuse many years ago

Pretty sure that first they were in NYC (Mulberry Street and Bronx),Philadelphia,and I think Rochester

A lot of people don't realize just how "mobbed up" Syracuse was...once upon a time.

When the 'Ndrangheta discovered America
Antonio Nicaso, Maria Barillà, Vittorio Amaddeo
Archaic and ragged, dedicated to oppression and abuse, the Calabrian Picciotteria of the late nineteenth century seemed destined to remain anchored to the myths, rites and codes of behavior born in the Bourbon prisons based on those of the secret societies of the Risorgimento. And instead, right then, a silent revolution begins that will transform its rural face into the entrepreneurial one of today's 'ndrangheta, an unscrupulous and ruthless multinational crime corporation, capable of adapting to the changing challenges of the global market.What triggered this metamorphosis at the turn of the two centuries was the "discovery" of America. Having landed in the New World together with tens of thousands of honest labourers, the Calabrian "maffiosi", unlike their less astute Sicilian and Campanian brothers, choose a low profile to reconstitute their underworld network, made up of leaders, henchmen and legends (above all , that of the "brigand" Musolino), who makes lavish profits at the expense of Italian workers (such as the miners of Carbondale, Pennsylvania) and of hundreds of young immigrants induced into prostitution in the resorts of Manhattan and Chicago, before holding the ranks of the clandestine trade in alcohol and drug trafficking.Thus was born the overseas 'Ndrangheta entrepreneur, who shakes hands, stipulates agreements and manages to infiltrate the sancta sanctorum of the social elite, starting from Tammany Hall, the powerful electoral machine of the Democratic Party and undisputed mistress of New York, with which it establishes a relationship of mutual assistance: votes in exchange for protection and favors. To the point of casting his shadow heavily on the scene of the Petrosino crime.Once back in Calabria, it will be the "Americans" who will impose the new criminal strategy on the organization (control of the territory and collusion with politics and institutions), starting that process which, in a few decades, will make the 'ndrangheta one of the most powerful mafias and pervasive in the world.After a long research effort conducted on a vast amount of documents, mostly unpublished, Antonio Nicaso, Maria Barillà and Vittorio Amaddeo reconstruct for the first time the history of this criminal mutation of the 'Ndrangheta on American soil, in pages that effectively alternate the cadence and color of the most compelling companion novels to the hyper-realistic, sometimes horrifying, register of sentencing devices and trial papers.

There are probably many younger people now who know nothing about 9/11/2001 or MLK.That doesn't mean 9/11/2001 didn't happen or MLK didn't exist .So its good to know what was true and what wasn't true about this part of history ,the good and the bad in different parts of the country and the world

Naturally. I agree with you. History, in and or itself, is a very interesting subject, regardless of which particular part of history you look at. As far as the mob goes. Aside from Syracuse, there are plenty of cities and little towns all across America where they once operated but are long gone from there.