From Italy to Aviation: The Colapietro Journey

Background

For the “Aviation Wrecks of Southern California” book, one of the planned chapters is about the story of the pilot who bailed out of a F4D “Ford” Skyray at 650 miles-per-hour at 18,000 feet — and lived! I’m digging deeper into the story of Leo J. “Pete” Colapietro and trying to get more photos and background. I’ve tried to contact multiple direct family members (he had three daughters), but no luck so far.

In doing the research, I found that the Colapietro family moved to the United States from Italy in the late 1800s / early 1900s and they lived in Windsor Locks, Connecticut where they opened and operated ice cream stores. Fortunately, a gentlemen named Mel Montemerlo had written a paper “Ice Cream Stores of Windsor Locks, Conn” which has a lot of historical information.

Mel Montemerlo

I reached out to Mel a few different ways and eventually found an email address and phone number for him. I contacted him both ways and explained what I was trying to do and about the book. He was nice enough to call me back and, it turns out, Pete was “Uncle Pete” to him since he mom was Pete’s sister. He had some fun and interesting stories about spending time with “Uncle Pete” and, fortunately, some great photos (some of which will likely make it into the book).

Colapietro Family Photos

All of the photos below are courtesy of Mel Montemerlo and used with his permission. Since I don’t think all of these will make it into the book, I thought it would be interesting to post them here. A couple of these are from the paper mentioned above.

Of note, there are many family members with the same or similar names so it can be a bit challenging to trace the history.

The photo below shows Pasquale “Patsy Coly” Colapietro (seated) in 1906. I believe he was the first generation to emigrate to the United Sates from Turi, Italy. Two of his brothers, a daughter, and his wife are also in the picture.

Vito (Pasquale’s brother) in the picture above in the middle, went on to buy a hotel (later named “Coly’s” Hotel) and had an ice cream store in one of the shops on the first floor.

If I understand the timing and family history correctly, Vito (shown above) was Leo J. Colapietro’s father. Vito had four sons (Anthony J., John J., Angelo J., and Leo J.) and one daughter Lena who was the mother of Mel, making Leo J. his uncle.

Below is a photo of young Leo J. Colapietro and his dad, Vito outside the Coly Hotel.

Leo J. “Pete” Colapietro Photos

Once again, Mel was kind enough to provide the photos below along with permission to use them. These photos are off Pete and I’ve tried to arrange them somewhat in date order.

The photo below isn’t dated but I’m guessing he is about 4-5 years old.

In his High School photo, you can get a sense that he is going to be a daredevil. He has a little bit of smirk and a gleam in his eye.

The photos below shows Pete with his three brothers and then one of my favorite photos, with his mom pointing (presumably) to an airplane in the sky.

The last photo is Pete at his 90th Birthday party with his second wife, “Tinee.” I believe his three daughters from his first marriage are directly behind them. Pete lived to be 93 years old and passed away on January 25th, 2017.

Outro

I hope that readers enjoy some of these brief book updates with some of the history and research. The draft chapter on the Skyray is just about completed now and work on other chapters is ongoing.