Paul Alexis Cifaldi I
1916–1962
- Father
- Alexis (Alessio) 1880–1956
- Mother
- May 1889–1963
- Sister
- Ruth 1918–2005
- Wife
- Gladys
- Children
- Paul II, Robert, Stephen, and Diane
The first Paul in America. His father, Alessio, was born in Campolattaro, near Benevento, on December 7, 1880, to Vito Cifaldi and Antonia Urso. He studied at Cornell Medical College and became a physician in New York City, with an office on East 116th Street in East Harlem. The middle name Alexis comes from him.
The name wasn’t new, though. Alessio’s grandfather, back in Campolattaro, was a Paolo.
Paul was born in New York on April 2, 1916. He skipped medicine for his mother’s side of the family: May was a Gargiulo, and the Gargiulos were in the produce business. By 1958 he was president of Gargiulo & Amendola Associates, a wholesale fruit and vegetable firm at 282 Washington Street, in Manhattan’s Washington Market. He and his wife, Gladys, raised Paul II, Robert, Stephen and Diane in Westchester County.
He died suddenly of a heart attack in August 1962, at 46, on a business trip to Miami, the city where Paul II was in college.