Part 1
Nocera Inferiore
Part 2
Castellammare di Stabia
Part 3 - Brooklyn
Frank & Elizabeth
Lanzara Ancestral Chart
Giuseppe
Francesco
Cemeteries
Causes of Death
Photos
Documents
Email Me
CAUSES OF DEATH
born September 30, 1844 in Nocera Inferiore, Italy
died January 6, 1892 in Brooklyn, NY, age 45 years.
Father: Diodato Lanzara (1800-1864)
Mother: Mariarosa Auletta (1804-1893)
Cause of death: Acute Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an abnormal inflammatory condition of the lung causing the microscopic air-filled sacs in the lungs to fill with fluid. Pneumonia can result from a variety of causes, including infection with bacteria, viruses, fungi, or parasites, and chemical or physical injury to the lungs.Typical symptoms associated with pneumonia include cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty in breathing. It is a common illness which occurs in all age groups, and is a leading cause of death among the elderly and people who are chronically and terminally ill.
Francesco Lanzara, AKA Frank Lanzaro, had been living in America for barely 5 years when he died suddenly of Acute Pneumonia. Apparently, he suffered from the illness for a relatively short time (acute means less than 3 weeks) before he died in his home at 44 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. His death certificate is the only reference I have ever found of this address, which is just north of the Red Hook area. Frank had set up a barber shop somewhere in Brooklyn and was providing a satisfactory income for his wife, Elizabeth, and four children when he died.
When Frank died, there was no money for a funeral or burial in a regular cemetery. Instead, he was buried in a "potter's field" called County Farm. It was actually a large mass grave used by the adjacent Kings County Psychiatric Hospital to bury the mental patients who died there and were unclaimed. The poor residents of Kings County could also be buried there. This was Frank's case. There is no evidence that he was ever a patient at the Psychiatric Hospital. It took me several years of research to finally locate the area where the Psychiatric Hospital and potter's field used to be, immediately east of the newer Kings County Hospital on Clarkson Avenue, between Albany and Utica Avenues. The Psychiatric Hospital was torn down in the 1990's. The area is now a gated community of apartments. The bodies were all presumably moved a long time ago. I have never been able to find anyone who could tell me what happened to all the bodies and whether they had been relocated.
