Mildred Loperfido

Mildred Loperfido was born on November 14, 1916 the fifith of eleven children born to Domenico & Laura Loperfido in New York City. Her birth name was originally Minnie Loperfido. Her parents were immigrants from Bari Italy who settled in New York in 1908. Her father was a shoemaker and her mother a housewife. They were a family who lived in poverty and struggled to make ends meet. Her parents only spoke Italian. Somewhere after 1930 Mildred left the family and never returned. She was never heard from again and has always been a mystery as to what happened to her. My mother Laura was the 10th child and I am the niece Jean of Mildred. She has always been a curiousity of mine and I have researched Ancestry.com for years looking for her. I found that she was buried on Hart's Island and have never been able to find out any information about the life she lived. I see here on the record information that she died at Peninsula Hospital Center. I imagine that it may have been a mental hospital because her mother Laura was sent to an institution in 1931 and lived the rest of her life in several mental hospitals and died in 1958 at Rockland State Hospital. Mildred's older sister Clara was also institutionalized in Rockland State and lived her remaining days hospitalized. Clara was the mother of three when she became ill. There is a history of mental illness in this family and it is sad to know that Mildred died without ever seeing her family again and they never knowing what happened to her. I am grateful for the HartIsland Project for now I know where she is but am saddened by never getting to know her or see a photo of her. I imagine her to have been a beautiful Italian woman who should have known how loved and missed she is.