Fonda’s Queen Libby
By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, 03-11-17
People in Fonda called her Queen Libby or Queen Lib. According to one of her grandchildren, she was a large woman who received her nickname after knocking down a man who had used an ethnic slur about Italians.
“The next time you see me, you bow,” she reportedly told the fallen man, leading him to refer to her as Queen Libby.
Elizabeth Luciano was born in Atripalda in southern Italy on March 10, 1873. She came to America alone in 1889 when she was a teenager and lived at the James Snell house on Railroad Street. She had relatives who lived in Johnstown. Her obituary stated she was the first Italian immigrant to settle in Fonda.
She married another Italian native, James Cassell, in 1891. They had three children before James Cassell died at age 33. In 1901 Luciano married Alphonse Mancini; he haled from Pietramelara, Italy, and worked for the railroad. They had four more children.
The couple returned to Italy for a time where Alphonse was a jailer. Elizabeth came back to America by herself and Alfonso eventually followed her back to Fonda.
Queen Libby ran a boarding house and grocery store in the west end of Fonda, where she fed, housed and cared for Italian Americans who worked on the railroad. She purchased sixteen two family houses in the village. Patsy Cassell, one of Libby’s sons, ran a Fonda tavern called Patsy’s for many years.
In 1923, one of Libby’s daughters, Eva Mancini Pepe, was about to give birth to her first child. Eva was married to Ralph Pepe, whose father, Salvatore, founded Pepe’s Bakery on Amsterdam’s South Side.
According to a clipping from the Recorder, Libby was informed by telephone that her daughter was about to have a rare Caesarean section at St. Mary’s Hospital in Amsterdam.
Libby secured a red flag at the Fonda train station and when an express came “thundering in its usual way” she waved the red flag, convincing the engineer to stop the train and take her to Amsterdam. Arriving at the hospital, she charged into the operating room. Libby also made a phone call to the New York Central Railroad and demanded that the next possible train stop in Fonda to take her husband to Amsterdam.
The headline from the newspaper clipping reads: “Flags train to reach daughter as stork comes: Fonda woman bossed the whole New York Central Railroad but got to Amsterdam hospital on time.”
The child born that day was Vincenza Pepe, who passed away in 2001. Eva Pepe had seven children and the child she bore in 1924 was Salvatore Pepe of Amsterdam, who provided information for this story.
“Queen Libby was strong-minded, tough but a gentle grandmother,” Pepe said, recalling that Libby gave quarters to her grandchildren. Salvatore Pepe died in 2012.
Ann Nardick Sherman of Amsterdam also claims Queen Libby as a grandmother. Sherman’s mother was Constance Cassell, one of the children from Libby’s first marriage.
According to Sherman, Libby was an interpreter for Italians who could not speak English who were brought before the court in Fonda.
Libby once saved an innocent man from the electric chair. Libby called Italy where the real murderer had fled and had him sent back to the United States for trial. Governor Franklin Roosevelt was so impressed that he visited Fonda to commend Libby and a parade was held in her honor.
Alphonse Mancini died in 1936. Queen Libby died in 1937. Both were buried at St. Cecilia’s Cemetery in Fonda. Her grandchildren say her funeral was one of the biggest funerals ever seen in the village.
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