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the Romano name being someone common and he wanted his last name to be <br />different. <br />Tony Romeo came to the U.S. from Italy as a young person. Census records indicate that <br />he was about 14, 15, or 16. He lived and worked in Pennsylvania before coming to <br />Marshall in Boulder County. In about 1898, he married Mary Vita Girardo (born about <br />1883) of an Italian family in Marshall. She came to the U.S. with her family as a girl. The <br />following photo shows them on the occasion of their marriage: <br />Their first child, a son, was born in 1899. Tony named him "Philippine Island" as an <br />expression of his American patriotism. (Spain ceded the Philippines to the U.S. following <br />its defeat in the Spanish-American War of 1898.) Although he mostly went by the <br />nickname of "Phil," the 1920 census did list his name as being "Phillip. Island." Another <br />son, Franklin, was likely named for Benjamin Franklin. According to a later -born son, his <br />father almost named him George Washington Romeo as another expression of his <br />patriotism. <br />While they lived in Marshall, Tony was a coal miner. He and Mary Vita lived in or near <br />her family. According to their descendants, Tony was working two shifts to make <br />money. He bought a "buckboard" and a mule and "wandered the fields" in and around <br />Marshall to look for stones for building the house in Louisville. He used the buckboard to <br />get them over to Louisville and he would dump them on the lot. Reportedly, he built the <br />house, and it is not known whether he may have had help from a stonemason or if he <br />may have had prior stonemason experience. <br />This photo shows the family at the front of the house in circa 1910-1912 and shows the <br />distinctive oval window at the front. There is no evidence that the front of the house <br />ever faced in a different direction than towards Garfield. <br />2 <br />