BIG LOCAL MYSTERY SOLVED BY LOCAL HISTORIAN WITH SERENDIPITY!
One of the top historians in Canada, Dr. Karen Dubinsky of Queen’s, has hit the front pages again, this time as part of the solution to a long-standing mystery, connected (of course) with her interest in crime and violence against women……the local paper picked up the story today….
THE HISTORY OF A HUSBAND KILLER
By Jennifer Pritchett
KINGSTON WHIG STANDARD - Thursday, January 18, 2007 Updated @ 11:26:48 PM
She was a pregnant peasant sentenced to hang before clemency efforts saw her jailed in Kingston, an immigrant woman who became a household name in 1911.
She was Angelina Napolitano and her story has now been chronicled in a new film, Looking for Angelina.
For the first time, it will be screened in Kingston – where she lived her post-prison days, died and was buried – this Sunday on the Queen’s University campus at Etherington Hall, beginning at 7 p.m.
Toronto-based filmmaker Alessandra Piccione, who wrote the screenplay with Frank Canino, said the movie gives audiences a look into the Italian-born woman who was convicted of killing her husband with an axe as he lay sleeping in bed on Easter Sunday, 1911.
“This is a story about a woman who had to make some difficult choices,” she said.
Napolitano never denied killing her husband, Pietro, but said at her trial that he beat her and had wanted to force her into prostitution so he could afford to buy a house in Sault Ste. Marie, where the family was living.
When she killed him, she was pregnant with the couple’s fifth child.
At the time, Napolitano’s story touched a chord with people around the world and before long, social activists launched a clemency campaign to help her avoid execution. They were successful and she was ordered to serve roughly 10 years at Kingston’s now-closed Prison for Women. Her child was born in prison, but died soon afterward.
After Napolitano was released from prison in December of 1922, she stayed in Kingston and worked as a maid for a prominent lawyer, who lived on Earl Street at that time.
In 1932, she died of an unknown illness on the operating table at Hotel Dieu Hospital.
As famous as Napolitano was back in the early 20th century, her story never would have made it to the big screen had it not been for a Queen’s University professor.
Karen Dubinsky stumbled upon the file while researching old crime cases at Ontario’s Provincial Archives in Toronto 15 years ago.
“It was just there in some boxes,” said Dubinsky, who teaches women’s history.
The academic quickly became enthralled with Napolitano’s life and later co-wrote a story about her in Canadian Historical Review with University of Toronto professor Franca Iacovetta.
Inside the boxes she found at the archives were court transcripts and other police and court documents, as well as more than 200 letters from people around the world asking that Napolitano not be executed. There were also petitions with several hundred signatures asking the same.
“What made it most interesting was to see how fascinated people were with her in the day,” said Dubinsky.
Playwright Frank Canino saw the journal article and decided to write a play about Napolitano.
After that, Toronto-based filmmaker Alessandra Piccione saw what he had done and started writing a screenplay with Canino.
It was filmed over two weeks in the summer of 2004 in Sault Ste. Marie.
Dubinsky is thrilled that her discovery has led to a film that tells the unusual story of a Canadian woman.
“As historians, we labour in the archives all by ourselves … to see this [information] on the big screen is amazing,” she said. “It helps dispel the myth that Canadian history is boring or that history is boring.”
She hasn’t seen the film yet and is looking forward to Sunday’s showing.
She said it’s only fitting that the film come back to Kingston because of Napolitano’s connection to the city.
However, until a month ago, historians had no idea about how and where her life ended.
Then last month, a posting on a genealogy site on the Internet from someone who said Napolitano died in Kingston led Dubinsky to her grave. Dubinsky made a few calls to local cemeteries and quickly found her gravesite at St. Mary’s Cemetery on Division Street, not far from her own home.
The historian was flabbergasted by the discovery and quickly called the filmmaker, who made the trip down from Toronto to visit the grave. Together, the two brought a bottle of Italian wine to the gravesite where they toasted Napolitano.
Still, Dubinsky has questions about Napolitano’s four children, who were taken away when she was convicted.
“No one knows where the kids are,” she said.
“All we know is that she was in touch with them while she was in prison.”
jpritchett@thewhig.com