Mortellaro Family History & Genealogy
Mortellaro Last Name History & Origin
AddSummary
Morte' "death"
Tellaro " to tell"
History
Mortellaro means "Teller of death. Back in the Roman empire days the Mortellaro family's Read the obituaries in the street and rang a bell and people would toss coins out the windows to them if they were related or friends of the deceased person.
And that's one way other than farming and gardening that they made their money.
Name Origin
The Mortellaros I am related to were from Alia Sicily.
The Mortellaro's I'm referring to integrated into New Orleans Port of entry late 1800s worked the sugarcane fields and then purchased land and Rockport because land was cheap and a Newport was being established but they were pushed out by a hurricane and moved back to Houston where they started farming in the summer and then in the early 1900s would spend the winters building scaffold for the new refineries being built along the Gulf Coast near Port Arthur and Galveston. They lived and what is now the galleria area of Houston and had an 80-acre farm there and married into the Engle (German) family that lived on a 50-acre farm across the street on San Felipe. They farmed and raised cabbage, strawberries, and cotton and vegetables and had a vegetable fruit stand on Westheimer use the money to purchase property just outside of downtown Houston on West Dallas and built a large grocery store, and the grocery store still stands today as a different kind of business but the more telaro name is behind the plaster stucco above the door...
This building was built in the 18 80s. And I believe is now a bar.
Land was purchased around the building and water was pumped out of Buffalo bayou to irrigate the vegetables. At the beginning of world war II the land other than the building up to the by you was condemned by the government to build housing for ship builders during the war.
The contract called for the property to go back to the mortalaro family if it was ever used for anything other than government use and the late 1980s it went back to the mortalaro family via litigation with the old brown law firm representing Lena martellaro and the mortellaro estate.
The city of Houston paid the martellaro family a moderate sum of money.
Originally Giuseppe Mortalaro was buried in the old Allen Brothers cemetery there on West Dallas Street and later the family exhumed his body and it was reburied west of Houston at Forest Park cemetery West.
Other mortalaros are buried there today. Ross mortalaro played football for Reagan high School when they won the first high school state championship He was their fullback and earned a scholarship to Texas A&M and played football for DX Bible and they won the Southwest conference his name was changed by Texas A&M to Martella. They said it was easier to pronounce Martella than it was to pronounce mortalaro.
The martellas lived on the west side of Houston for many years and since have moved to Seguin Texas, Brenham Texas and nacogdoches Texas.
The martella's established a very successful insurance business
Cattle ranch
And drilled some shallow oil wells.
And several restaurants.
Spellings & Pronunciations
We don't have any alternate spellings or pronunciation information on the Mortellaro name. Have information to share?
Nationality & Ethnicity
Sicilian,
Famous People named Mortellaro
The first male born child in Rockport Texas was a mortellaro.
Mortellaro's in San Antonio Texas.
A famous Texas ranger volunteer in the corpus Christi region in the late 1800s early 1900s. Helping the rangers to guard the Texas border in Brownsville area up to Laredo preventing them from robbing in pillaging small farms and settlers in the South Texas region back in the day without pay.
Early Mortellaros
These are the earliest records we have of the Mortellaro family.
Mortellaro Family Members
Mortellaro Family Photos
There are currently no family photos associated to the Mortellaro family.
Mortellaro Family Tree
Discover the most common names, oldest records and life expectancy of people with the last name Mortellaro.
Updated Mortellaro Biographies
Popular Mortellaro Biographies
Mortellaro Death Records & Life Expectancy
The average age of a Mortellaro family member is 76.0 years old according to our database of 209 people with the last name Mortellaro that have a birth and death date listed.
Life Expectancy
Oldest Mortellaros
These are the longest-lived members of the Mortellaro family on AncientFaces.
Other Mortellaro Records
Share memories about your Mortellaro family
Leave comments and ask questions related to the Mortellaro family.
Followers & Sources
