The former home and grocery store of the family of Clementine Poto Langone (1898-1964) was on this site.
As a child, she helped pack Italian food products to send west to Italian immigrants working on the transcontinental railroads. The grocery store was on the first floor with living quarters upstairs. When Clementine married Joseph Langone, Jr. in 1920, she moved next door to 190 North Street. In the 1930s, after her husband was elected to public office, she helped many Italian immigrants become citizens so they could be eligible for social security benefits and provided food and clothing to Italian people out of work. She was an active member of the North End Union.
The North End has been home to many immigrant groups. Typical of these are the Italians who settled here in large numbers starting in 1860 and continuing into the 1930s. Leonarda Corlito (1882-1958) and Frances LoRusso (1903-1971) are examples of women who left Italy in search of a better life in the United States. They were neighbors and good friends on Margaret Street. After training at the North Bennett Street School, Leonarda’s daughters sewed uniforms for the Army soldiers at the garment factory on Thatcher Street. Later, Pompeia, a daughter of Leonarda, married Frank, a son of Frances. Both Frances and Leonarda lost sons in the war: Anthony LoRusso and Anthony Corlito are commemorated with individual plaques on Margaret Street, and they share a plaque with others at the World War II memorial in Paul Revere
