Early Life
Tommaso Gagliano was born in 1884 in Corleone, Sicily. Gagliano married Giuseppina "Josephine" Pomilla who was also from Corleone. Gagliano and his brother-in-law Nunzio Pomilla were partners in lathing and hoisting companies in the Bronx. He served as underboss to Gaetano "Tom" Reina until he became the boss of the family in 1930. The Reina family controlled a monopoloy on ice distribution in the Bronx. Gagliano along with Gaetano "Tommy" Lucchese and Stefano "Steve" Rondelli were viewed as the most powerful members of the Reina family.
Frank Gagliano was a distant relative of Tommaso and the son of a deported mobster. He was also the cousin of mob boss Thomas Eboli's chauffer and bodyguard, future Genovese crime family underboss Dominick Alongi who would later achieve notoriety when they were among the many mobsters arrested fleeing the famous 1957 Apalachin Meeting. He was a blood relative of mobster Joseph (Pip the Blind) Gagliano, who became a childhood friend and early accomplace of future government witness Joseph Valachi. The two performed many burglaries and armed robberies together.
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“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)