A new life in the United States of America: Deanna Toney

Assif Solomon, Caribou, Maine ca. 1907.

On August 29^th 1920 Deanna Simmon was born to a Maronite Christian family in Blouza, Mount Lebanon, within what was then known as the Kingdom of Syria.  The Kingdom of Syria was a small portion of the former Ottoman Empire controlled by the British and French through the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement.  The Kingdom was made up of small provinces (including Beirut, Mount Lebanon, and others to the north) divided by the dominate religions in those provinces (Muslim, Maronite, Greek Orthodox).

Unhappy with the secret European arrangement, a small group of northern Syrians led by Faisal bin Hussein (later the leader of Iraq) started a revolt in early 1920 known as the Franco-Syrian War.  The war only lasted five months and resulted in a loss for the Syrian revolt. France eventually established Greater Lebanon (which included Beirut and other coastal areas as well as Mount Lebanon) as a separate protectorate from Syria and a safe haven for Maronite Christians.

Unfortunately, before the short revolt was over it reached  outside of northern Syria resulting in a famine that killed over 100,000 people in Greater Lebanon where Deanna lived with her mother Zahia and her father Naseem.  Zahia was one of nine children born to Assif and Mary Solomon.  Assif, Mary, and eight of their daughters left Lebanon before World War I erupted and moved to Petropolis, Brazil.  For reasons unknown they left Zahia behind in Lebanon where she married Nasseem Simmon and gave birth to Deanna.

Blouza Village ca. 1939 (Photo by Nathan Toney)

Zahia’s family eventually left Brazil and made their way to the United States, arriving first in Caribou, Maine around 1907.  Perhaps along the journey or when she arrived in Maine, Zahia’s sister Emma met Amos Toney (who may have been moving from Argentina) and the two eventually married.  They stayed in Caribou long enough for their first son Nathan to be born there in 1910.

Amos, Emma, their son, and all of the Solomon family eventually moved to Providence, Rhode Island.  After a short time in Providence, Amos moved his family, which now included their son Thomas, to Brattleboro, Vermont in 1920.  Like almost all Lebanese who had come to America in the preceding 30 years, he was a peddler and moved to Vermont hoping to exploit a new market.

Although the unrest from World War I never really subsided in Syria or Greater Lebanon, in 1926 the French government formed the Lebanese Republic with its own constitution, a new flag, and relative peace that ensued for more than a decade.  But across the Mediterranean Sea there was unrest in Europe as Adolf Hitler became the leader of the German National Socialist party, better known as the Nazi party.  They slowly gained power and in 1933 Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany. 

September 1, 1939 New York Times

By the Spring of 1939 Germany was invading its neighbors and a European war seemed certain.  The European powers knew that if war erupted in Europe it would ripple into the fragile peace maintained in their Middle Eastern colonies, including Syria and Lebanon.  Despite the spreading violence in Europe, Emma Toney sent her son Nathan, now just 29 years old, back to Lebanon to marry her sister’s daughter and bring her back to America.  Nathan boarded a cruise ship and traveled from New York, through Italy, and arrived in Lebanon where he met the 19 year old Deanna Simmon for the first time in the Spring of 1939.

Later that year, on the first day of September Nazi Germany invaded Poland.  All of the surrounding countries, shocked as they were, remained neutral, including Italy.  Only two days later the S.S. Athenia, a British cruise ship headed to Canada was torpedoed by a German submarine just north of Ireland.  The attack killed all 112 passengers and crew and was the start of the Battle of the Atlantic and World War II.

The Conte di Savoia as seen from her sister ship the Rex, crossing the Atlantic in 1937
(internet source, photographer unknown).

Thomas Toney, Army portrait, 1943.

Nathan and Deanna were married in Lebanon and by the time they boarded a cruise ship in Beirut bound for Naples, Italy on February 1, 1940, Deanna was almost 8 months pregnant.  Just ten days before they left Lebanon, on January 20^th, 1940, another German submarine sank a Greek cruise ship off the coast of Portugal.  Italy had still not entered the war but its coasts were lined with busy ports.  One of those ports was in Naples.  On February 21, 1940 Deanna and Nathan finally boarded the S.S. Conte di Savoia in Naples, Italy bound for New York.  The Conte di Savoia was built in 1932 and was a famous steam ship known for its “smooth crossings” through the Atlantic Ocean.

Dibe, as Deanna was known to her family, and Nathan, finally arrived in the United States of America on February 29, 1940.  Only 12 days later Deanna gave birth to her first son, Raymond, safely back in Brattleboro, Vermont.  As fighting escalated back in Europe, Naples became the most bombed city in Italy during World War II and the Conte di Savoia was sunk by German troops in 1943.  That same year Nathans brother Thomas joined the United States Army. Several members of Assif Solomon's family would eventually join the United States armed forces throughout the 20th century.  Nathan and Deanna had two more sons during the war, Kenneth and Robert, and continued to live with Nathans parents in Brattleboro, eventually adding a daughter to their family, Theresa, in 1955.

Top row, left to right, Nathan (36), Deanna (25), Amos (60), bottom row, left to right, Raymond (6), Emma (51), Robert (6 months) and Kenneth (3).  Photo taken in April 1946 on Canal Street, Brattleboro, Vermont.

1940 passenger list for the S.S. Conte di Savoia with (Deanna) Dibe Toney listed as an "alien passenger".

1940 passenger list for the S.S. Conte di Savoia with (Nathan) Anthony Toney listed as a "citizen passenger".