My recent visit to Sicily reignited my interest in my Oates and Rhodes ancestors. The family tree of both families was pretty much complete and documented thanks to Eduardo Flores, who was kind enough to share his research openly. However, the reason why the Oates family, and with them, a member of the Rhodes family ended up in Sicily and Palermo remained in the dark, until I obtained a copy of the book "La Cristalliera Infanta. Una famiglia inglese a Messina era '800 e '900 nei ricardo di Julia Emma Oates (The Broken Glassware. An English family in Messina between 1800 and 1900 as remembered by Julia Emma Oates ")  by Elena Bristotti Botin Raymondo.

In her book, Bristotti writes, that George Oates the progenitor of the Sicilian Oates family branch settled in Palermo at the age of mere twenty. According to Briscotti, herself an Oates descendent, George Oates moved to Palermo around 1810. In that time period Napoleon established a continental embargo upon British products, which had severe impact on British trade and merchant companies.

The "George Oates & Sons" company, located in Sheffield, was a trading company founded by George's father, also named George and his sons George, Charles, John and Edward. George was the first member of the Oates family to settle in Sicily. Sicily and Naples,known as the two Sicilies back then, were under the rule of the Bourbon Court and under British protection during Napoleon's expansion at the begining of the 19th Century.

George acted as an agent of the George Oates and Sons company, selling British goods and iron in Sicily. In 1813 Charles Oates, George's younger brother joined him in Sicily, probably called in as a proxy, while George returned to Sheffield to marry Harriette Rhodes the daughter of the master cutler and Jacobonist Ebenezer Rhodes and his wife Mary Hill. The young couple returned to Sicily where George resumed his activities with his brother. Shortly after his return George and Charles were joined by their youngest brother Edward. John Oates, the third eldest brother, represented the family business in Naples as a proxy for George.

Due to the difficult economic situation in Europe, George Oates & Sons were forced to declare their bancrupcy in 1817. In the wake of this business disaster, George moved to Naples around 1817, where he died in 1827. After his death John took the lead for business in Naples, while Charles, the new head of the family, became an associate partner in a number of different ventures. He remained in Palermo until the end of the 1820's and then moved to Naples, where he married Elizabeth Rosina Du Cluzean. He died in 1837.

Edward the youngest Oates family member established himself in Messina from the beginning and remained there, even during the difficult years. He was joined later by his two nephews, George Charles Oates, son of "our" George Oates and Harriette Rhodes, and Charles Ducleau Oates, son of Charles Oates and Elizabeth Rosina Du Cluzean. The three men founded the company "Oates & Nephews". While George Charles Oates stayed true to this family business and married into the family of his uncle's business partner, Charles Ducleau left the company to establish his own business.

John Oates lived in Naples until the end of the 1830's and then moved to Girgenti (now Agrigento) with his family. John met and married his wife Ann Dickison, a Dublin native, in Naples. The first six of their 12 children were born there, the other six children were born in Agrigento. John was engaged in the sulphur industry and represented Britain as a vice consul.

George's widow, Harriette Rhodes remained in Naples with her children after the untimely death of her husband. She ran a boarding house in 1835 in the Palazzo Gallo, Riviera di Chiaia, Naples and was an avid artist. Examples of her sketches of regions and buildings in Naples, the Amalfi Coast or Sicily are still found on the internet today. It is highly likely, that she returned to Sicily to live close or with her eldest son, George Charles in Messina and his family, as she died in Messina in 1862.

The devastating earth quake of 1909 in Messina ended the era of the Oates family in Sicily. Almost the entire family was wiped out by this distasterous event.