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An intro to genealogy

Some of you readers follow my genealogical adventures on this blog. You might be interested in a couple of posts I wrote as a guest blogger for my friend Gemini Sasson. She posted these in November but I was dilerious with the birth of my first grandchild at the time, and missed it until recently. http://ngeminisasson.blogspot.com/2013/11/genealogy-101-digging-roots-part-i.html
and here is the link to Part 2: http://ngeminisasson.blogspot.com/2013/11/genealogy-101-digging-roots-part-ii.html

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4 Ways to Celebrate Italian American Heritage Month

Thanks for the ideas, Sons of Italy!

OSIA Blogger's avatarSons of Italy Blog

Although we’re halfway through October, it’s not too late to celebrate Italian American Heritage Month.

Here are some ideas to reconnect with your roots:

1. Read a book by a contemporary Italian-American author

  • Sons of Italy Foundation 2011 scholarship recipient Salvatore Giunta published an autobiography describing how he went from working at a Subway in Iowa to becoming the first living person to receive the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War. Read Giunta’s first-person account in his book, Living with Honor.
  • If you’re looking for a political thriller (besides the one we just experienced in Washington) read a crime mystery by renowned author David Baldacci. The New York Times bestselling author just released a new novel, “The Hit,” and is set to release two more in 2014.
  • Don’t forget the Italian-American women authors! OSIA friend and supporter Adriana Trigiani continues to delight with her Italian-American-inspired stories.
  • If…

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Even More Fichissimo

Fig lovers, here’s a great post from nuovastoria. I’m so jealous of all those figs!!!

nuovastoria's avatarnuovastoria

It’s safe to say that we are awash with figs. Purple figs, green figs, figs as big as your fist and figs that are so ripe they are fairly bursting out of their skins. There are so many figs in the countryside here, they’re not even for sale in the market. Everyone seems to have access to someone else’s harvest. And they just keep coming and coming. Serious measures are required.

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August vacation in Italy

I can’t say I wasn’t warned. I’ve heard lots of advice about avoiding the August heat and August holiday, Ferragosto, celebrated on August 15, was established by the Roman emperor, Augustus, in 18 BC (according to Wikipedia). The date also marks the Roman Catholic celebration of the Assumption of Mary, widely marked with religious processions in Italy.

The August heat is just too much for me, reason enough to find a cooler month to visit. But why avoid the holiday celebrations? Here are a few visual aids:

DSCN0595 (1024x768) DSCN0592 (1024x768) DSCN0593 (1024x768) DSCN0594 (768x1024) DSCN0596 (1024x768) DSCN0597 (1024x768)

Yes–many businesses are closed for the full week, and often longer, even up to a month. All these signs were along one street in Caserta, where we stopped on our way to Calabria.

In August, families gather, those who have moved away come back to visit in their hometowns. Big family dinners are held, and even those who don’t celebrate the religious holiday take pretty seriously the Latin origin of Ferragosto, a phrase that mean’s “Augustus’ rest”. It’s the Italians’ time to take a break.

So what did five Americans do in Calabria for Ferragosto? We joined a lot of Italians at the beach at Squillace Lido for the day, rented a couple of umbrellas and five chairs for a few hours. By three in the afternoon we were in Soverato having lunch at a seafood place near the beach. They served a special Ferragosto menu, four courses at a set price of 18 Euros per person. Salad of octopus with potatoes, tomatoes, parsley, lots of olive oil. Then mixed seafood lasagna. Then a big swordfish steak (again, heavy on the olive oil). And for dessert, watermelon slices.

By 6PM we were in our ancestral village to see the religious procession with our distant cousin. This was very interesting, and far outside my own Christian tradition. Following a service in the church, the statue of Mary, with a couple of cherubs hanging on, was carried on a circuit through town and back to the church. We visited afterwards with my cousin’s family.

Outside the church, as we waited for the statue to be carried out, my cousin greeted nearly everyone who came by–people she has known most of her life, even though she grew up in Rome and lives in Denmark most of the time now. Scigliano is her home town, and she returns every August, reconnecting with aunts and uncles, cousins and schoolmates, and reconnecting with the church and the meaning it brings to her life.

There are plenty of tourists in Italy in August, non-Italians playing at the beaches, lakes, and in the mountains. But it is clearly an essential Italian family time. As we watched the Virgin carried aloft through the streets, I wondered if my great-grandmother Giusseppina watched the same thing when she was a girl, 125 year ago. I wonder how she felt on the first August she spent in America, far from her village and if she felt keenly the cutting of those family ties–the ties I am trying to rediscover with my cousins in Italy.

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Death at a distance

On our last evening in Venice, I learned that my beloved Aunt Phyllis passed away.

My mom’s oldest sibling, Phyllis was always a woman of heroic proportion to me. She hosted family holiday gatherings throughout my childhood in Alaska, bought me books to encourage and inspire, took me shopping for clothes as a teenager, and accompanied me on my first visit to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She wrote, and encouraged me to write as well. We had the same favorite college English professor–when she was in her early forties and I in my early twenties.

By 2005, when her only daughter died, she was showing signs of mental lapse. In 2007, her only son was terminally ill, and her need for help was clear to everyone but her. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. I helped her move near me, and petitioned the court for guardianship. In those first years, I took her out to coffee, shopping at WalMart, and to the casino to spend $10 in a slot machine every few weeks. When she needed a reminder to push the same button every time the machine stopped, we quit going to the casino, and just visited at the assisted living home where she lived. I brought her flowers from my garden, treats to keep in her room, and bought her the toiletries and clothes she needed.

She ran out of money, and about three weeks ago was qualified for help from Medicaid, which started on August 1. During the previous few months she had declined in most of her functions–limited to a wheelchair and talking more nonsense.

So I left on my Italian sojourn hoping that the emergency numbers I left at the care home wouldn’t be needed.

Justin called on August 9 to tell me it looked like the end was near, and again within a couple of hours to say she was gone. My mother was with her, and is taking care of details (most were arranged in advance, years ago) which couldn’t wait for my return.

I am told to continue my vacation, others are taking care of everything. But it is very surreal, being here, and thinking how different things will be when I return. She loved travel, and in recent years told people she had been all over the world, even driven to Africa. So I am continuing on, ready to visit our ancestral village in a couple of days. My outlook is more sober. But I am full of life, part of that a legacy she left me and our family.

So I continue not only sober, but grateful for her part in my life. Tomorrow I will visit the royal palace at Caserta, and think how she would have loved it.

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Venezia!

First trip in a long time without a laptop so I’m learning to post from smartphone, nook, and friend’s iPad, and using my new WiFi enabled camera. But I don’t want the learning curve to interfere with the blessing of being in Italy. Bear with me. We woke to bells ringing from a nearby church–the best alarm clock I’ve heard in ages.