| The story of my family
has been told to me by Antonia who still resides
in Italy and told to me the story of my great
grandfather Armando, who was the brother of her
grandmother. It begins like this ...
"They
loved each other and before leaving for America,
Armando asked his sister Antonia (grandmother of
narrator) for one hundred liras. Since she had no
money, she went to ask it to her daughter's
godfather, offering him her little gold in
pledge. He gave her the money without taking the
gold, but with the promise Armando would send
money back once he was in America.
Armando
left and a year after he sent his sister five
hundred liras and the godfather one hundred
liras, coffee and sugar to thank him.
Too
many years later, a fried from America arrived
and Antonia asked him news. He told her Armando
wore new and clean shirts now and he didn't
change the collars to the only shirt as they used
to do in Italy because they were very poor.
Probably he meant Armando couldn't afford the
journey since he spent his money to live as
Americans did.
In that
same month Armando arrived and the first person
he met was my mother while sitting in front of
the weaving loom. She didn't know him and when he
asked her why she had no shoes she readily
answered she had shoes but didn't put them on
while weaving, and she added her family needed
nothing since her uncle Armando sent them money
from America while her sister Annina sewed
dresses for others.
Just
then a relative came downstairs and gave Armando
a warm welcome so that the mother realized she
had refused to kiss her uncle because she hadn't
recognized him. Everybody in the little town knew
about Armando's arrival and when Antonia came,
they embraced and cried. They stood like that for
two hours then she said to him: 'You shall not go
away any more.'
He met
his wife Eleanora Rossomanno and Antonia was sure
Armando would have lived in Italy forever but
when Armando's first son Marzialo Pantaleone was
four years of age, Armando asked his sister to
follow him with her two daughters, Annina and
Agata to America. She refused and he told her
they would have to meet in the next world."
Armando
never forgot his sister and when he died in 1937,
his wife went on sending something to his niece
Annina who was not married and some dresses for
Agata. But after the death of Eleanora in 1956,
no one in the family wrote Italian and the
letters stopped. Annina had died with the desire
to meet their relatives and Antonia promised she
would go to the American consulate in Rome to get
news, but she never did.
Still
it seems destined that the family in America and
the family in Italy would meet. In the summer of
2007 Antonia's daughter Adele found this website
and emailed me, and I can say with all honesty
and much sentiment, that our family in Italy has
opened their heart and home to me. It goes in
saying that we have all missed, but not forgotten
the other.
|
