Hey Paisan! (sorry)

Colleen posted this on Facebook and I knew I had to share it with you all.  It is long but well worth listening to all the way through.  I think you have most of the exact same pictures around too!

Dear Garden

Dear Garden,  


Just prior to Memorial Day weekend this year, I promised you I would tend to you for at least an hour daily over the long weekend.  And I did!  I was very smug with myself until the calendar turned itself over to June.  Since then, I've had to revise my promises to you.  Let's see, it went from the original plan to I'll tend to you every weekend day that we are home.  Hmmm.  That wasn't such a great plan for you as we aren't home for a single weekend in June.  

But today I did push myself out the door and reunited you with the bedding plants I bought two weeks ago.  They have been so desperate to get into decent soil and sun that I could hear them cry out even while the cats were begging to be allowed inside.  Tonight they shall rest easy.  Until next weekend.  Sincerely, Patty Anne

So you can replace Dear Garden with Dear Blog, Dear Laundry, Dear Pantry, Dear Bathroom Sink.  It's all been ignored recently, but not forgotten. 

We had a lovely but quick Long Island visit last weekend for Dan Hall's wedding.  I was just flabbergasted to be told that John Miglietta (Aunt Caroline's son) came from Nashville for the wedding!  It was wonderful to be able to shake hands with the man I've been trying to contact by email with very little success.  Now he can put a name to a face and perhaps I'll be able to obtain some new information from him. 

Also in attendance was Marie Louise Dalpiaz Kussman--I've had this name mentioned several times to me but here I was sitting right next to her for dinner!  She is your second cousin, once removed (the removed part refers to generations--she is one generation different from yours).  We discovered that we have a great deal in common and I hope to stay in touch with her as well.  I understand she was a great help for the recent Italy trip. 

I felt like Aunt Rose somehow made this magic happen in collusion with her brother and sister's guidance from heaven. 

Bobbie has recently been bitten by the genealogy bug so we've been chatting more often than usual about this and that related to family history research.  It gave me good practice for the recent Rotary presentation I had prepared on how to search the 1940 index using enumeration district numbers since it wasn't name-searchable yet.  The very afternoon of the scheduled presentation, I learned that 1940 census records for New York State are now indexed and searchable by name!  That's HUGE especially since these will be available free for several more months.  In addition, Ancestry just released New York State census records indexed and name searchable for 1892, 1915 and 1925.  This is prime research years for your family as well as for the Irish side. 

Unfortunately I've been unable to really spend time with these yet, but my very first search was for Grandma Jenny Manzelli.  She was an Isoldi and I found them right away.  They are in the last column about 1/3 of the way down the list.  It tickles me that she is listed as Annie--

Also take note of two neighbors:  the Curcio family--Ralph and Sarah are the parents of Graziano's second wife Maria.  Also there is a nearby Isoldi family who I am sure are related but I don't have the documentation yet.  It's all in the details! 

Add Dear Genealogy Research to above list of neglected work.........sigh.

Memorial Day tribute

This is another tombstone picture from Kathleen and Nick.  At the very bottom you can see Riccardo Dalpiaz who was an uncle to your grandfather Costante.  As you can see here, Riccardo died in war--in the Dolomites according to family legend.

We'll have to consult the historians in the family for better detail and perspective, but I believe Riccardo's death resulted from the Italian Campaign of WWI 1915-1918 between the Austria Hungary army and the Italian army for control of the Tyrol region (overly simplified for those that don't understand WWI military campaigns any better than I do--sorry, Thomas.).  In other words--I think this was the BIG one for your family testing their loyalties.  I do not know which army Riccardo belonged to.  I think military service was required of young men in this region and he may have found himself a solider by duty rather than by choice.  Regardless, he is deserving of recognition for his service to his country.  He was a 40 year old soldier fighting battles that probably were far too close to home.

You have many servicemen in your family who have honored their country and served it with dignity.  May 30 is the day set aside for recognition and I'd like to share the following 4 minute video that speaks to me and I hope to you as well.  I think HOME was important to each of them.

Costante's siblings

From the trip pics, I've been able to sort out some of your grandfather's siblings.  I thought you might like to "meet" them!  These would be aunts and uncles to your Dad.

An older sister Maria:  according to Trentini birth records, her full name is Maria Severina Carlotta Carolina Dalpiaz married a Menapace:

A younger sibling Edvige Rosa Dalpiaz married Pio Valentini

Pio, another younger sibling is in the same gravesite as his parents

How nice for us that photos seem to be standard additions to tombstones.  These guys generally lived long happy lives so you come from hardy stock.

Tullia, of course, is the ultimate proof and I'm happy to be able to share this picture NOT taken in a cemetery, although I imagine many of you have seen this already:

Another picture of Tullia I remember seeing when we visited Aunt Josie:

I definitely see Dalpiaz in this younger picture. 

Mother's Day Musings 2012

I think this is the longest time I've ever gone between meaningful blog posts:  from your mother's birthday to Mother's Day with a trip-of-a-lifetime to Italy in between.  Believe me, this is much easier to do on a weekly basis because now there's so much whirling around that I want to address that I'm a little bit frozen by it all.  Funny how you can stall partly because there's so much to do!  Anyway, please forgive the rambling nature of what is to follow here.

If you have not looked at Kathleen and Nick's pictures of the Italy trip, please make yourself time to do so.  They did a wonderful job of telling a story.  I noticed they did not include an album of the cemetery pictures....hmmmm......just kidding--I realize that kind of stuff has a limited audience!  But here's one to share for sure:

Giuseppe and Barbara are your great grandparents.  Pio is their son who married Giuseppina Menapace.  I know you are all quite familiar with how Barbara looked from that picture we have taken with son Costante.  But I don't know if you're very familiar with what Giuseppe looked like (I wasn't):

I counted 18 relatives documented by the pictures taken by Nick at this cemetery.  And those are just the ones I already know about.  I feel quite certain there are other relatives represented in those pictures but I just haven't found them yet.

I'm very sorry to have missed the post trip party at Robert and Bobbie's.  All these years gone by and I still can't face making that drive by myself.  But I'm very grateful for the pictures shared by Pat especially

Which, of course brings to mind this one:

Gotta love it, right?  But it's Mother's Day today so of course we are thinking about Moms.

This is 1989.  I was going to crop out the "background noise" (James, Robert and Scott) but it adds a nice touch to the realities of family life, right?  When I showed this to James, his comment was about your dad's "big ass truck".  Hmmmmmm...............realities of family life.

Cheers to Moms, Dads, family!

Hey Blog Fans

I haven't abandoned the blog--I know it's been a little while since I've posted.  Our computer is "having issues" so my normal links, pics, and files aren't available to me as easily and I don't feel I can post without some visual effects.  Hopefully by this weekend we'll be back up and running so we can catch up on blogging.  It truly amazes me how dependent I've become on the technology--may or may not be a good thing, but time will tell I guess.  See you back here soon!

Happy Birthday Gram!

Amy's going to hate this because she's all "Pretty in Pink" here for this 1989 Easter photo op with Gram, but I really like this because it just seems so much like I remember your Mom.  Nice blouse with tie and skirt for church, smiling contentedly and holding the grandchild with experience and love.  Happy Birthday in Heaven.