Thank you for this opportunity to tell our stories and for your bellisima magazine!I have been to Italy 12 times, starting when I was 16, with my parents and sister. On that trip, we did a tour and met my mother's first cousin,Giovanni and his family, who lived in Rome. I fell madly in love with Italy and we returned two years later, this time adding a trip with Giovanni to his mother's house (she was my grandfather's sister), where my grandfather grew up. We were a bit surprised at the low level of socio economic status and i=t helped understand why my grandfather had come to America when he was 12 to find a better life.Visiting the cemetery where my great grand-parents and other relatives wereburied had a profound impact on me, and I keep returning to find more connections to our family roots.In 2005, when my mother had the first stages of Alzheimer's disease, myhusband and I met my parents in Italy to do the "roots" tour. We visited the island of Ischia, where her mother had been born, but the family had left in 1900, so there were no relatives to meet. Walking the streets and visiting the church whose patron saint my grandmother was named after, again, made my roots stronger.We also went to the towns where my paternal side was from, and this is my most dramatic story. After asking (in broken Italian) where to locate the grave of my great-grandparents, in Avelino, the groundskeeper took us to a musoleum where they were buried. After verifying that it must be the right family, they opened the "drawer" and there was a plastic body bag containing the remains of three people - my father's grandmother and grandfather and step-grandmother, who my great-grandfather married after my great-grandmother had died and left him with five young children.So, after 81 years, my father got to finally "meet" his grandparents.We have no one left in Italy, now. However, it has always been my dream to go there and teach. The closest I have gotten to that dream so far is to bring two study abroad groups of University students to Italy (2005 and 2015)..I hope to see this dream come true soon.Grazie for letting me tell this story! I have photos from these trips, as well. Valdosta, GA USA
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Thank you for this opportunity to tell our stories and for your bellisima magazine!I have been to Italy 12 times, starting when I was 16, with my parents and sister. On that trip, we did a tour and met my mother's first cousin,Giovanni and his family, who lived in Rome. I fell madly in love with Italy and we returned two years later, this time adding a trip with Giovanni to his mother's house (she was my grandfather's sister), where my grandfather grew up. We were a bit surprised at the low level of socio economic status and i=t helped understand why my grandfather had come to America when he was 12 to find a better life.Visiting the cemetery where my great grand-parents and other relatives wereburied had a profound impact on me, and I keep returning to find more connections to our family roots.In 2005, when my mother had the first stages of Alzheimer's disease, myhusband and I met my parents in Italy to do the "roots" tour. We visited the island of Ischia, where her mother had been born, but the family had left in 1900, so there were no relatives to meet. Walking the streets and visiting the church whose patron saint my grandmother was named after, again, made my roots stronger.We also went to the towns where my paternal side was from, and this is my most dramatic story. After asking (in broken Italian) where to locate the grave of my great-grandparents, in Avelino, the groundskeeper took us to a musoleum where they were buried. After verifying that it must be the right family, they opened the "drawer" and there was a plastic body bag containing the remains of three people - my father's grandmother and grandfather and step-grandmother, who my great-grandfather married after my great-grandmother had died and left him with five young children.So, after 81 years, my father got to finally "meet" his grandparents.We have no one left in Italy, now. However, it has always been my dream to go there and teach. The closest I have gotten to that dream so far is to bring two study abroad groups of University students to Italy (2005 and 2015)..I hope to see this dream come true soon.Grazie for letting me tell this story! I have photos from these trips, as well. Valdosta, GA USA