The Best Thing I Ever Did, part 3

June came and we endured the hardships of traveling with an elderly man hobbled by neuropathies in his hands and feet. We flew non-stop to Frankfurt, Germany, where I had rented a car. The younger of my two older brothers flew a different airline (frequent flier miles) and met my wife, my father and me in Frankfurt. We loaded up the car and drove four hours to Nancy, France. The older of my two brothers had preceded us by a couple of weeks, and he and his son had been visiting his Army nurse daughter in Heidelberg and touring central Europe with her, and the three of them drove to Nancy and met us at Sylvaine’s home. Sylvaine insisted that we all stay with her, but my brothers and my niece and nephew declined, and stayed at a nearby hotel. (Click on any image to see it larger.)


Jimmy at Sylvaine's home. From upper left: Sylvaine,
son Sebastien, Jimmy. Front left, daughter Carole,
son Thomas, with gifts we brought them from Chicago.

The next morning we headed in a two-car caravan to the home where Tresi lives. When we arrived, her daughters went in to help her get ready. They let us into her room while she finished in the bathroom. Tresi had recently hurt her leg in a fall, and so was in a wheelchair. When Sylvaine wheeled Tresi out, and Jimmy saw her for the first time in sixty years, he immediately burst into tears. He bent to her in the chair and, through sobs, cried, “I’m so sorry I didn’t write.”

Tresi wrapped her arms around his neck and said, “Don’t cry. Don’t cry.”


The emotional reunion.


I videotaped the moment, but I couldn’t be sure I had captured it until later, as I couldn’t see the viewfinder through my own tears! I looked around the room and saw mine weren’t the only wet eyes.

We stayed for lunch at the senior home, and Jimmy and Tresi reminisced in four languages: when Tresi didn’t understand something Jimmy said in English, he tried in the limited Italian that stayed with him, then he tried in the little French he remembered from his time in the war, and failing that, he tried in the little bit of German he can recall. When those failed, he fell into the bits of Spanish and Polish he knows from his 45 years in the changing ethnicities surrounding his barbershop. They were cute together: his sense of humor transcends any language barriers, and she gently “slapped” his face when he made his wisecracks.


Jimmy and Tresi, long lost friends together again.

After all that buildup, the months of anticipation for the trip overall, and for the side-trip, I regret that we only spent one afternoon with Tresi. And I soon would discover that wouldn’t be my only regret.


Tresi with Jimmy and his entourage. Standing, from
left: Jimmy's grandson Thomas, son Jim, yours truly,
son Dan, Jim's daughter Rebecca, and Mrs. Farrago.

Later that afternoon we trekked up to Differdange, where we met up with Marc, the man who had found Tresi, and toured the town and the grounds of the old school where Jimmy was bivouacked for 5 months in 1944. Either the school has changed drastically in 60 years, or Jimmy's memory of the place is shot, for he could not remember any details about the place while we were there.


Jimmy speaking with Marc, the man who
made it all happen.


With the school as a backdrop, Sylvaine, Rebecca
and Marc fiddle with a camera while Jimmy offers
sage advice.


"The more things change, the more they stay the same..." The photo on the
left, obviously taken during the winter, was sent to me by Sylvaine a few
months before our trip.

We split up again: my brothers and nephew boarded a train in Nancy and made the entire trip, through Switzerland, through Milan, to Castel di Sangro; My wife and my father and I drove back to Frankfurt (a story in itself!) and resumed our journey to Italy. Upon our arrival in Rome, we walked through the airport right into the attached Hilton hotel, where my oldest brother had booked rooms for us using his many hundreds of thousands of Hilton points. We spent one night there, and woke early the next morning to catch the first of several trains to reach the Abruzzo mountains and Castel di Sangro.


Back in the land of our roots.

Upon our arrival we experienced some confusion. I had apparently forgotten to bring with me the phone number to the pensione where I had booked our rooms, and none of the railroad officials at the train station had heard of it. It seemed like forever, but then one of the officials noticed the name on a luggage tag, my family name, which is quite prolific in the small town. Suddenly he stepped outside of the small rail office and called to another railway worker, who was a couple hundred yards away tending to the tracks in some way. The younger man hopped on his bicycle and rode toward us and up to the man who had called him. They conversed briefly, and then the younger man pulled some folded-up papers from his pocket, plucked one out and handed it to the older man. The older man looked at my father, the only one who had said anything the man understood, pointed to the paper and stepped into the office. He dialed the phone and spoke very briefly to the person on the other end, and then told my father that someone was on the way. We found out later that my brothers and my nephew had arrived several hours earlier, pointed to the name and phone number of the pensione which I had e-mailed them a few days earlier, and the young man had phoned the proprietor to tell them they had arrived. When the proprietor came to collect them, he had told the young man that there were others arriving later, and to call him at the pensione when they arrived. I had never even thought to name-drop my own name!

The confusion was over, and Enzo, the proprietor of the pensione, showed up only minutes later to gather our bags and stuff us into his little car for the brief ride back to his establishment.

On arrival to our room, my wife and I discovered a card, written in English, from Simona, someone I had contacted years earlier during my genealogical research, a woman with the same family name as mine, though, apparently, unrelated to me, and whom I had sent a last minute e-mail to notify her of our impending visit to Castel di Sangro. In the card she had written that there were people in town who were eager to meet us, and to call her when I arrived.

A few hours later Simona arrived with her husband and daughter in tow, and our entire entourage walked the few hundred yards to Albergo Corradetti (the Hotel Corradetti) which, it turns out, is owned and run by the wife of my first cousin thrice removed, Federico. Simona spoke with Federico and his wife, Berenice, and told them who these Americans were whom she had brought along. Federico became very excited and phoned his mother, Maria. Only a few minutes later the elderly Maria entered the restaurant area of the hotel, and instantly welcomed us into her heart as family.


Jimmy with his 1st cousin-once removed, Maria.

Before long our entire entourage was seated at a long table with Simona and her family, including her mother, who was divorced from – and harboring a deep hatred for – our family’s namesake! Berenice, the hotel proprietor and head chef, was preparing a family-style Abruzzo-Italian feast. Poor Simona, the only truly bilingual person in the room, was translating to and from English as quickly and efficiently as she could, but the questions kept coming at her faster and louder with each passing, wine-soaked minute. The food (particularly the tagliatelle tartufo) was delicious beyond words.

Too soon the locals had to call it a night, for the Americans were the only people in the room on holiday, and the others had jobs to get to the next morning. Maria, however, insisted that we all gather again the next evening, and she would make sure to call her sister and brother to join us, and, hopefully, her sister would bring Concetta’s pillowcases to show us. It seemed a curious thing, but we were nonetheless intrigued.

The next day’s agenda included some genealogical research at the local biblioteca; lunch at Enzo’s restaurant (across the road from his pensione); some sightseeing at the obvious geological highlight of the town, a huge hill around which the town was built; and then back to Albergo Corradetti to meet the rest of the cousins.


At the biblioteca, where we discovered no simple
connections to "cousins" back home.


While we climb the big hill, Enzo details its tactical
significance to conquering armies over the centuries.

When we arrived Maria was there, and her sister Elisa was on the way. Pietro had been told about us, but she wasn’t sure if he would show up. When Elisa arrived she carried two gift-wrapped boxes, and, with the help of Simona (alone this time), gave us a bit of history and family lore:

At the height of World War II the German army occupied Castel di Sangro and used the town’s great hill to military advantage, keeping an eye on everything around it for miles. Allied British and Canadian ground troops sweeping north through the country were brought to a standstill miles outside of Castel di Sangro by the Germans, who rained artillery on them before the Allies even knew anyone was watching them. Battles raged for days as the Allies attempted to reach the town, but were repeatedly driven back. Finally the British called for an airstrike.

My earlier genealogical research had revealed that my grandmother, Concetta, was the only one of her parents’ many children who survived childhood, the others all dying before the age of 9 of what Simona described as “the syphilis.” It is only my conjecture that, by Concetta’s 18th birthday, her parents were desperate for her to escape the town and their certainty that she, too, would succumb to her siblings’ fate. Again, it is only a guess, but it appears that a marriage had been arranged between Concetta and a man who was already in the United States, for in April of 1915 she left to begin her life in America, leaving her parents behind her, alone and otherwise childless. And four months later she was married to Rosario.

By the time World War II had swept Europe, Concetta’s father was dead, and her mother lived alone in the family’s home in the center of town. And the British called an airstrike on Castel di Sangro in an attempt to flush out the Germans.

The tradition in Old World Italy, as in many other European countries, has been that, starting around age 8, young girls would begin work on their hope chests, learning the skills along the way as they stitched the lace for their wedding dresses and stored other items they made or acquired, preparing for the day they married. Concetta had begun these items in line with tradition, but when she left for the United States she could not bring her hope chest with her, instead leaving it with her mother until the day she could return and retrieve it. Concetta never was able to return to Castel di Sangro, but she had achieved a sort of hero status in her family as a survivor and as someone who had made a life in the USA. Though they had never met her, Concetta’s cousins, Maria, Elisa and Pietro, were forever in awe of her.

According to family lore, the first bomb dropped by the British planes destroyed Concetta’s mother’s home. Her mother, fortunately, survived the event, but Concetta’s hope chest was all but demolished. Her mother was able to salvage only the four pillowcases Concetta had left behind, white linen squares embroidered with Concetta’s initials, “C” on two, “I” on the other two.

Shortly after the war Concetta’s mother was ill and, feeling death was imminent, passed the pillowcases on to her deceased husband’s oldest niece, Elisa. Elisa cherished the pillowcases as she cherished the cousin she had never met, washing them regularly and letting them dry in the sun, and wrapping them tightly and storing them away out of the reach of uncaring hands. She did this for nearly 60 years.

Elisa finished her story and, before any of us realized what she was about to do, she handed the two gift-wrapped boxes to Jimmy, who opened them to reveal two bright, white pillowcases, one with a delicately embroidered letter “C,” the other with an equally elegant embroidered letter “I.” Jimmy was visibly moved and, once again, there was not a dry eye in the room.


Jimmy and another 1st cousin-once removed -- and
Maria's sister -- Elisa.


Jimmy and Pietro, his 1st cousin-once removed, and
brother to Maria and Elisa.

We feasted again, but this time Maria insisted on paying for it. She was an old woman. I don’t think she had a job. We pleaded with her to let us pay, or at least help her pay for it, but she absolutely would not hear of it. And again, too soon the evening was over. This was our last evening in Castel di Sangro, our last time seeing our cousins and, as we made for the door, Jimmy broke into sobs, blubbering in two languages about how he hates good-byes, and hugging his cousins as if he’d known them all his life.


Jimmy and our family in Castel di Sangro.

The next morning, after we squared up the bill at the pensione, we were chauffeured by Enzo to the town’s older cemetery, where most of our relatives were buried. “Were” is the operative word because this cemetery is very small and has been around for centuries. When they run out of room they disinter the oldest, most dead remains to make room for the newer, not-as-dead dead. The only marker for my grandfather’s only sibling who didn’t make a life in the United States is a line in a roster of burial entries. My grand-uncle Francesco, who may have gone to the USA with his father, but returned to Italy sometime afterward, died in 1901 in the military as a result of an accident “with a horse.”


Could you think of a better ornament with which to
adorn a cemetery gate? No, you couldn't!

And then we were back at the train station saying our good-byes to Enzo, who, though not family, had endeared himself to us by volunteering to accompany us everywhere, to drive us where it was too far or too difficult to walk, and to explain to the best of his ability about features of the town. At the end of it all, right as I was convinced that he heard the “cha-ching” of the American tourist dollar racking up with every “favor” he did for us...Enzo refused to accept our gratuity for every kindness he had shown us during our three days in town.

We spent the next four days in Rome, four days that, for the experience, could not compare with even one hour we spent in Castel di Sangro; four days in which I found myself regretting that I had yet again shortchanged our time in a virtual paradise of hospitality and kindness and family because of doubt, and because of the fear of changing plans at the last minute.

By measure of dollars, I didn’t really spend much on the trip; we went about it in rather a frugal manner. By measure of other things I’ve done, I don’t consider myself to be a particularly generous person. But I think I made this one count. I know that my father was truly touched by his experiences, truly moved by the connections he had made and by the connections he had re-established, and was truly glad he had allowed himself to be convinced to make the long journey. By the look I saw on his face several times during the trip, I know I really made this one count.