Old Memories and Frittatas | Sicilian Stories
Recently, my mom came to my home for a 10-day visit. At 95 years old, my mother is strong-willed, stubborn, has a mouthpiece that will put any long shoreman to shame and has a memory that is still sharp. Her visit prompted me to probe her family’s history. As I have been delving into my family’s history, I realized she is the only living source that could fill in the missing holes of my family’s genealogy.
My mother, although born in the USA, comes from Sicilian immigrant parents. Her story starts when her parents left Sicily in 1920 and sailed to New York City to start a new life. My future grandmother was 16 years old when she said good-bye to her parents in Ribera, Sicily for the last time and was accompanied by my future grandfather, her first cousin, age 20. He was a barber by trade. They married within a few years of arrival in the USA. First cousins? Yes. This was common. My family tree has so many crossed branches indicating cousins marrying cousins that it is almost impossible to diagram these relationships.
The stories my mom shared with me about her parents, her childhood, her courtship with my father, and her life as a thirty-five year old widow who was left with 3 young boys after my father’s death, had me all tuned in to all the information she was telling me.
One of the reasons (the other reason has to do with food, of course!) I wrote this article is partly to impress upon you to gather as much family information as you can while your loved ones are still with you. It is so important for many reasons especially if you are interested in tracing your family’s genealogy, tracing your family’s immigration to assist you in gathering information for Italian citizenship, and also in helping you determine important past family medical information that might be important to your own health today. The information she shared was invaluable. Some of it upsetting and some of it is very helpful.
She explained that my future grandmother stayed with an aunt after her arrival in New York. She lived in a five-story walk-up apartment on the east side of lower Manhattan. The Sicilian Ghetto. My mom had no information as to how my grandmother spent her days (possibly sewing beads onto wedding gowns and fine dresses) but my grandfather, who stayed with a cousin, worked in a barbershop. After marrying, my grandparents moved to Brooklyn and started a family. They eventually bought a home which my grandfather converted into his own barber shop in the front of the house and the rest of the family lived in the back. There were 6 kids, all trying to behave while my grandfather was working in the front of the house.
I have been an Italophile since I lived in Rome in the early 1960s. I was a Classics major, studying Etruscan archaeology and traveled extensively in Tuscany, but also in the area around Naples. I returned to the states to do graduate work and eventually became a teacher of ancient history and archaeology. But it wasn’t until two years ago that I finally had the opportunity to visit Sicily. What a rich and deep culture — can’t wait to return, once this pandemic is under control. In the meantime I am enjoying your blog and especially the stories about your family. Have you visited Ribera? I just read an article about the place, written in a charming mix of English and Italian: https://www.e-borghi.com/en/village/Agrigento/215/ribera. You might enjoy it.
Hi Nancy, Sorry about the very long response time but I just read your comment about my post. First of all, thank you for reading my articles. I also visit Tuscany almost every year however, about ten years ago I went on a 10 day tour of Sicily which allowed me to make a quick visit to my family’s town of Lucca Sicula where my paternal grandfather is from. I believe I wrote an article about this experience as well. Anyway, you mentioned Ribera and that is where my mother’s side of the family is from. We had plans to go there as well but there was road construction which would have delayed us so we were not able to make it in the short time we had. I need to go back to Sicily . There is so much more of the island I want to see. I’m leaving for Tuscany again in a few weeks but I think in 2024 it will be Sicily again for a lengthy visit. I just loved it!