Meet the Family

 

 

 

 

 

It was our mother's dream to travel to the Italy of our grandmother who after arriving in the United States in 1920 kept the connection between her family in Northern Italy and her family in America alive. The oral traditions of her life in the Veneto region of Italy were  shared  between our family in America and our family in Italy over holidays and birthdays, through wars and liberations, at family beginnings and endings with letters and postcards sent and received.

 

An unrealized mother’s dream would become our realty when we traveled to Nonna’s Italy to reconnect with our Italian family in Milan and the Veneto. Trip after trip, year after year we began to discover that Italy was far more than we could have ever imagined.  Now we've come to regard Italy as a faraway friend that we look forward to visiting year after year. And after 20+years and 20,000+ miles traveling, eating, cooking and shopping with our Italian family and friends Italy still continues to engage us in new and different ways. 

 

In October of 2012 we visited Cornedo Vicentino (VI) Italy the birthplace of our grandmother and were able to locate her birth (1901) and matrimonial certificates (1920). The office staff at the Cornedo city hall found the documents in their archives completing a multi-generational family journey that included a Venetian Doge , a farm in the hills of the Vicentino and a town in the US Midwest. Our thanks to the kind and helpful staff at the Cornedo city hall who searched for the documents and allowed us to see the enteries and signatures of our grandparents and great grandparents in the municipal records.

 

In the beginning we were following the unfulfilled dream of a mother who wanted to reconnect with her family’s heritage. In the end, Italy for us would become much more.