Italian seeds sprouted from the ancestral Lucchini/Colombo-Maffioli tree. Pictured left to right: me, my mom, brother and father.
A golden eye beamed in a marble blue sky over the Port of Le Havre. The morning light cast a net of diamonds sparkling on the water. A French immigration officer stood tall at the end of the dock, reviewing manifest papers on a metal clipboard. Beside him, a young newly-wed couple, the last of the ship passengers, clutched leather suitcases. The officer waved them on board with a tip of a hat, signaling to the captain of La Champagne to set sail for New York on January 23rd 1904.
Alberto Lucchini fixed his eyes on the horizon. A haze of guilt blurred his conscience. Deep in thought, he leaned against one of the four masts on deck. The day of his departure had finally arrived; reluctantly, he carried out the plan, fortunate at eighteen years old to steer west to America where the streets are paved gold-he was told. Reality stripped the roads to rubble; he could not imagine a glistening bounty worth leaving behind his parents. Yet the call of adventure had summoned him on the ocean liner, blowing destiny winds at the bow of Her back. Alberto was not alone on this journey, Francesco, his older brother and friend, Cesare Berra sailed with him on the seven ton vessel to New York, with hundreds of compatriots. With less than 20 dollars and a sketchy address in New York City, the Lucchini brothers and Berra arrived in the Manhattan harbor, ten days later.
This snapshot of my grandfather coming to America plays in my mind, after researching his pathway: an immigration record found on microfilm at Ellis Island. More than a hundred years later, I embark on a long and arduous journey, far beyond the shores of America to the port in France, past the Swiss border to a small medieval town in northwestern Italy. Ivrea, the city where my Italian roots planted and later uprooted, the fateful day Alberto and Francesco left for America. The tree branches of Lucchini and Colombo-Maffioli tossed in a time warp. Oceans spread the divide and the bitter winds of time battered the family bark...
Will the husk pieces, now driftwood, link second, third or fourth generational lines? The ancestral voyage spawns more questions: What will I find in this quest? Were my ancestors also French ? Swiss? Jewish? Anything is possible...
Many years ago, my father and mother traveled to Italy long after Alberto and Francesco died. My mother, a Cuban forced to leave her country when Fidel Castro, a cigar toking rebel championed for change. Shortly after, he turned stone cold like Stalin. Castro touted my mother and her circle of friends as the beautiful women of the communist revolution. She shot down his red canon of sexual advances, and hitched a Pedro Pan flight, abandoning her homeland. Ironically, she fled Cuba the same age my grandfather left Italy, at 18. Not long after, she met my father and translated Italian (similar to Spanish and close to her educated French), traveling with him on a train through the Alps in the Piedmont region.
On a main street in Ivrea, a man at a sidewalk cafe took notice of the handsome couple-my mother and father-and helped them find a Lucchini, a doctor who lived nearby. Unfortunately, he was not connected to the patriarchal Lucchini bough. Instead, the two men enjoyed a risotto meal and a bottle of Barolo, wishing they shared the same bloodlines. At that time, my father did not obtain the surnames from his grandmother's side: Colombo-Maffioli. Years later as a promise to my father, I excavate the past out of the rock and dust of Ivrea, searching for a potential link with the Piemontese Jews from the "Maffioli" side, searching synagogue records in Ivrea. The temple reconstructed after World War ll and another one in Biella, a neighboring town. The whispers of my ancestors are calling me home like a lost Torah.
The washed memory and the death of elderly family members left my father, "the baby" youngest of five siblings, holding a dim flashlight. And still to this day, there is a deafening silence from some, which requires a hefty flood light for this Italian expedition. The ancestral journey has passed down to me, swirling a green, white and red flag mandala in my soul.
The Ghost of Grandfather's Past
The technology available in ancestry searches and having a first cousin who is a genealogy expert held promise, but the trail froze like the tundra in Antarctica. After combing websites, managing online subscriptions, password retrievals and recurrent charges on my credit card, the case nearly drove me insane.
Frustrated like so many who explore the ends of the worldwide Internet for relatives, I crashed into a concrete wall like a crash test dummy. Doubt and fear seeped into the hairline fractures. Is the past warding off collateral damage in the future?
A visit with a spiritual advisor sounded the ancestral call as if a Shofar blasted a ritual of celebration. On the advice of a friend, I booked an appointment with Dave Neal for guidance on another journey: midlife. Surpassing the big 4-0, I was struggling with the paleness of curiosity, loss of spark and yearned for an awakening instead of a nightly buzz found in a wine bottle.
Dave held a temporary office in a back room at a rejuvenation and wellness spa. Ah, the perfect setting. The soothing music lulled me, the smell of eucalyptus invigorated me and the anticipation of a massage therapist running warm hands over me... aaaah, but first, Dave.
Dressed in black, Dave gleamed peaceful, ocean blue eyes as he instructed me to settle on a bench across from him, our knees inches from touching. Leaning over the end table, he clicked the trigger of a torch lighter, illuminating a white ball of wax. Dave ripped out a paper from a notebook and drew my aura, sketching a fountain of light pouring out of the top of my head like Medusa snake hairs. Down below, he sketched rippling waves in the ocean and then small circles on land, which represented people in my life-some dark and some with light. Next, he sketched tall mountains in the background then rested his pencil, flickering his light blue eyes over my shoulder.
Dave kept watch on the back wall as if someone had entered the room; but, the door did not creak open. The room was still and warm. The candle wick reflected a ghostly shadow on the wall. Curious as to what he fixed on, I turned my head and glared at a green and white spiked wig, a spider plant in the corner. Yet someone had entered, Dave reported. Again, Dave shot his blue eyes behind me and started a conversation with someone or something behind me. I froze, transported to the twilight zone, trying to process the level of his sanity and mine.
"There is an old short man standing behind you, sobbing." Dave said. "Michelle, are you Italian?"
"Yes, how did you know this?" I answered, shocked he pegged my ancestry from the Boot.
I did not share my ethnicity with him. For the last 18 years, I've held my husband's Irish-Scottish surname. And, I look Slavic, Russian, a tall blonde with high cheekbones and light hazel eyes.
"Your grandfather is here and he is very sad you don't know his story. You have relatives in Italy and some type of inheritance there." Dave said, the spiritual median between me and my dead grandfather. The hairs on the back of my neck raised. And my gut fell to the floor as if we suddenly lost altitude.
He jotted down some notes and sketched more images on the paper. When the long hand on the clock struck twelve, Dave ended our session instructing me to return to Italy, look for relatives and write the story-a novel or memoir.
But, wait... I want to ask my grandfather questions.
Is there a heaven and hell in the hereafter? Did you reunite with my father? Where do I look for relatives?
Now, this might sound like psychic, mumbo jumbo and you are probably questioning the authenticity of Mr. Dave Neal, but I believe he has a supernatural gift. Chances are, you have brushed past people like him on the street, subway or in a restaurant. They walk amongst us with unique, unexplainable powers communicating with spirits and angels. I never told Dave (nor my friend who referred me) that I was on a soul searching adventure to find family in Italy. Yet Dave became a leading tour guide on this journey. And his Hermesesque message proved to me that he communicates with dead people, ghosts since he was a child. He did not tell anyone, except his mother, until he learned how to use the gift properly, guiding the living on earth. In another session, Dave spoke with my great-grandmother and she, too, claimed there is an inheritance in Italy. Could it be what I long suspected, Jewish ancestry? Since as far back as I can remember, I've always felt a spiritual link to Judaic treasures and the Torah. At 18, my best friend Marci brought me to temple. And it was there, my Jewish soul summoned me to explore the cradle of Judaism as goosebumps crawled on my skin.
In 2009, I clasped the cold metal side rails at my father's death bed. A waterfall of tears streamed down my cheek watching him labor his final breaths. The irony of life and death, both yearn a breathing pattern. I panted Lamaze breaths, hooing and hawing in labor during the birth of my two children. And here, at death's door, a life-my father-pushed out of his frail body in one long, extended breath. The sadistic will of nature.
With many questions left unanswered, I gripped his soft, olive-skinned hands, once strong enough to lift cement blocks. "I love you Daddy... I promise to solve the mystery of your father and replant the seeds of our family tree. My heart raced with the derby promise to unravel the past in the future. Minutes after he died, I felt a heavy presence engulf the room as if a bubble wrapper blanketed a fragile shipment, my father's soul. Looking back, the hospice room was still and warm the day the ghost of Alberto and Anna (my great-grandmother) visited me and Dave.
Before "The End"
In 1942, Alberto Lucchini died when his heart stopped beating in a Mills hotel, a housing block for single men in New York City. Was this "The End" of the story?
Sure, death is the final act for every man and woman to play. Shakespeare would hold a mirror to the afterlife with an epilogue. I certainly hope to pen one on this ancestral voyage.
To get there, I start at the end of one man's life. Alberto was 61 at the time he walked through death's door. Why was he buried in Potter's field- a place where the unknown and indigents were buried? Was he separated from my grandmother? Did he start a new family? Another mystery. Eagerly, I browsed through the 1940 US census once it became searchable. The report documents him as living with his wife and 5 children in Washington DC as the previous population report in 1930, with dueling heads of household: he and his brother-n-law. So why was he alone in New York? And why did he return full circle to the very address where his American dream started on West 36th street?
The eldest child, Aunt June (deceased) mentioned he worked as a dishwasher and later promoted chef at a restaurant in the City and later moved to Washington DC and then back to New York. But, where? Old age stripped her memory; she could not recall. A bulb flashed in my mind: I must travel to the New York Public Library. There, I might find a collection of menus from restaurant and search newspaper articles .
All roads lead somewhere...
After finding my grandfather's immigration record, I ordered his death certificate at the New York County Courthouse that borders Chinatown. The location looked familiar, climbing the steep stairs of the courthouse. And then it occurred to me... a mob boss was gunned down on the concrete steps in The Godfather, symbolizing Michael Corleone reign as the new boss. If my father were alive, I would have shared the famous movie walk with him. The trilogy series was his all-time favorite, including the film sound track. When The Godfather Waltz played at the beginning of the movie, tears welled in his eyes as if he were floating back to his father's history in a small Italian town. While fiction-based, the novels written by Mario Puzzo stirred his obsession with the chronicles of the Italian-American mafia. Most Italians refuse to stitch that Scarlet Cosa Nostra tie with the criminal world. My father proudly donned it, blaming the FBI for "ethnic profiling" Italians, probing business affairs, transactions. A bill of sale, a pure bred German shepherd from the Trafficante family in Tampa once brought the men in black suits to our house.
A certain deal in Italy (like father, like daughter) resuscitated the paper trail after mining a gold nugget: my grandfather's birth certificate dated 1885 from the Commune of Ivrea. Credit given to a dear friend in Rome with ties to the Carabinieri, the national military police force-founded in the Kingdom of Sardinia by King Emmanuel l of Savoy-the same royal authority that once ruled Ivrea. With or without the document, I planned to visit the municipale of Ivrea to search public records. And this by far, was the most thrilling part of the ancestral journey, traveling to the small town where my Italian famiglia started.
Last summer, I walked the worn cobbles in Ivrea, a charming city near the French-Swiss border nestled in the backdrop of the majestic Alps and rolling straddle of the Dora river. The manufacturing of Olivetti typewriters (my father owned a few models) marked Ivrea as an industrial town in Turin and later, a processing board, Arduino invented by a group of computer techies at a university in Ivrea. I would later find out that the founder of Olvietti, Camillo Olivetti was born in Ivrea from Jewish middle class parents; and he was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Biella, the small town where my great grandmother was born.
###
In the centro, center of Ivrea, a gigantic orange rests in the palm of a white hand sculpture on a busy street median. Traffic zips around the circle like Columbus Circle in New York City. Gabriele, my driver drops me off near the large orange-gloved hand. He tells me to walk straight down Via Palestro to Via Arduino. He says, "There you will find what you are searching for." Literally, I thank him a thousand times when I say, "Grazie Millie!"
On the main street, I walk at a tortoise pace, behind an old woman with a tilted gait, as she rolls a cart filled with bread. Scanning the marble address plaques on the buildings, I search for my ancestors, marveling at the ornate iron terraces that overlook Via Palestro. A group of young boys plays calcio, soccer in a public square near a clock tower. Continuing past a row of high-end clothing and shoe boutiques, an air of affluence perfumes the town. Shop workers start to shutter for riposo, siesta time, the mid day break that lasts ninety minutes to two hours. America, the land of the overworked and tired, ignored this old world ritual to digest the mid-day meal then snooze before returning to work. Scores of people dressed in fine clothes flock cafes. A man points in my direction and says, "Look, she is looking for family." Am I that obvious? A manila file clutched in my hands and the Canon camera around my neck most likely gives me away. Or is it the genetic slope of my Italian nose?
Not far from where Gabriele dropped me off, I find a sentimental monument mapped on my ancestral tour: the home where my grandfather was born. On the ground floor, verticals made out of long pasta sway from the doorway, trapping cold air like a plastic curtain in a commercial storage cooler. I push through the long panels and feel my heart pounding out of my white blouse. I'm standing in the building where my ancestors once lived... a pasticceria. Pastry shop.
Behind the counter, a woman stands beside a cash register and rolls dough with a wooden cylinder. I watch her cut and create edible art that will soon bake in an oven. As I smell the last batch browning, my stomach reminds me to fill up soon. I look around for something to buy, reaching for a bag of almond cookies. Handing her two euro coins, I muster the courage to strike a conversation in Italian, telling her mio nonno was born here, showing her the old-style calligraphy inked on his birth certificate.
"Ah, tanto tempo," She says. A long time ago. She tells me that he lived on the third floor, according to what the certificate noted as section C. And this is all she can tell me. She smiled and returned to dusting the pastry sheet. Unfortunately, the top floors were not accessible so I continue outside on the cobbles, marveling the three-story facade at Via Arduino 7, imagining life inside the Lucchini family apartment.
The birth of a baby boy or girl announced on the balcony and the death of a family member posted nearby on a bulletin board. Just a few steps away, I scan the obituary billboard-no Lucchini there- and then stop in an old cathedral preserved from the 16th century. A museum of Catholic faith and sacraments, the likely venue of many family baptisms and... funerals. Or possibly in the synagogue nearby, which was reconstructed after the Facists damaged the building. Subconsciously, I visited that temple in a vivid dream as though I traveled inside a Tardis...
After landing, I looked for ancestors, mulling around the grimy destruction of war as a group of religious leaders pieced the temple together. I found a silver kiddush goblet in a dusty ditch. Picking it up, I carry it to the temple. Inside, a rabbi said, "Wait here. Maffioli, your family is on a scroll and this is your inheritance." Quite abruptly, I awoke from that Dr. Who mind trip. Yet, it unearthed a new path, one that was close at hand yet searched afar.
Standing on a street corner, I map my next move and proceed to the town cemetery near the flushing banks of the Dora river, hoping to find family members on a tombstone. I circle a sea of graves under a blazing hot sun, scanning names and time stamps of lives spent on earth. One tomb catches my attention: Chi be vive, ben muore – A good life makes an easy death. The Italian proverb inscribed on the grave pierces my soul. This is exactly what I want to mutter before my life flashes, "The End". A blunt reminder of mortality.
Alone in a cemetery in Ivrea, I return again to my own movie trailer, climatic scenes surviving Thyroid cancer, losing energy, hope and then, a chance encounter with Doris, a holocaust survivor infused me with the adventure, will to survive. The sound of heavy footsteps halts the memory reel. I crane my neck and look up at a towering, husky man-a ringer for Paul Bunyan. He extends a muscled forearm and hands me a cold bottle of water. He invites me to search for family inside the cemetery office. "Si, Grazie," I say. "Cerco famiglia Italiani." I walk alongside his large frame to a tiny workspace near the entrance.
For a graveyard worker, he is a bright orb, radiating friendliness and extreme patience with my broken Italian. He points to stacks of ledgers piled high on a desk against the wall. Evidence that Italian Bunyan works mostly outside. Together, we flip through the faded yellow pages of the dead, but time clocked me; the cemetery was soon closing for visitors. Siesta and summer hours hamper my ancestral voyage.
.....
As I navigate in a maze of ancient cobblestone streets, I notice a decorative theme: oranges, hanging in baskets and resting on window sills. This puzzles me, a Florida native, the bundles of fruit do not harvest in the cold groves of Northern Italy. And then a wave of nostalgia washes over me, fishing a fond memory of my father. One day after school, he caught my younger brother and I violently pelting oranges at each other in the backyard of our South Florida home.
I remember him sitting us down on a concrete bench that he built. "Ah, the orange doesn't grow far from the tree. Your ancestors in Italy fought in the Battle of the Oranges." He piped a proud brass trumpet. The tune suddenly changed to a clash of symbols and rolling thunder when our strict Cuban mother busted on the paternal scene, scolding our pulp stained faces and juice pressed Catholic school uniforms.
The largest food fight in Italy takes place in Ivrea. The city hosts one of the most famous carnivals, The Battle of the Oranges in February or March, depending on the Lenten calendar, scheduled on Thursday through Tuesday, before Ash Wednesday.
Celebrating freedom from tyranny, the Carnevale di Ivrea dates back to the Middle Ages. As a form of rebellion, the peasants threw beans and then later, stones (save and eat beans) at the feudal lords. There are several origins; however, the core celebration of the orange festival commemorates a woman. Her name was Violetta, a miller's daughter. On the first night of her wedding, she refused to sleep with the slimy totalitarian who created a tradition of sleeping with the town's newlywed women. Freeing herself from the sex act, Violetta sliced his head off, ending his oppressive rule. This bears testament: a woman armed with any object should never be ignored. Once a year, the town elects a young woman to play Violetta, a symbol of freedom dressed in white. The citrus games begin once she passes through the center of the city in a medieval-style parade. The orange handlers, teams dressed in colorful costumes, represent the guards of the duke while others battle for the peasant citizens, pelting arancia (oranges) at one another. The fleshy aftermath from the orange fest leaves the town squares smelling like a giant citrus bowl. Thousands of oranges-400 tons-shipped from Sicily-are squeezed in this medieval tradition. Throwing the fleshy fruit symbolizes the town's rebellious past under many imperial rulers, including Napoleon Bonaparte. And the carcasses of oranges represent the decapitated head of the pervert duke. There is no guillotine wicker basket to catch the fallen heads. The orange- bloody streets are littered then washed down with a snowplow, restoring order to the pristine walks of Ivrea.
One day I hope to throw a few oranges in the ancestral old land, or maybe I will simply spectate the Battle of the Oranges. Note to self: Wear a red beret to avoid getting pelted; a peace sign that you are noncombatant as neutral as Switzerland, the country that borders Ivrea.
Later that day, I returned to my hotel outside of Ivrea, Castello di Pavonne, a popular wedding and romantic venue owned by an Italian family. The medieval castle dates back to the 9th century to the Ottoman and Savoy families. And, the first king of Italy (before national unification) King Arduino lived in the castle. I'm told by the hotel staff, there is a ghost, a mercenary captain who wanders the property crying for his unattainable love for a woman in the secret garden and Roman tombs outside of the main courtyard. From atop of a rocky hill the castle was built on, I marveled life in the village against the backdrop of the majestic crowns, the Alps. The mountain range looks painted in the sky, the air, fresh and intoxicating. After a long day searching for ancestors, I filled a marble tub with hot water and soaked my tired limbs in a rose petal bath. Fortunately, the ghost of Glaisher, the captain did not appear in the master suite bathroom beside the tower.
To Rome, NYC and Philly with Love
After Ivrea, I traveled to Rome. Catholicism flocks me there since the year my father died, in 2009. And in the outdoor playground of sun-drenched piazzas, there is always something new to discover in Roma. Inside the bustling center, the Vatican, a city within the Eternal City, is the smallest in the world and the only township that does not record births. I'm sure you can estimate why.
On the other side of the Tiber River, walking on Piazza Venezia, I marvel at a mammoth monument built as a tribute to Victor Emmanuel ll, the first king of "United Italy". A Roman friend tells me an American soldier in World War ll called Il Vittoriano, "The Wedding Cake". That unknown American solider offered the best description. The marble walls tower like a massive torta in the Roman sky, frosted a fluffy white color. Atop of the cake, army figures mount on gigantic black horses and the candles, Italian flags whip in the wind.
Inside the gargantuan monument, a multitude of exhibits showcase the history of Italian unification preserved in oil portraits and sculptured in bronze and stone. The Roman landmark hosts major art exhibits, showcasing works as grand as Salvador Dali or Pablo Picasso. Entering through a side entrance, I stumble on a small gallery, housing Il Museo Nazionale Emigrazione Italiana. The museum documents the time period when Italian citizens left Italy in the late 1800s to early 1900s. Millions of Italians emigrated to not only the USA- but to Argentina and other South American countries. Fitting, I'm in Italy on an ancestral voyage, watching documentary, scenes of emigration on land and sea. Authentic relics adorn the exhibit as though the gallery were a seaside port lined with stacks of wooden trunks and nautical props rescued from a scrap graveyard. Reflecting on my grandfather's journey, my eyes land on a sketch of La Champagne, the French ship that brought him to America.
At one of the research workstations, I type his last name, Lucchini and retrieve a list of matching surnames with no detailed information as I had found at Ellis Island. Warning, if you don't read Italian, it will take a long time to navigate the database. The software program reads in the country's official language. Then again, the entire exhibit reads in Italian. Ingresso Gratuito. Admission, free of charge.
Several days later, I leave Italy for New York, arriving at John F Kennedy airport with a few more days to explore, dream and discover on ancestor pavers before returning home to Florida. I board a ferry at Battery Park and visit the place where the American dream tolled silent bells of liberty: Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Seeing Her, always tears me to pieces. And I always wonder if anyone else balls at the first sight of freedom their ancestors once awed when coming to America?
Standing small at the base of the Statue of Liberty, I feel the spirit of my grandfather in a light breeze that rustles the leaves in a tree. And again, on the streets of Little Italy from Canal Street to Mulberry. There, I lift a glass of vino rosso in the air at Pulgia, one of the oldest restaurants in the historic section. My high school friend, Mary back in Florida instructs me in a text to say "Ciao" to her godmother who owns the establishment. It's a small mondo after all with the connective theory that we live and walk six degrees of separation. Sadly, the steps in Little Italy are smaller, shrinking after a concrete invasion by neighboring Chinatown and trendy SoHo. Fortunately, the Italian-American blocks still exists for a cin cin, cheers to my grandfather, Alberto and his paesanos who transplanted in New York, New York.
The next day, I ride an Amtrack train to Philadelphia and stroll the streets of South Philly, not for an infamous steak sandwich (I'm a vegetarian) or to examine the crack on the Liberty Bell. This is the city where my grand uncle, Francesco, aka Frank, settled after coming to America and died, buried in Mount Vernon Cemetery with his wife Luisa (birth name: Luigia) and Lucchini sons. Standing before the large tombstone with the Lucchini name etched boldly, I sob in a tearful dichotomy between two Italian brothers. While one fratello lived and raised a big family in the heart of South Philly, helping to build the first Italian-American Catholic church- our Lady of Loretto, in 1932-the parish closed in 2001-his brother, my grandfather walked away from his Italian heritage for mere survival. Like so many immigrants, the family name changed to assimilate in a new land. At that time, concealing his ethnicity increased employment opportunities. And still, he and my father were often asked if they were Jewish first, and second, Italian.
As I follow a new path, searching another surname, Maffioli, I ask myself: Did my great grandmother, possibly a Jew marry a Catholic to protect her family? During that time, the rule in Ivrea changed, post Napoleonic rule. Jews were forced to dissimulate into a pale society. I hope to unearth Judaic roots more than a century later.
On the paternal side, Lucchini changed to DeLucien on paper, the adopted last name sounded French, rather than off the boat Italian. And, there is some evidence that my grandfather spoke French. The town of Ivrea-a province of Turin in the Piedmont region-was invaded by Napoleon Bonaparte. After a decisive victory against the Austrians at Battle of Rivoli, he invaded Northern Italy; the emperor marched with his troops (on a donkey) through the Alps to Ivrea on May 26, 1800. Italy regained control 14 years later; however, the French influence still remains in the region. More translations needed in the record searches if we go back to great-great grand folks. Focusing on my grandfather, Alberto, the name change was suggested by his young bride, Mary Grace. A peal of intuition: her family demanded it. My grandmother was English, encrusted in the Shilling coat of arms. Her fair cheekbones flushed a tinge of pink when she first met my dark-skinned Italian grandfather. The exotic stranger with fiery dark eyes and a no resist, persistence won her heart. Shortly after the courtship, their first child was born in 1918, una principessa- Faerie "June" as she was called- then four boys: Albert, Joseph (decorated WW2 vets) David (a postman in NYC) and many years later, Ronald Windsor (my father).
Pieces of a Genealogical Puzzle
Proving the existence of Alberto Lucchini on a ship manifest, before the name change was the first clue in a complex genealogical puzzle. This document brought bittersweet tears and painstaking relief on a face frozen by the grip of Parkinson’s, twisted neurological disease that trapped my father's Einstein mind in a disabled, stiff body. During one of my last visits at the veteran home, I sat on the edge of his bed and orated a historical tale of fiction, scanning the newly found immigration record. Bounded like a book, the past traveled back to the future...
In a charming town called Ivrea on the foothills of the Italian Alps, there lived two brothers named Alberto and Francesco. Like so many, in post war and famine, they dreamed of a bountiful life in America. After many months of planning, they set out for a transatlantic adventure after bidding farewell to their family, promising to return. The Lucchini brothers braced stinging cold winds as they crossed the Swiss and later the French border on foot. It took many many days to reach the Port of Le Havre, a wharf lined with exploration and discovery aboard ocean liners anchored at the docks. The Lucchini brothers waited on the plank sidelines to board the vessel for New York. Francesco recognized a friend, Cesare Berra from their hometown standing in the crowd of passengers and together the men boarded the ship, La Champagne. Fears of a storm tossing them out to sea, starvation or disease weighed on their mind. They prayed to St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers and found strength in Italian brotherhood. Cesare, a budding photographer, packed olives, nuts and a few other survival items in his knapsack: a heavy camera from his father's photo shop in Ivrea. Cesare snapped pictures of his friends and focused the eye on the bella ragazze who perched nearby on luggage trunks. Francesco yelled, "Basta! Stop, enough already with the photos."
The trio huddled around a small lantern, macho enough to hold each other, or better a lovely maiden girl to keep warm. Card games, a few cigarettes and stories from the pastime of youth corrupted time. A secret stash of a homemade red wine calmed jitters at sea.
Thousands of miles from home, the boys, especially the youngest Alberto thought of Mamma, a difficult feat for a Mammone, mamma's boy to leave home.
After 10 days at sea, images of a brown moss floated on the water in the blue horizon. A passenger shouted, "Terra! Terra! ” Land, land! Alberto clapped his hands and cheered with the others, celebrating their arrival to una terra bella. A beautiful land.
As the ship sailed into Ellis Island, the passengers felt small like ants, marveling a tall, majestic beauty peering down at the ship. Some fell silent- awed by her beauty, a beacon of freedom in a world of the unknown. Maybe she was recognized at first glance, after all, she was modeled after Libertas, the Roman goddess for liberty. The Statue of Liberty , made of steel was a gift of friendship from France. And the French built and commissioned the very ship they sailed on. The serenity of open air soon turned to an impatient chaos once the ocean liner stalled at the dock. The passengers, now "aliens" formed a line like cattle transported to a new land. Loud voices echoed inside the steel confines and poor ventilation on Ellis Island. French, Italian then English reversed, housing a tower of Babel of translated languages. Long wait times, rigorous inspections and medical examinations interrupted some dreams. Alberto, Francesco and Cesare blazed through the golden gates of America, a land of gilded opportunity. Later, they married and spawned American children, sprouting new branches, wilting the boughs of the family tree in the old country. Yet the roots like the soul never died. Centuries later, the ancestral voyage bobs along the Manhattan harbor, Atlantic ocean and the Dora river searching for driftwood treasures. To be continued...
*Interview with Rita Cola/ article published in La Sentinella del Canavasse 7/2014
*Trip to Commune and Anagraphia report 2014 &2015
*Relatives found in Philly and Ivrea
*Search Ivrea and Biella synagogues and cemetery
A golden eye beamed in a marble blue sky over the Port of Le Havre. The morning light cast a net of diamonds sparkling on the water. A French immigration officer stood tall at the end of the dock, reviewing manifest papers on a metal clipboard. Beside him, a young newly-wed couple, the last of the ship passengers, clutched leather suitcases. The officer waved them on board with a tip of a hat, signaling to the captain of La Champagne to set sail for New York on January 23rd 1904.
Alberto Lucchini fixed his eyes on the horizon. A haze of guilt blurred his conscience. Deep in thought, he leaned against one of the four masts on deck. The day of his departure had finally arrived; reluctantly, he carried out the plan, fortunate at eighteen years old to steer west to America where the streets are paved gold-he was told. Reality stripped the roads to rubble; he could not imagine a glistening bounty worth leaving behind his parents. Yet the call of adventure had summoned him on the ocean liner, blowing destiny winds at the bow of Her back. Alberto was not alone on this journey, Francesco, his older brother and friend, Cesare Berra sailed with him on the seven ton vessel to New York, with hundreds of compatriots. With less than 20 dollars and a sketchy address in New York City, the Lucchini brothers and Berra arrived in the Manhattan harbor, ten days later.
This snapshot of my grandfather coming to America plays in my mind, after researching his pathway: an immigration record found on microfilm at Ellis Island. More than a hundred years later, I embark on a long and arduous journey, far beyond the shores of America to the port in France, past the Swiss border to a small medieval town in northwestern Italy. Ivrea, the city where my Italian roots planted and later uprooted, the fateful day Alberto and Francesco left for America. The tree branches of Lucchini and Colombo-Maffioli tossed in a time warp. Oceans spread the divide and the bitter winds of time battered the family bark...
Will the husk pieces, now driftwood, link second, third or fourth generational lines? The ancestral voyage spawns more questions: What will I find in this quest? Were my ancestors also French ? Swiss? Jewish? Anything is possible...
Many years ago, my father and mother traveled to Italy long after Alberto and Francesco died. My mother, a Cuban forced to leave her country when Fidel Castro, a cigar toking rebel championed for change. Shortly after, he turned stone cold like Stalin. Castro touted my mother and her circle of friends as the beautiful women of the communist revolution. She shot down his red canon of sexual advances, and hitched a Pedro Pan flight, abandoning her homeland. Ironically, she fled Cuba the same age my grandfather left Italy, at 18. Not long after, she met my father and translated Italian (similar to Spanish and close to her educated French), traveling with him on a train through the Alps in the Piedmont region.
On a main street in Ivrea, a man at a sidewalk cafe took notice of the handsome couple-my mother and father-and helped them find a Lucchini, a doctor who lived nearby. Unfortunately, he was not connected to the patriarchal Lucchini bough. Instead, the two men enjoyed a risotto meal and a bottle of Barolo, wishing they shared the same bloodlines. At that time, my father did not obtain the surnames from his grandmother's side: Colombo-Maffioli. Years later as a promise to my father, I excavate the past out of the rock and dust of Ivrea, searching for a potential link with the Piemontese Jews from the "Maffioli" side, searching synagogue records in Ivrea. The temple reconstructed after World War ll and another one in Biella, a neighboring town. The whispers of my ancestors are calling me home like a lost Torah.
The washed memory and the death of elderly family members left my father, "the baby" youngest of five siblings, holding a dim flashlight. And still to this day, there is a deafening silence from some, which requires a hefty flood light for this Italian expedition. The ancestral journey has passed down to me, swirling a green, white and red flag mandala in my soul.
The Ghost of Grandfather's Past
The technology available in ancestry searches and having a first cousin who is a genealogy expert held promise, but the trail froze like the tundra in Antarctica. After combing websites, managing online subscriptions, password retrievals and recurrent charges on my credit card, the case nearly drove me insane.
Frustrated like so many who explore the ends of the worldwide Internet for relatives, I crashed into a concrete wall like a crash test dummy. Doubt and fear seeped into the hairline fractures. Is the past warding off collateral damage in the future?
A visit with a spiritual advisor sounded the ancestral call as if a Shofar blasted a ritual of celebration. On the advice of a friend, I booked an appointment with Dave Neal for guidance on another journey: midlife. Surpassing the big 4-0, I was struggling with the paleness of curiosity, loss of spark and yearned for an awakening instead of a nightly buzz found in a wine bottle.
Dave held a temporary office in a back room at a rejuvenation and wellness spa. Ah, the perfect setting. The soothing music lulled me, the smell of eucalyptus invigorated me and the anticipation of a massage therapist running warm hands over me... aaaah, but first, Dave.
Dressed in black, Dave gleamed peaceful, ocean blue eyes as he instructed me to settle on a bench across from him, our knees inches from touching. Leaning over the end table, he clicked the trigger of a torch lighter, illuminating a white ball of wax. Dave ripped out a paper from a notebook and drew my aura, sketching a fountain of light pouring out of the top of my head like Medusa snake hairs. Down below, he sketched rippling waves in the ocean and then small circles on land, which represented people in my life-some dark and some with light. Next, he sketched tall mountains in the background then rested his pencil, flickering his light blue eyes over my shoulder.
Dave kept watch on the back wall as if someone had entered the room; but, the door did not creak open. The room was still and warm. The candle wick reflected a ghostly shadow on the wall. Curious as to what he fixed on, I turned my head and glared at a green and white spiked wig, a spider plant in the corner. Yet someone had entered, Dave reported. Again, Dave shot his blue eyes behind me and started a conversation with someone or something behind me. I froze, transported to the twilight zone, trying to process the level of his sanity and mine.
"There is an old short man standing behind you, sobbing." Dave said. "Michelle, are you Italian?"
"Yes, how did you know this?" I answered, shocked he pegged my ancestry from the Boot.
I did not share my ethnicity with him. For the last 18 years, I've held my husband's Irish-Scottish surname. And, I look Slavic, Russian, a tall blonde with high cheekbones and light hazel eyes.
"Your grandfather is here and he is very sad you don't know his story. You have relatives in Italy and some type of inheritance there." Dave said, the spiritual median between me and my dead grandfather. The hairs on the back of my neck raised. And my gut fell to the floor as if we suddenly lost altitude.
He jotted down some notes and sketched more images on the paper. When the long hand on the clock struck twelve, Dave ended our session instructing me to return to Italy, look for relatives and write the story-a novel or memoir.
But, wait... I want to ask my grandfather questions.
Is there a heaven and hell in the hereafter? Did you reunite with my father? Where do I look for relatives?
Now, this might sound like psychic, mumbo jumbo and you are probably questioning the authenticity of Mr. Dave Neal, but I believe he has a supernatural gift. Chances are, you have brushed past people like him on the street, subway or in a restaurant. They walk amongst us with unique, unexplainable powers communicating with spirits and angels. I never told Dave (nor my friend who referred me) that I was on a soul searching adventure to find family in Italy. Yet Dave became a leading tour guide on this journey. And his Hermesesque message proved to me that he communicates with dead people, ghosts since he was a child. He did not tell anyone, except his mother, until he learned how to use the gift properly, guiding the living on earth. In another session, Dave spoke with my great-grandmother and she, too, claimed there is an inheritance in Italy. Could it be what I long suspected, Jewish ancestry? Since as far back as I can remember, I've always felt a spiritual link to Judaic treasures and the Torah. At 18, my best friend Marci brought me to temple. And it was there, my Jewish soul summoned me to explore the cradle of Judaism as goosebumps crawled on my skin.
In 2009, I clasped the cold metal side rails at my father's death bed. A waterfall of tears streamed down my cheek watching him labor his final breaths. The irony of life and death, both yearn a breathing pattern. I panted Lamaze breaths, hooing and hawing in labor during the birth of my two children. And here, at death's door, a life-my father-pushed out of his frail body in one long, extended breath. The sadistic will of nature.
With many questions left unanswered, I gripped his soft, olive-skinned hands, once strong enough to lift cement blocks. "I love you Daddy... I promise to solve the mystery of your father and replant the seeds of our family tree. My heart raced with the derby promise to unravel the past in the future. Minutes after he died, I felt a heavy presence engulf the room as if a bubble wrapper blanketed a fragile shipment, my father's soul. Looking back, the hospice room was still and warm the day the ghost of Alberto and Anna (my great-grandmother) visited me and Dave.
Before "The End"
In 1942, Alberto Lucchini died when his heart stopped beating in a Mills hotel, a housing block for single men in New York City. Was this "The End" of the story?
Sure, death is the final act for every man and woman to play. Shakespeare would hold a mirror to the afterlife with an epilogue. I certainly hope to pen one on this ancestral voyage.
To get there, I start at the end of one man's life. Alberto was 61 at the time he walked through death's door. Why was he buried in Potter's field- a place where the unknown and indigents were buried? Was he separated from my grandmother? Did he start a new family? Another mystery. Eagerly, I browsed through the 1940 US census once it became searchable. The report documents him as living with his wife and 5 children in Washington DC as the previous population report in 1930, with dueling heads of household: he and his brother-n-law. So why was he alone in New York? And why did he return full circle to the very address where his American dream started on West 36th street?
The eldest child, Aunt June (deceased) mentioned he worked as a dishwasher and later promoted chef at a restaurant in the City and later moved to Washington DC and then back to New York. But, where? Old age stripped her memory; she could not recall. A bulb flashed in my mind: I must travel to the New York Public Library. There, I might find a collection of menus from restaurant and search newspaper articles .
All roads lead somewhere...
After finding my grandfather's immigration record, I ordered his death certificate at the New York County Courthouse that borders Chinatown. The location looked familiar, climbing the steep stairs of the courthouse. And then it occurred to me... a mob boss was gunned down on the concrete steps in The Godfather, symbolizing Michael Corleone reign as the new boss. If my father were alive, I would have shared the famous movie walk with him. The trilogy series was his all-time favorite, including the film sound track. When The Godfather Waltz played at the beginning of the movie, tears welled in his eyes as if he were floating back to his father's history in a small Italian town. While fiction-based, the novels written by Mario Puzzo stirred his obsession with the chronicles of the Italian-American mafia. Most Italians refuse to stitch that Scarlet Cosa Nostra tie with the criminal world. My father proudly donned it, blaming the FBI for "ethnic profiling" Italians, probing business affairs, transactions. A bill of sale, a pure bred German shepherd from the Trafficante family in Tampa once brought the men in black suits to our house.
A certain deal in Italy (like father, like daughter) resuscitated the paper trail after mining a gold nugget: my grandfather's birth certificate dated 1885 from the Commune of Ivrea. Credit given to a dear friend in Rome with ties to the Carabinieri, the national military police force-founded in the Kingdom of Sardinia by King Emmanuel l of Savoy-the same royal authority that once ruled Ivrea. With or without the document, I planned to visit the municipale of Ivrea to search public records. And this by far, was the most thrilling part of the ancestral journey, traveling to the small town where my Italian famiglia started.
Last summer, I walked the worn cobbles in Ivrea, a charming city near the French-Swiss border nestled in the backdrop of the majestic Alps and rolling straddle of the Dora river. The manufacturing of Olivetti typewriters (my father owned a few models) marked Ivrea as an industrial town in Turin and later, a processing board, Arduino invented by a group of computer techies at a university in Ivrea. I would later find out that the founder of Olvietti, Camillo Olivetti was born in Ivrea from Jewish middle class parents; and he was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Biella, the small town where my great grandmother was born.
###
In the centro, center of Ivrea, a gigantic orange rests in the palm of a white hand sculpture on a busy street median. Traffic zips around the circle like Columbus Circle in New York City. Gabriele, my driver drops me off near the large orange-gloved hand. He tells me to walk straight down Via Palestro to Via Arduino. He says, "There you will find what you are searching for." Literally, I thank him a thousand times when I say, "Grazie Millie!"
On the main street, I walk at a tortoise pace, behind an old woman with a tilted gait, as she rolls a cart filled with bread. Scanning the marble address plaques on the buildings, I search for my ancestors, marveling at the ornate iron terraces that overlook Via Palestro. A group of young boys plays calcio, soccer in a public square near a clock tower. Continuing past a row of high-end clothing and shoe boutiques, an air of affluence perfumes the town. Shop workers start to shutter for riposo, siesta time, the mid day break that lasts ninety minutes to two hours. America, the land of the overworked and tired, ignored this old world ritual to digest the mid-day meal then snooze before returning to work. Scores of people dressed in fine clothes flock cafes. A man points in my direction and says, "Look, she is looking for family." Am I that obvious? A manila file clutched in my hands and the Canon camera around my neck most likely gives me away. Or is it the genetic slope of my Italian nose?
Not far from where Gabriele dropped me off, I find a sentimental monument mapped on my ancestral tour: the home where my grandfather was born. On the ground floor, verticals made out of long pasta sway from the doorway, trapping cold air like a plastic curtain in a commercial storage cooler. I push through the long panels and feel my heart pounding out of my white blouse. I'm standing in the building where my ancestors once lived... a pasticceria. Pastry shop.
Behind the counter, a woman stands beside a cash register and rolls dough with a wooden cylinder. I watch her cut and create edible art that will soon bake in an oven. As I smell the last batch browning, my stomach reminds me to fill up soon. I look around for something to buy, reaching for a bag of almond cookies. Handing her two euro coins, I muster the courage to strike a conversation in Italian, telling her mio nonno was born here, showing her the old-style calligraphy inked on his birth certificate.
"Ah, tanto tempo," She says. A long time ago. She tells me that he lived on the third floor, according to what the certificate noted as section C. And this is all she can tell me. She smiled and returned to dusting the pastry sheet. Unfortunately, the top floors were not accessible so I continue outside on the cobbles, marveling the three-story facade at Via Arduino 7, imagining life inside the Lucchini family apartment.
The birth of a baby boy or girl announced on the balcony and the death of a family member posted nearby on a bulletin board. Just a few steps away, I scan the obituary billboard-no Lucchini there- and then stop in an old cathedral preserved from the 16th century. A museum of Catholic faith and sacraments, the likely venue of many family baptisms and... funerals. Or possibly in the synagogue nearby, which was reconstructed after the Facists damaged the building. Subconsciously, I visited that temple in a vivid dream as though I traveled inside a Tardis...
After landing, I looked for ancestors, mulling around the grimy destruction of war as a group of religious leaders pieced the temple together. I found a silver kiddush goblet in a dusty ditch. Picking it up, I carry it to the temple. Inside, a rabbi said, "Wait here. Maffioli, your family is on a scroll and this is your inheritance." Quite abruptly, I awoke from that Dr. Who mind trip. Yet, it unearthed a new path, one that was close at hand yet searched afar.
Standing on a street corner, I map my next move and proceed to the town cemetery near the flushing banks of the Dora river, hoping to find family members on a tombstone. I circle a sea of graves under a blazing hot sun, scanning names and time stamps of lives spent on earth. One tomb catches my attention: Chi be vive, ben muore – A good life makes an easy death. The Italian proverb inscribed on the grave pierces my soul. This is exactly what I want to mutter before my life flashes, "The End". A blunt reminder of mortality.
Alone in a cemetery in Ivrea, I return again to my own movie trailer, climatic scenes surviving Thyroid cancer, losing energy, hope and then, a chance encounter with Doris, a holocaust survivor infused me with the adventure, will to survive. The sound of heavy footsteps halts the memory reel. I crane my neck and look up at a towering, husky man-a ringer for Paul Bunyan. He extends a muscled forearm and hands me a cold bottle of water. He invites me to search for family inside the cemetery office. "Si, Grazie," I say. "Cerco famiglia Italiani." I walk alongside his large frame to a tiny workspace near the entrance.
For a graveyard worker, he is a bright orb, radiating friendliness and extreme patience with my broken Italian. He points to stacks of ledgers piled high on a desk against the wall. Evidence that Italian Bunyan works mostly outside. Together, we flip through the faded yellow pages of the dead, but time clocked me; the cemetery was soon closing for visitors. Siesta and summer hours hamper my ancestral voyage.
.....
As I navigate in a maze of ancient cobblestone streets, I notice a decorative theme: oranges, hanging in baskets and resting on window sills. This puzzles me, a Florida native, the bundles of fruit do not harvest in the cold groves of Northern Italy. And then a wave of nostalgia washes over me, fishing a fond memory of my father. One day after school, he caught my younger brother and I violently pelting oranges at each other in the backyard of our South Florida home.
I remember him sitting us down on a concrete bench that he built. "Ah, the orange doesn't grow far from the tree. Your ancestors in Italy fought in the Battle of the Oranges." He piped a proud brass trumpet. The tune suddenly changed to a clash of symbols and rolling thunder when our strict Cuban mother busted on the paternal scene, scolding our pulp stained faces and juice pressed Catholic school uniforms.
The largest food fight in Italy takes place in Ivrea. The city hosts one of the most famous carnivals, The Battle of the Oranges in February or March, depending on the Lenten calendar, scheduled on Thursday through Tuesday, before Ash Wednesday.
Celebrating freedom from tyranny, the Carnevale di Ivrea dates back to the Middle Ages. As a form of rebellion, the peasants threw beans and then later, stones (save and eat beans) at the feudal lords. There are several origins; however, the core celebration of the orange festival commemorates a woman. Her name was Violetta, a miller's daughter. On the first night of her wedding, she refused to sleep with the slimy totalitarian who created a tradition of sleeping with the town's newlywed women. Freeing herself from the sex act, Violetta sliced his head off, ending his oppressive rule. This bears testament: a woman armed with any object should never be ignored. Once a year, the town elects a young woman to play Violetta, a symbol of freedom dressed in white. The citrus games begin once she passes through the center of the city in a medieval-style parade. The orange handlers, teams dressed in colorful costumes, represent the guards of the duke while others battle for the peasant citizens, pelting arancia (oranges) at one another. The fleshy aftermath from the orange fest leaves the town squares smelling like a giant citrus bowl. Thousands of oranges-400 tons-shipped from Sicily-are squeezed in this medieval tradition. Throwing the fleshy fruit symbolizes the town's rebellious past under many imperial rulers, including Napoleon Bonaparte. And the carcasses of oranges represent the decapitated head of the pervert duke. There is no guillotine wicker basket to catch the fallen heads. The orange- bloody streets are littered then washed down with a snowplow, restoring order to the pristine walks of Ivrea.
One day I hope to throw a few oranges in the ancestral old land, or maybe I will simply spectate the Battle of the Oranges. Note to self: Wear a red beret to avoid getting pelted; a peace sign that you are noncombatant as neutral as Switzerland, the country that borders Ivrea.
Later that day, I returned to my hotel outside of Ivrea, Castello di Pavonne, a popular wedding and romantic venue owned by an Italian family. The medieval castle dates back to the 9th century to the Ottoman and Savoy families. And, the first king of Italy (before national unification) King Arduino lived in the castle. I'm told by the hotel staff, there is a ghost, a mercenary captain who wanders the property crying for his unattainable love for a woman in the secret garden and Roman tombs outside of the main courtyard. From atop of a rocky hill the castle was built on, I marveled life in the village against the backdrop of the majestic crowns, the Alps. The mountain range looks painted in the sky, the air, fresh and intoxicating. After a long day searching for ancestors, I filled a marble tub with hot water and soaked my tired limbs in a rose petal bath. Fortunately, the ghost of Glaisher, the captain did not appear in the master suite bathroom beside the tower.
To Rome, NYC and Philly with Love
After Ivrea, I traveled to Rome. Catholicism flocks me there since the year my father died, in 2009. And in the outdoor playground of sun-drenched piazzas, there is always something new to discover in Roma. Inside the bustling center, the Vatican, a city within the Eternal City, is the smallest in the world and the only township that does not record births. I'm sure you can estimate why.
On the other side of the Tiber River, walking on Piazza Venezia, I marvel at a mammoth monument built as a tribute to Victor Emmanuel ll, the first king of "United Italy". A Roman friend tells me an American soldier in World War ll called Il Vittoriano, "The Wedding Cake". That unknown American solider offered the best description. The marble walls tower like a massive torta in the Roman sky, frosted a fluffy white color. Atop of the cake, army figures mount on gigantic black horses and the candles, Italian flags whip in the wind.
Inside the gargantuan monument, a multitude of exhibits showcase the history of Italian unification preserved in oil portraits and sculptured in bronze and stone. The Roman landmark hosts major art exhibits, showcasing works as grand as Salvador Dali or Pablo Picasso. Entering through a side entrance, I stumble on a small gallery, housing Il Museo Nazionale Emigrazione Italiana. The museum documents the time period when Italian citizens left Italy in the late 1800s to early 1900s. Millions of Italians emigrated to not only the USA- but to Argentina and other South American countries. Fitting, I'm in Italy on an ancestral voyage, watching documentary, scenes of emigration on land and sea. Authentic relics adorn the exhibit as though the gallery were a seaside port lined with stacks of wooden trunks and nautical props rescued from a scrap graveyard. Reflecting on my grandfather's journey, my eyes land on a sketch of La Champagne, the French ship that brought him to America.
At one of the research workstations, I type his last name, Lucchini and retrieve a list of matching surnames with no detailed information as I had found at Ellis Island. Warning, if you don't read Italian, it will take a long time to navigate the database. The software program reads in the country's official language. Then again, the entire exhibit reads in Italian. Ingresso Gratuito. Admission, free of charge.
Several days later, I leave Italy for New York, arriving at John F Kennedy airport with a few more days to explore, dream and discover on ancestor pavers before returning home to Florida. I board a ferry at Battery Park and visit the place where the American dream tolled silent bells of liberty: Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Seeing Her, always tears me to pieces. And I always wonder if anyone else balls at the first sight of freedom their ancestors once awed when coming to America?
Standing small at the base of the Statue of Liberty, I feel the spirit of my grandfather in a light breeze that rustles the leaves in a tree. And again, on the streets of Little Italy from Canal Street to Mulberry. There, I lift a glass of vino rosso in the air at Pulgia, one of the oldest restaurants in the historic section. My high school friend, Mary back in Florida instructs me in a text to say "Ciao" to her godmother who owns the establishment. It's a small mondo after all with the connective theory that we live and walk six degrees of separation. Sadly, the steps in Little Italy are smaller, shrinking after a concrete invasion by neighboring Chinatown and trendy SoHo. Fortunately, the Italian-American blocks still exists for a cin cin, cheers to my grandfather, Alberto and his paesanos who transplanted in New York, New York.
The next day, I ride an Amtrack train to Philadelphia and stroll the streets of South Philly, not for an infamous steak sandwich (I'm a vegetarian) or to examine the crack on the Liberty Bell. This is the city where my grand uncle, Francesco, aka Frank, settled after coming to America and died, buried in Mount Vernon Cemetery with his wife Luisa (birth name: Luigia) and Lucchini sons. Standing before the large tombstone with the Lucchini name etched boldly, I sob in a tearful dichotomy between two Italian brothers. While one fratello lived and raised a big family in the heart of South Philly, helping to build the first Italian-American Catholic church- our Lady of Loretto, in 1932-the parish closed in 2001-his brother, my grandfather walked away from his Italian heritage for mere survival. Like so many immigrants, the family name changed to assimilate in a new land. At that time, concealing his ethnicity increased employment opportunities. And still, he and my father were often asked if they were Jewish first, and second, Italian.
As I follow a new path, searching another surname, Maffioli, I ask myself: Did my great grandmother, possibly a Jew marry a Catholic to protect her family? During that time, the rule in Ivrea changed, post Napoleonic rule. Jews were forced to dissimulate into a pale society. I hope to unearth Judaic roots more than a century later.
On the paternal side, Lucchini changed to DeLucien on paper, the adopted last name sounded French, rather than off the boat Italian. And, there is some evidence that my grandfather spoke French. The town of Ivrea-a province of Turin in the Piedmont region-was invaded by Napoleon Bonaparte. After a decisive victory against the Austrians at Battle of Rivoli, he invaded Northern Italy; the emperor marched with his troops (on a donkey) through the Alps to Ivrea on May 26, 1800. Italy regained control 14 years later; however, the French influence still remains in the region. More translations needed in the record searches if we go back to great-great grand folks. Focusing on my grandfather, Alberto, the name change was suggested by his young bride, Mary Grace. A peal of intuition: her family demanded it. My grandmother was English, encrusted in the Shilling coat of arms. Her fair cheekbones flushed a tinge of pink when she first met my dark-skinned Italian grandfather. The exotic stranger with fiery dark eyes and a no resist, persistence won her heart. Shortly after the courtship, their first child was born in 1918, una principessa- Faerie "June" as she was called- then four boys: Albert, Joseph (decorated WW2 vets) David (a postman in NYC) and many years later, Ronald Windsor (my father).
Pieces of a Genealogical Puzzle
Proving the existence of Alberto Lucchini on a ship manifest, before the name change was the first clue in a complex genealogical puzzle. This document brought bittersweet tears and painstaking relief on a face frozen by the grip of Parkinson’s, twisted neurological disease that trapped my father's Einstein mind in a disabled, stiff body. During one of my last visits at the veteran home, I sat on the edge of his bed and orated a historical tale of fiction, scanning the newly found immigration record. Bounded like a book, the past traveled back to the future...
In a charming town called Ivrea on the foothills of the Italian Alps, there lived two brothers named Alberto and Francesco. Like so many, in post war and famine, they dreamed of a bountiful life in America. After many months of planning, they set out for a transatlantic adventure after bidding farewell to their family, promising to return. The Lucchini brothers braced stinging cold winds as they crossed the Swiss and later the French border on foot. It took many many days to reach the Port of Le Havre, a wharf lined with exploration and discovery aboard ocean liners anchored at the docks. The Lucchini brothers waited on the plank sidelines to board the vessel for New York. Francesco recognized a friend, Cesare Berra from their hometown standing in the crowd of passengers and together the men boarded the ship, La Champagne. Fears of a storm tossing them out to sea, starvation or disease weighed on their mind. They prayed to St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers and found strength in Italian brotherhood. Cesare, a budding photographer, packed olives, nuts and a few other survival items in his knapsack: a heavy camera from his father's photo shop in Ivrea. Cesare snapped pictures of his friends and focused the eye on the bella ragazze who perched nearby on luggage trunks. Francesco yelled, "Basta! Stop, enough already with the photos."
The trio huddled around a small lantern, macho enough to hold each other, or better a lovely maiden girl to keep warm. Card games, a few cigarettes and stories from the pastime of youth corrupted time. A secret stash of a homemade red wine calmed jitters at sea.
Thousands of miles from home, the boys, especially the youngest Alberto thought of Mamma, a difficult feat for a Mammone, mamma's boy to leave home.
After 10 days at sea, images of a brown moss floated on the water in the blue horizon. A passenger shouted, "Terra! Terra! ” Land, land! Alberto clapped his hands and cheered with the others, celebrating their arrival to una terra bella. A beautiful land.
As the ship sailed into Ellis Island, the passengers felt small like ants, marveling a tall, majestic beauty peering down at the ship. Some fell silent- awed by her beauty, a beacon of freedom in a world of the unknown. Maybe she was recognized at first glance, after all, she was modeled after Libertas, the Roman goddess for liberty. The Statue of Liberty , made of steel was a gift of friendship from France. And the French built and commissioned the very ship they sailed on. The serenity of open air soon turned to an impatient chaos once the ocean liner stalled at the dock. The passengers, now "aliens" formed a line like cattle transported to a new land. Loud voices echoed inside the steel confines and poor ventilation on Ellis Island. French, Italian then English reversed, housing a tower of Babel of translated languages. Long wait times, rigorous inspections and medical examinations interrupted some dreams. Alberto, Francesco and Cesare blazed through the golden gates of America, a land of gilded opportunity. Later, they married and spawned American children, sprouting new branches, wilting the boughs of the family tree in the old country. Yet the roots like the soul never died. Centuries later, the ancestral voyage bobs along the Manhattan harbor, Atlantic ocean and the Dora river searching for driftwood treasures. To be continued...
*Interview with Rita Cola/ article published in La Sentinella del Canavasse 7/2014
*Trip to Commune and Anagraphia report 2014 &2015
*Relatives found in Philly and Ivrea
*Search Ivrea and Biella synagogues and cemetery
RSS Feed
