Traveler’s Tales: The European Family Connection

My mother’s Sicilian cousin died last Thursday, five days before the big celebration of his 90th birthday. When my cousin wrote to tell of the news he sadly noted, “this is the end of a connection to the past. Nino waved goodbye as our family left for America,” in 1931.

That’s his grandson in the photo; Nino came to marriage, fatherhood and grandfatherhood late. We knew him because he admired his uncle, my grandfather, another man who lived a long time: to 103 in Grandpa’s case.

This means my uncle is the final member of his generation. He’s only 82, but we certainly hope he’ll live to match the old ages of his relatives.

Nino’s branch of the family did well in Sicily, even as my side moved west. He served in the Army during World War II, but the family survived into prosperity when, after the Allies finish bombing the island, theirs was the only major building standing in Milazzo on the northeastern coast. They opened a successful Ford dealership.

Nino left the army and became a police officer–eventually rising in rank to become the police chief of Palermo, the main city in Sicily.

I have no idea what his politics were.

For all of us, family was key. My grandparents kept the correspondence going and in later years would speak to Nino on the phone. They visited him and his brothers when my step-great-grandmother died and my grandfather had to spend all his inherited lire in Italy, circa 1955.

Nino retired to Milazzo and became a defacto tour guide for our American branch of the family whenever we landed in the home country. He had the route down: the house where my mother and her siblings were born. In the sun-kissed air of an April afternoon, he showed my husband, children and I the seafront promenade he wandered every evening–after we saw the house, the cave where my grandfather acted as a goat herder and my grandmother’s village.

Having a family connection in a foreign country is a privilege. I’ve stayed with relatives in Switzerland, Lake Como and last summer, with my husband’s family in Slovenia. It all looks so different when a cousin can take you to the grocery store, or explain how things are different between the countries. In Slovenia, a cousin took my daughter to the doctor and in translating, saved our sanity.

The Slovenia relatives also have a family tourist route which includes, now, the stump of the tree my husband’s grandfather planted the day he left for America nearly 100 years ago. We didn’t see it on our trip, but apparently there’s a valley somewhere in the country where everyone shares our surname.

I grew up in San Pedro, a community of immigrants, and knew countless people with close family connections to Europe. Foreign tongues flew with ease and stories of broken-English hardship and traveling across the Atlantic Ocean were familiar.

My mother took us to Europe the summer I was 14. We saw a number of countries but the real excitement was reserved for her return to the motherland she had left as a six-week old baby. She, of course, had no memories, but she had language skills from her childhood and was anxious to use them in her emotional homecoming.

We crossed the border from Austria, and in those days had to show our passports. The border guard raised his eyebrows when he saw my mother’s American passport listed Italy as her birthplace. At his nod of welcome, she dropped to her knees and kissed the ground: she had returned.

Italians are like that.

She then gallantly tried to explain to the guard why she was so excited.

He shook his head. He didn’t understand the dialect, it came from further south.

We all were surprised. He was right.

The Italian language is flowing and demonstrative; it rolls off the tongue with a rhythm and melody hard to explain to the uninitiated. Just say the word, “mozarella,” and you can feel the thrill. (Make sure to put a tiny trill on that ‘r”).

We laughed watching my mother use her hands and rolling tongue through the north. She delighted when people understood, and then dropped her mouth with surprise when they told her she must be from southern Italy.

“Do I look like I’m from southern Italy?” she asked us.

How would we know?

When we got to Rome and ate in a restaurant (my father insisted on pasta and red wine everywhere), she did all the ordering and translating. The waiter smiled. “You must be from Sicily.”

She put her hand over the napkin covering her heart. “How can you tell?”

“Your accent.”

When we got to the toe of the Italian boot, Mom bought ferry tickets. “Ah,” the ticket seller said (in Italian), “You are from Milazzo.”

Totally charmed, and the “r” trilled even better.

The final thrill, however, was reserved for the restaurant in Milazzo. The waiter congratulated her on her Sicilian dialect, noting it was old fashioned. “You must be related to the Foti family.”

Her dialect could indicate that? We were amazed.

He laughed and pointed to Nino’s brothers. “You’re with the Foti family.”

We were, and are, proud to be connected to such fine Sicilians and we’re going to miss that special family connection.

Fortunately, we know the next generation, too.

Arrivederci alla mia famiglia siciliana. Lo mancheremo, Nino.