52 Ancestors Week 6: Valentine

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 6's theme is "Valentine." Do you have any Valentines from any of your ancestors? Or maybe you have an ancestor named Valentine. (I remember when I was little being surprised to learn that Valentine was a "boy's name.") How about an ancestor that you wish you could exchange valentines with? Have fun with the theme!

You wouldn't believe the patience needed to draw three concentric hearts.

    I had initially planned to write a sweet blog about how my grandfather, Robert Hamel wrote love letters home to his then girlfriend Natalie Felker during the height of the second world war. Plans changed over the weekend and now I'm going to take this Valentine train off of the rails and take her in a different direction. The love letters can wait another time because I want to talk about the love my great-grandfather, Vincenzo had for his niece, Caterina.

Vincenzo

    Let's go back in time to the fall of 1969. Vincenzo was seventy-five years old and he was invited to his niece's wedding. Caterina was the daughter of his sister, Concetta and Giuseppe Aleardi and naturally she wanted her brother who lived across the Atlantic to attend. What was he going to do? Say "No"? OF COURSE NOT! This is "famiglia" we're talking about here!

        Vincenzo didn't go alone. Along for the ride were my grandparents, Marco Ferraiolo and Olympia Carrabs. My parents would have also gone with them as they were dating at the time. But, things didn't pan out. I believe they were still in college. Anyway, the Ferraiolos first made a stop at my great-grandfather's hometown of San Pietro a Maida. From there they went north to Rome to pick up his brother, Paolo and his family.

    The entire group ultimately ended up in Switzerland for Caterina Aleardi's wedding. It was a magical event and sadly would be the last time Vincenzo ever set foot on Italian soil as he took ill that winter and passed away in February of 1970. Visiting his family one last time proved to be an act of love.

    I'm pretty sure I've talked about this story before. I've heard it from my parents who told me grandma Ollie wasn't a fan of northern Italian cuisine. No surprise there. Her family was from Campania and that's in southern Italy. Northern Italy and the southern regions are like night and day. I've heard the story from my great-aunt who made several trips to Italy herself. Yes. All I had were stories.....Until February 6th, 2021!

You can see my grandparents on the far left! Vincenzo's in the middle.

    Last weekend, I was checking out MyHeritage and I noticed that someone had my 2nd great-grandparents, Marco Ferraiolo and Caterina Coppola in their tree thanks to the "Discoveries" tab. She also had their son, Vincenzo in there. I followed the user's tree down and noted that she was in Switzerland. I was like "Okay. That's cool.". Then, I saw that her last name was "Aleardi" and that her mother was Concetta. The bells in my head starting ringing and I started laughing because just before this happened my father asked me if I contacted any relatives in Switzerland. I told him "Not yet."

    After I calmed down, I decided to message the new cousin using Google Translate. I wasn't sure if she knew English and despite its many faults, Google Translate is decent when it comes to translating Italian even though some of the inflections are missed. I logged onto the site and in my inbox was a message from the lady herself! 

Marco and Caterina

    She said she was happy to contact me and I gave her my e-mail address. It wasn't long before we started exchanging pictures over the course of the weekend. One of the first things she did was give me the picture to the right of Marco, Caterina and one of her cousins. She also sent me pictures of Paolo and Vincenzo's other siblings!

    The biggest thing of all, of course, was how she confirmed the events of the wedding. I mean there was never any doubt that it happened. However, it's nice to have tangible proof to go with the story. I eventually friended her on Facebook and we've been talking almost every day since.

    This is not a bad end result to Vincenzo's devotion to his family all the way in Europe is it? The family didn't stop going to Italy, though as my great-aunt went a few times in the late 1970s and into the 1980s bringing back more stories for my brother and I. Still, I can't help but think of Vincenzo and that last trip he took to see his family before he passed away. He probably had no idea he'd be gone so soon after the wedding. He was going on with his life and in the end showed love for his family by making the trip to Italy. That's pretty cool in my book and now I'm in contact with the family!

   The moral of the story is that family is out there waiting to be found and connections are waiting to be reconnected. It doesn't matter how far away family is especially in this age of the Internet!

Wow. You can really see the family resemblance!