Yes, everyone knows I’m Italian. Okay, speaking of truth, I’m only half Italian. Well, according to Ancestry I’m only almost half (48%) Italian. Let me correct that and to be exact, I’m almost half American Italian. And I can thank my father for that.
We were raised knowing we had family in Italy. My grandparents had even gone back to Italy. I thought regularly, but I learned they did not. I have heard different versions of their story. Were they myths and legends?
For many people who have immigrants for parents or grandparents, we think about meeting our family back in the “old” country. Some people actual do it. My Uncle George, my father’s twin brother, and his wife did that once. Their story stuck in my mind, and Jim’s too. So it has been in the back of our minds to go where Grandpa lived in Italy.
On that journey, 9 years ago I started a family FB page called “Balzaranos of the World Unite”. People joined, from all over the place. Yes, many from my family here in the States, but from other countries and lines of the family. Information rolled in, people share their genealogy research info, some posted old photos of family, some shared screen shots of documents and some just like posts they saw.
With all this in mind, a trip was planned for my 50th birthday year, but it never happened. I just turned 60 and again we planned, but again there was a chance it would get cancelled due to illness in our family. Once they were on the mend and stable, this trip was decided on last minute. And we decided last minute to go longer too, so I had 6 weeks of constant adventures to plan out in one month. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to reach out to people on that FB “Balzaranos of the World Unit” page regarding our Italy leg of the trip, until I literally got to where my grandfather grew up, Sant ‘Agata di Goti.
So, the evening of our arrival to Sant ‘Agata di Goti I messaged a person that grew up in the area, and who I talked to (through the Internet) before. I knew she no longer lived there, but I put out a last minute effort message to her to see if there was anyone she knew that could meet up with me.
Fortunately, she not only, thankfully, came through, her Father did, and he is a hero in my eyes. Just writing this warms heart thinking of Paolo. He opened his arms, his heart, his home and his family to Jim and I. I tear up now thinking about our time with him, as I teared up many times that one day. Yes, we only met with him for a day, and it now seems like much much longer. And mind you, we did not speak each other’s languages too! Translation apps were our friends.
We met up with Paolo in the village of Bagnoli which is the part of Sant’ Agata di Goti where Grandpa lived. First, Paolo was not an 80 something year old guy, he looked around my age and nicely dressed. We “chatted” about family, and at some point I asked him, if we were at my grandpa’s childhood home. We were not, so he drove us to another part of the village not far away, parked the car and then led us up an old destroyed road into an olive tree farm. Paolo stopped and showed us where the house once was.
It was torn down. I don’t know why, he doesn’t know why, but there it no longer stood. We’ve both heard different stories about my grandfather’s family, but first let me explain how Paolo and I are related.
My great grandfather, Pasquale and his grandfather, Francesco, were brothers. There were many years between them, with Pasquale, my great grandfather, being much older than Francesco, Paolo’s grandfather. I just saw on Ancestry that Francesco may have been a half brother of Pasquale’s but there was nothing to back that up. So many stories, different stories, some match up, some do not.
Paolo told me that his father, Francesco, was close to my grandfather, his uncle, Lorenzo because they were close in age. Paolo grew up hearing stories of Lorenzo. Paolo’s knowledge of the family is that Pasquale took Francesco to the U.S., but then Francesco went back to Italy, married, stayed, and raised his family. More of what I know of the Balzarano history later.
Back to our day with Paolo and his family, my “new” family. After we saw where Grandpa’s childhood home used to stand, he took us to his childhood home. It was huge, because he said his father kept on adding on it so his family can live close together. It sounds like my grandparents. They owned a big home with at least 2 apartments on the property and I recall family did live in them. Paolo now owns his family’s home and he has plans to bring it back to life, which I love. I mean, the great memories I have of my grandparent’s home are precious, it would be great to still have a place to go to where those memories could come alive again, and dance in my heart.
After seeing Paolo’s childhood/family home, he invited us to his home for lunch. We followed him out in the country driving for around a half hour to where he lives now, Telese Terme. We drove through a large sliding gate into an area that seemed like a business, and then it hit me. I was besides myself, I knew where we were. It was nothing to do with my family or our history, it was only from me doing a google maps search of my last name in the area of Sant’ Agata di Goti. Around a year ago I found Balzarano Suidae. I reached out but never heard back from them. I suspected we weren’t related, but I was later informed their old website service was not good at all and they probably never got my message. Anyway, I could not believe it was Paolo’s business. I had just told my husband, that I wanted to look for it when we were there. And there we were!
Now a step back, the 3 of us went into Paolo’s home and that is when and where I really understood how we were related. My husband drew out a family tree connecting us and getting more information too. It felt good, it felt right. We are family. After that revelation, Paolo took us to downtown Telese Terme to see the sights, which led us to a natural spring located at one end of town. We sat and drank the fresh mineral water. Yes, Jim and I drink the water in most European countries…and we were fine. We continued to “translator app” chat and just relax, until it was time for a tour of Balzarano Suidae.
Paolo’s son, Antonio, who is his partner in the business, taught us all about what they do. Like I mentioned, it is a meat business, half is selling high end cuts of pig. Well, all of the business is all about the pig, only Italian pigs of maybe a certain variety. The other half of the business is curing meat and making of sausage, salami, prosciutto and the such. They do everything naturally and it is a very precise business. Jim was in heaven learning some of the details. I was when we got to do some quality control tasting! Yum, is not even a close description. I have never had such lean salami before! I so wanted to buy a bunch for everyone, but it’s illegal to bring it back. Bah. One day Balzarano Suidae will be famous in the United States, mark Antonio’s words, but first we have to work on the strict regulations for importing meats (without all the crappy preservatives and chemicals in them).
After that we looked through some photo albums, it was lunch time, and lunch it was. I was fooled once again in Italy. Secondo and terzo are real things, its not a lunch it is THE meal of the day. We sat down to a real charcuterie, not board, but a whole table. All their company’s meats, some cheese, tomatoes, olives and bread all over the place. Jim and I ate like fat Americans (and basically we are compared to my slender Italian family). Then I hear stuff going in on in the kitchen and out comes bowls of pasta. And that is when my memory kicked in of when I had a meal with a friends/family of friends back when I was 22 and in Florence, Italy. Our eyes got crazy wide, but of course there was a second course. We ate because were not going to be rude, and yes, it looked so very good too. And it was. Honestly, I am glad I did not go too charcuterie crazy, because after the pasta there was more food. Antonio did warn us though. At the end of the tour, he said, “You have had the American Hamburger, but today I will give you an Italian “ham”burger.” And he did, it was a patty of his quality ground pork. Yes, we ate it and it was delish! And so was the fruit they brought out next. Oh my happy full belly, but not full enough for a bit of homemade limoncello and creamy limoncello with some fruit. We also accepted espresso so we would not fall asleep on the way home. We felt more than just family, we felt special.
Wait, lunch was not done yet. It was not just the great food that made this lunch so special, it was talking and getting to know each other, the laughter and stories. Yes, there was a language barrier, but that does not stop Italians. Antonio, his wife Marta, Paolo’s wife, Noemi, and Paolo’s sister, Maddalena, are now my family. Technically they were already family, but they are family family now. By the way, they were not the only family I met that day, Michela, Paolo’s daughter (and the person that connected me to her father) called in on video, as well as Paolo’s other sister, Silvana. Oh, how even special this made me feel.
Maddelena remembered when my grandparents went to Italy. Antonio talked business with Jim. Noemi told me I look so much like a Balzarano. Marta helped translate. Jim’s was trying to figure out how to get Balzarano Suidae meats to the U.S. I was in the middle of it all, taking it all in, and Paolo filled everyone in what he and I had learned earlier that day about our family.
But there is more to learn. The next morning before we hit the road to the Amalfi coast, Paolo met up with us one last time to show us where our family is buried. We saw where his mother, uncles and father and even grandfather, Francesco was buried in a Sant’ Agata di Goti cemetery. But what about Francesco’s brother, Pasquale, my great grandfather? What happened to Pasquale? Paolo said that Pasquale went to the U.S. and thought he was buried there. My grandfather was born in Italy in 1896. So did Pasquale move back to Italy too? What is his life’s story.
Why didn’t someone, one of my grandfather’s 12 children, write things down? Even though I am thankful I got information from my Aunt Gladys and Uncle George, it was limited. My husband was frantically writing it down as they talked about family. I am happy I got this information and it helped, but at that time, I am changing lanes here, what I really wanted was more information about my Dad.
My father died when I was 4 years old from a freak work accident. I, nor my little brother who was born 3 days after my father died, have no memories of him. We asked siblings and my Mom, but I feel we would just get washed over responses.. Yes, everybody loved him, he was handsome and the life of the party…but what about the nitty gritty of the man who made me. When I asked my Uncle, my father’s twin brother, it was too hard for him to talk about my Dad still around 56 years later. So I will never really know who my Dad was, but what I can do is try to find out more about his family and the past.
Although most of the family grew apart and all us cousins went our separate ways, I feel very connected to the Balzarano family. Maybe not the people per say (love you guys, you know what I mean), but the memories, the immigrant story, the personality, the connection to the “old” country, Italian New Yorkers imagery, and most of all the American Italian-ness of it all.
So getting to meet people in Italy, Balzaranos, my family, was something my heart needed. Knowing some of the stories of family back in Italy are actually true, and having someone to help me figure some of it out was what my always information seeking head needed. Speaking of figuring things out, I want to figure out Pasquale’s, my great grandfather’s, story. We have names of who think his children are, (Lorenzo, of course, Carmela, Victoria and Maria Carmina) and I think a name of his wife (Mariangela Rainone), but from there things are not clear at all. So if anyone wants to help me, please reach out to me on my FB page “Balzaranos of the Word Unite!”
Thanks Mom and Dad for bringing me here. I want our family to live on. It is into the future, but I want the past to come to me now. I want to learn. I want to know.
Thank you once again for visiting
MY GNOME LITTLE WORLD.
The travel Blog will continue with Pompeii, Amalfi Coast, Barcelona, and the Drive across part of Spain, including a stay in Zaragoza. And it will go back to mostly photos.
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My Gnome Little World 