Italian Roots and Genealogy
The Flavor of Heritage Italian Roots to American Stories
As the new year unfolds, I'm thrilled to introduce our guest, author Diana DelRusso, who brings the rich tapestry of her Italian heritage right to our ears. Embark with us on a heartwarming journey tracing Diana's family roots from the pastoral landscapes of Pacentro, Italy, to their courageous pursuit of the American dream in the steel mills and railroads of Pennsylvania. We uncover the stark contrasts between shepherd life and industrial America, while diving into the intimate struggles, like her mother's fight against tuberculosis, that have shaped her family's story.
Throughout our conversation, we paint a vivid picture of a bygone Italian lifestyle, where the community was central, and life's rhythm flowed with the seasons. We delve into the artistry behind traditional Italian cuisine – a thread that weaves through the past and into our kitchens today, inspiring a new generation who yearns to connect with their culinary roots. With Diana, we retrace the steps of our ancestors in their native villages, reveling in the discovery of long-lost relatives and the enchanting customs that remain unfamiliar to many Italian-Americans.
Wrapping things up, Diana shares her journey into the world of children's literature, capturing the essence of family heritage and the power of language in her multilingual books. These tales aim not just to entertain, but to forge familial bonds across continents. We also explore the importance of maintaining a connection to our lineage, and how these enduring ties inform our identities. So join us as we celebrate the stories that connect us and pay homage to the legacies that continue to shape our lives.
https://dianadelrusso.com/
Often times a small child's first best friend is a cousin.This book is a tribute to cousins.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
As the new year unfolds, I'm thrilled to introduce our guest, author Diana DelRusso, who brings the rich tapestry of her Italian heritage right to our ears. Embark with us on a heartwarming journey tracing Diana's family roots from the pastoral landscapes of Pacentro, Italy, to their courageous pursuit of the American dream in the steel mills and railroads of Pennsylvania. We uncover the stark contrasts between shepherd life and industrial America, while diving into the intimate struggles, like her mother's fight against tuberculosis, that have shaped her family's story.
Throughout our conversation, we paint a vivid picture of a bygone Italian lifestyle, where the community was central, and life's rhythm flowed with the seasons. We delve into the artistry behind traditional Italian cuisine – a thread that weaves through the past and into our kitchens today, inspiring a new generation who yearns to connect with their culinary roots. With Diana, we retrace the steps of our ancestors in their native villages, reveling in the discovery of long-lost relatives and the enchanting customs that remain unfamiliar to many Italian-Americans.
Wrapping things up, Diana shares her journey into the world of children's literature, capturing the essence of family heritage and the power of language in her multilingual books. These tales aim not just to entertain, but to forge familial bonds across continents. We also explore the importance of maintaining a connection to our lineage, and how these enduring ties inform our identities. So join us as we celebrate the stories that connect us and pay homage to the legacies that continue to shape our lives.
https://dianadelrusso.com/
Often times a small child's first best friend is a cousin.This book is a tribute to cousins.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
This is Bob Sorrentino from Italian Roots and Genealogy. Be sure to check us out on Facebook and our YouTube channel and our podcast and our great sponsors Yodoch Vida, italy Rooting and Abiettivo Casa. And today I have a great guest, first guest of the new year, diana Del Vuso, who, besides having a great Italian family, is also a children's book author. So welcome, diana. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2:Hi, bob, thanks for having me and happy New Year to you and all your listeners.
Speaker 1:Thanks, same to you, appreciate it. So the first thing I think to hit on is you're out on the West Coast. So now, has your Italian family always lived on the West Coast? You're migrate out there.
Speaker 2:No, actually my Italian family migrated from Cassentro, italy, to. They came via New York, of course, and they landed in the El Acopa Pennsylvania area outside of Pittsburgh. So they lived on the river, a small steel mill community.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's interesting. So now I don't think they had a lot of steel mills in Italy back at the time. Do you know why they, why they came and how they wound up in that business?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, besides the steel mills, the railroad was real big there. So my grandfather actually worked on the railroad all the years that I knew growing up, and his relatives that let him here also worked on the railroad, so I think that's how that happened. But yeah, so I live there 30, 30 plus years until I moved to California.
Speaker 1:And so so, when they were, when they were working on the railroad, what they, what I work in building, or they just they were, like you know, engineers and conductors and things like that.
Speaker 2:You know they were, I think, the track workers. You know keeping the tracks, you know working well and helping out with some of the trains and in the yard and that kind of thing yeah.
Speaker 1:And what year did they come? Did they come early in the century?
Speaker 2:Actually my grandfather, the poor guy he would get motion from what I'm told he get motion sickness on the boat and poor guy came across three times, brought his family little by little. So the last time he came was with my mother and her sister and that was in 1950. So in 1950, and then 1953, I think he went. May have gone back for his wife and youngest daughter or maybe a relative brought them. That part I'm not clear on. But by 1953, they were all here. Our whole immediate family were living in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1:Oh, so your family came. Your family came late. They came around the same time as my uncle came, who was left by, left there by my grandparents when they came in 1915. So did they talk about? Well, let me ask the question a different way my uncle he had to come through Canada was your grandfather. Were they able to come right in directly into the USA? Do you know?
Speaker 2:I believe so I believe they came right into Ellis Island.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's interesting, because, yeah, I found their ship manifest, which is really cool. Yeah, I have my father's mother when she came. My mother's parents I don't have. But now that's interesting because I know after the war it was tough for people to come in, but maybe they just hit that sweet spot, you know maybe.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I'm not sure. But, like I said, he poor guy. He came across three or four times, so I'm not sure how each trip went. The only one I know really more about would be the 1950 with my mother and her older sister.
Speaker 1:So now? So your mother and all her siblings were born in Italy, then Correct.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm the first generation American here.
Speaker 1:Oh neat. So how old was your mother when she got here?
Speaker 2:It was just before her 15th birthday.
Speaker 1:Oh wow. So did she ever talk about comparisons between life in Italy and life here?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, she, and my mom too. Her story was a little unique, a little different than most, in that she had contracted tuberculosis. I don't know, in Italy or on the boat, I'm not sure, but when she got here it was detected that she had tuberculosis. So she was separated from her family immediately and put into a hospital in Pittsburgh where she lived in that hospital for two years with the nuns that ran it. And so the story she tells me is, her introduction to the US was the hospital and she lived there two years with a bunch of other immigrants who had tuberculosis. She taught the nuns Italian as they taught her English. So when she came out, when rejoined her family in El Opa two years later, she was this teenager, what 16, 17 years old, and she could speak, and she could read, write and speak English, which was really to her benefit.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's an incredible story. Had that happened in the early part of the century, they may have just sent her back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it could have been very, very different. So yeah, I always think about things like that. I think about had she not survived tuberculosis, I wouldn't be here. Had she not been able to stay in America, I wouldn't be here. So things happen the way they happen for a reason.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and when my uncle was coming over, they were supposed to come and one of my cousins she had some kind of liver disease or issue or something like that that supposedly I think came from sheep because they lived in a real farming community and they had to postpone their trip and it was I think it was even touch and go whether she was even that ever going to be able to come here, but eventually they were able to come. Wow, that's exciting. I love talking to people that I didn't realize that you came that recent. I love talking to people that are first generation or because the stories are more current, from the parents and grandparents and things like that. So what did the family do in Italy?
Speaker 2:Funny you mentioned sheep. My grandfather was a sheep herder. He was a shepherd and, yeah, that's what he did and it was. It's really nice that in 2014, my husband and I got to take a trip to Italy and we went to my parents my mother's village in Pocendro, italy, which is in a Brutso and we got to go to her village. We got to walk through the home that she was raised in.
Speaker 2:That was a really cool experience. We got to, you know, see the mountain where my grandfather would take the sheep and all of that. And we actually got to talk to a couple who knew my family very well. The woman was best friends with my aunt, who came across with my mother, so she hooked us up with them and they told us all about their days, you know, with moving the sheep and all the things that they did and how they lived. And when you think about how it's a hard life, when you think about how hard they live, you know they didn't have running water, they didn't have a full kitchen or bathroom inside their home, so when you think about how they lived, it was a really hard life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. Last year, when we went to Malisa and Capricotta, which is one of my ancestral towns, they told us about how the sheep herders would take the sheep from Malisa down through a buttock and into Puglia. And they actually. They gave us a meal similar to what they said that the sheep herders would eat when they traveled, and it was really basic mashed potatoes with lentils and like a sheep stew Right.
Speaker 1:And they said you know, they said what would. Typically what would happen is if there was a lame sheep or something like that, that's what they would eat on the trip.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my grandfather said the same thing, and they would take the sheep over the mountain to the same town. You were just mentioning that. Pull the Polaro. Yeah, so pretty interesting, I mean it's. It was a hard life. My mom talked about carrying the jugs of water on her head from the fountain in the Piazza to bring it home so they could cook or they could wash. You know it was. Then there's that public stream that's still there today.
Speaker 1:There's a public stream where the women would go to do the laundry, you know you know, and I don't think people realize that you know half a century ago that's the way. That's the way a lot of these places in Italy were.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that was 1950 that my mom left. So I mean that's, you know, it's not like it was in the, you know, the 1800s or anything. It was 1950 when she left and my grandmother was still carrying water on her head and and washing her clothes in a public stream, you know. So, yeah, it's nice to see that their town now has full kitchens and bathrooms in their homes. They now have plumbing, running water, they have electricity. You know they have all the modern, they have internet. You know they have all the modern conveniences. But there's still a medieval hill town with a castle and, you know, there's still the old, old buildings and it's just what an amazing experience. I really hope to go back again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's the way we felt and and I'm sure you experienced the same thing that we did. One thing that they still do is they make their own ham and olive oil and wine, and you know I'll buy it in the store.
Speaker 2:No, and you know my grandfather continued that here in the US. I don't know if your family did the same, but my grandfather, his oldest son, johnny, they, and then my, my aunt's husband, louis, the three of them they would. They had a cold cellar in the basement and you'd go in there any given time and you'd have.
Speaker 2:You know a lamb hanging there from his feet or a pig hanging there from his feet, you know, and they're half a cow, whatever. And they made their own wine and they made their own sausage, made their own cheese. I mean it was just amazing. Everything that they did, they can't. They had a huge garden, my grandmother, they all grew tomatoes and we would all help can tomatoes and the jars, and so all winter long you have all this fresh, wonderful food, because they had a cold cellar and they kept all the jars of sauce and all the jars of peppers and everything in the cold cellar. So it's pretty cool. It's a whole different life than what we have today. And you're telling me you don't do that anymore. I do not. However, however, I will say it's skip the generation. My generation, as far as I know, doesn't really do any of that. However, our kids are interested. So my daughter and my cousin's daughter and my cousin's other daughter and there's a few of them that are my cousin's son they still do all that.
Speaker 2:They do all of that and they were either teeny, tiny babies when we were living it or they just know from the stories. They didn't really experience it the way that I did. So it's really cool for them to be, you know, putting up jars of sauce and peppers, roasted peppers and things like that.
Speaker 1:That's so neat. I cheated this year. Not that I've ever made sauce, but I grew some tomatoes and you know some pots out in the back because we don't have a big enough yard for a garden anymore, and so what I did is I peeled them, you know, I put them in the water, shocked them, peeled them and then I put them in bags and froze them. So you know, I guess that's cheating, but and the reason I did it was because when we were in Italy, you know they don't accept for Naples, but most of the places we went they don't make those heavy, thick sauces.
Speaker 1:You know, very simple, you know, tomatoes, olive oil, maybe a little wine and some garlic onion, and that's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, everything is very light, very fresh, very light. I joked that we were there a month and we ate, and ate, and ate, but we didn't gain any weight. You know, just everything is so light and so fresh. And then, of course, all the walking.
Speaker 1:I was going to say you're walking up and down the mountains.
Speaker 2:Up and down the. You know the whole village is on steps so you're up and down steps constantly. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty, it's what an experience. I just keep going back to that. I just it blows my mind.
Speaker 2:We have, you know, thousands of photos that we took. Thank goodness, thank goodness for iPhones and good digital cameras and everything, because we just we took so many photos and we got to see, like where my mom had stomped the grapes when she was a kid. You know she told me so many stories about stomping the grapes and we got to see where that location was and, yeah, like I said, just the, the fountains and the in the piazzas where they carried the water and everything. Just really cool, really cool.
Speaker 2:And, and you know, growing up with having them, having my grandparents and my aunts and uncles so fresh from Italy, they continue to live that way as much as possible. You know, making, making everything homemade, growing everything, doing everything fresh, putting that pig or that lamb on the spit, you know, at the family reunions and stuff, and it was a wonderful way to grow up. Every Sunday, at Grandma's house for dinner, all 50 of us. You know we had grown and expanded. There's at least 50, 55 of us every Sunday at their house for a big meal and to just, you know, be together and yeah, great memories.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, that's one of the reasons why I do this, because we need to keep these stories and memories alive. I grew up not quite the same. They still weren't making, you know, curing hands and all that kind of stuff. But you know, going to my grandmother's house, especially on her birthday, there'd be 100 people there and my uncles would all be cooking and things like that. And I think I said this before we were in my mother's hometown this past year and one of the staples that we had in the summer barbecues was something called chivalat, which was it's a lamb sausage with cheese and parsley. And you know, I kind of grew up on that. And when we were there in my mother's hometown I said we're in a restaurant. I said did I have the chivalat? And they said, well, I'm not sure, we'll have to ask. And they had it and it tasted nothing like what I grew up on.
Speaker 2:It was just so, so much better. Oh yeah, I grew up on lamb too and I love it. Leg of lamb, lamb in the sauce, you know I love it. We were at a restaurant in a bruceau somewhere and I ordered a pasta dish with a lamb sauce and, oh my goodness, just melt in your mouth. It was just delicious and, like you said, everything was so light, though nothing heavy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's funny. And I think it was the last trip where I think my daughter wanted to know if we were going to have Federcini Alfredo, maybe when we went with her. Yeah, when we went with her she didn't come this last trip and I said that's, they don't have that in Italy. She thought she was going to have the best Federcini Alfredo she ever had Right right.
Speaker 2:No, that's an American dish, I know.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I read somewhere that some you know some restaurants, I guess you know, in the big cities, like maybe Rome and Naples and places like that. You may be able to find that they will have come up with something similar. But yeah, it's, it's. It's funny because I think somebody mentioned that you know, Italian Americans are looking for it on the menu with chicken, parmesan and things like that.
Speaker 2:Oh, right, right, yeah, I know, I know. Yeah it's, I think, for anybody who. I've only been there the one time, so anybody who goes to Italy for the first time has kind of a eye opener, you know, as to what is a true Italian dish and what is not. Yeah, and of course their pizzas are different as well.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. Yeah, my wife's not crazy about the pizza, Although this last trip in Naples we did. We found one that we we really enjoy, but it is. It is different. But you know, I think, I think that strikes me more than anything else. Over there is the taste of the olive oil. It tastes nothing like the olive oil, nothing crappy olive oil that we get.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, I know my grandmother and my aunts they all had. They had their olive oil and they got imported Italian olive oil. That's all they would use, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can't say that, I can't say that I blame them. So now, when you went to the, when you did go to the hometown, did they know you were coming? Are you kind of surprised, everybody, or?
Speaker 2:Well, I don't really have family there, but, like I say, my my aunt was still alive at the time, in 2014. And she contacted her best friend that she grew up with and her and her husband were in their 80s, and so they welcomed us and to us that, to me, that was closest to family, you know, and they were amazing. They were. I felt like I was sitting at my grandparents table, you know, and we had lunch with them. We got to have a nice visit, we had a translator, and then I met a girl from Jersey, actually, who her name is Laura Lucci I'm going to plug that in case she listens in. Her name is Laura Lucci. She's from Jersey, her family's from Jersey, but she would go back to Potendra every so often to visit her grandmother and she met her husband there. So she got married and she's living there and they're raising two daughters there. And when I was there in 2014, she had been there 10 years already, and so she became our guide in our translator the whole week that we were there, which was really, really nice and yeah, that was pretty amazing. I was so grateful to have that kind of person there to translate and and really be able to connect with that what we would consider family, and that was really all we had Now since then.
Speaker 2:Very recently, through my book and through the Italian Facebook pages and the Potendra Facebook pages, a woman reached out to me and it turns out that she's my age and her and her mother. They live in Ohio. You know which they lived, I found out they lived 10 and 15 minutes from my daughter. So that's exciting. I'm going to hope to meet them in June, but it turns out that they are somehow distantly related to my family and that her mother grew up right next door to my mother in the village. So it's been a really cool connection and it's been really fun to talk with them, especially her mother, and to hear her talk about the same kind of stories my mother had and talk about the village. Now that I've been there, I can, you know, imagine it all and see it all. So that's been a very nice experience and that has really just happened in the last two to three months.
Speaker 1:So during that trip did you go to, like some of the big cities too in Italy?
Speaker 2:We did. We were there almost a month. We, of course, we toured Rome a couple times. We toured Florence. I planned the whole trip myself. There was no tour guides, there was no anything like that. I did the whole thing with research online myself and I booked all the B&Bs myself and so we did it and I booked all the drivers and the translators myself. So it was a really freedom kind of a trip where we got to do what we wanted whenever we wanted. You know, we went to Cortona, we went to San Yamyano, we went to all these different hill. I'm mostly interested in the hill town villages. I'm mostly interested in the local people and getting as close to the local people as I can. I'm not really into the big cities or art galleries or the churches or all that stuff. We did go in a couple churches and art galleries. We did have that experience, but my majority of the time for me was to go to the hill town villages and be near the people. You know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the reason I asked was when you're in, at least for me anyway, when I was in the big cities, you feel like a tourist. Exactly when you're in the hometowns or those small places you don't.
Speaker 2:You feel like family. They make you feel like family, they welcome you. Every cab driver my husband would tell him that my family was from a Brutso and we immediately became like their family. They were driving around instead of their fare, you know. So, yeah, it was really cool. But you're right, that's very true, you're just one of the masses in the big cities, absolutely. We did spend a little time. We spent a week up in Portofino. We did the tour of the Chincaterra, we took the boat and went on to three of the villages of the Chincaterra. So that that was touristy and that was kind of fun.
Speaker 1:But yeah, and you know it is nice to do that, but I tell everybody, you don't, you don't feel Italian in those places. When you go to, when you go to the small places, especially if it's your hometown, you know you feel Italian and and they treat you like an Italian.
Speaker 2:They do, surprisingly, they treat you like family, yeah, and you can feel your roots. You know, I felt my mom has passed my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, everybody's passed and so I felt them all there. You know, I totally felt their presence the whole time. I felt like they were leading us to see the different things that my mom told me about as a child that, you know, I had no idea that I would get to see where she lived. I had no idea I get to see where she stomped the grapes. You know, I had no idea we we get to experience those kinds of things. But everything fell into place and everything just happened naturally. And I feel like she was she was really guiding us through that.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and I believe that I think there are guides out there. You know, some people think I'm crazy, but there's, there's too many things that just happen that that can't just be a coincidence.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And and, and you know, and I, I think the the ancestors want you to be found. So now I'm I'm gonna assume that your family was probably in this town for hundreds and hundreds of years we we able to get back far.
Speaker 2:Well, well, that is still the mystery. I again, I plan the whole trip myself online and I found a company that helped me with the genealogy. So when we got to my mom's village, our translator took us right to their commune kind of like their county courthouse, if you will and we they had seven documents ready for me. So I purchased seven documents and they were all first certificates and marriage certificates of my grandparents and my mom and my aunts and uncles, and so out of those seven they all go back. I got to go back two generations that I had never heard the names of. So that was exciting. So my three time great grandparents. I got to go back and um on my grandfather's side, and they all show the same village, they all show born in the same village.
Speaker 2:But this woman that I recently met that I was telling you about, she said that she thinks they actually originated from that town on the other side of the mountain where they would bring the sheep. You mentioned that town. It's Palo, palanto or I can't remember name of it. But so she thinks that that's where they originated, because when we went to the cemetery we looked up all the ancestors in the cemetery. We could find very few Del Russo's, and so that's always been the question like, hmm, okay, if we can't find any more Del Russo's going back any further than where they come from, you know? So I'd like to research that and dig a little deeper on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would be interesting to find out. You know, my, my mother's family always said that they were from Barri, which which they were kind of, but actually from the town in Barri called Tirito. But then, as I was able to research further back, I found out that my grandfather's family was actually from another small town, that would even Del Afante, but I don't know how and and it's it's not that far away from Tirito, but you know, by donkey it's pretty far yeah yeah, yeah, so I don't know how.
Speaker 1:You know where they met, how they met. I mean, I know they were all farmers, but you know how did they wind up one person from this town and you know the, the man from one town and the woman from another town, how they hooked up.
Speaker 2:Well, according to this woman that I just met, it was the way they moved the sheep. So the way they moved the sheep they'd go from town to town, you know, in the winter they'd get the sheeps. They get the sheep out of the mountains and bring them into town or whatever, where they'd sell them in another town. So she said that they would. They would move the sheep from town to town, which my grandfather did tell me that. So that's how she's saying that she thinks the first Del Russo man came to Potendro. So you know who knows, but that's he sounds kind of logical, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that makes sense Now. The were they impacted by the war at all? The the very much so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very much so. The Germans came to their hilltown village and tried to make us like a stand there or whatever. They chased everybody out of town. From what this woman was just telling me, recently my mom's stories were this woman was about three to four years older than my mother, so I think that's why she probably has a little clearer memory. My mom is a little confused about some of it, but my mom had told me that her biggest memory was the Germans were there and her and her sister were hiding in a in a pile of hay under the hay and the Germans came with a pitchfork and they were looking for anybody in the hay and just as the pitch you can see the pitchfork in front of her that German got called out.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And so he was called out of the area. Now I didn't know where this took place, I didn't know where she was talking about. Well, then this woman told me that there was a barn, a makeshift shack, if you will, kind of barn up in the mountains where they would take the sheep in the bad weather. So when they had the sheep up in the mountains in the bad weather, the shepherds could go in there, duck out of the weather for a while, have their lunch or whatever. So that's where her grandfather, or her father and my grandfather took all the kids. So that's where they went. And she said that's where we were. We were all under the hay, your mother, her sisters, myself, my sisters. We were all under the hay, we were all hiding. And that's when the Germans came with the pitchforks and they were called away before they were all discovered. So yeah, pretty wild that she was able to, you know, concur, confirm some of those stories.
Speaker 2:My grandfather told me a story about how the Germans wanted him to fight with them and he would not. He refused. So all the farmers who refused were thrown in a pit and he said that they were in this pit for a long time. Now I don't know anything more about that. This woman didn't remember anything about that, so I don't know how long they were in this pit. How are they retreated? My grandfather spoke mostly Italian, a little bit of broken English because of working on the railroad, so I grabbed what I could from his stories. I couldn't understand it all. Unfortunately I never learned to speak the language which I take myself every day now. My grandmother spoke basically Italian, couple of words here and there of English, but all of my aunts and uncles, they all spoke broken enough to communicate and of course, my mother probably had the best English of everybody.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and so your grandfather, as far as you know, didn't have to go into the Italian army during that.
Speaker 2:No, he never did. According to the whole family he never did. I don't know what happened. I don't know how that worked out. Obviously, he stayed alive, so I don't know.
Speaker 1:Well, it could be similar to my uncle, because my uncle had served in the Italian army before the war and then by the time the war broke out, I think he already had. He had at least two, maybe three children, so he was exempt. Okay okay, and so you know your grandfather may have fallen into a category like that, or maybe they considered, you know, because they were either farmers or sheepherders, that they needed the food for the army and things like that.
Speaker 2:so they let those people do what they wanted to do. Yeah, I wish they had more, I wish I knew more, but yeah, could be either one.
Speaker 1:yeah, but my uncle didn't have to go, he didn't have to go back in. I have pictures of him in uniform, probably from I wanna say it was probably the mid-30s or something like that, maybe even earlier than that. And my cousin told me because she was probably she's 92, I think now, so probably around the same age as your mom, roughly, and she's my oldest cousin. She's still alive. And she told me that when they were bombing body that my aunt would gather all the kids up and they would run into the fields outside of the town and I guess they figured that they would bomb the town, but that town was so small they weren't interested in the town, they were interested in bombing the port. But then she remembered when the Americans came. The Americans and the British came and telling on the black market.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's. The stories are just sometimes too much for us to even comprehend. We can't imagine. Yeah, no, I know, I know Can't imagine a war happening right in our backyard, right in our town.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I see you have your book behind you. My cousin's, my friends and I can relate to that, but why don't you tell everybody why you wrote the book and what it's about?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I've been writing since I was a kid, in junior high school, and my mother's probably been my biggest supporter, biggest fan, and she always told me you need to make books, make books. And I had a couple of books that I had made but didn't do anything with them. And then, when my mom was sick and passing away in 2005, she made me promise that I would make my books. So I've published nine since then. Since 2007, I've published nine books.
Speaker 2:This one obviously celebrates our heritage, and this thing happened because my granddaughter one of my granddaughters who lives here in California. She doesn't really know all her cousins because they're all over the country, right, and the last time she had seen them all she was just a little girl, maybe, you know, first, second grade, something like that. So she was in about fifth or sixth grade and she said to me I wish I knew all my cousins. You know, I wish my cousins were my friends and that kind of thing. So we kind of got into the conversation about the genealogy, about the roots, about how we can be cousins but live far away, you know, things like that. So that's where the idea came from and I always knew it was gonna be English and Italian in my heart because of my heritage, and I figured okay, well, you know, I have a big Italian family. Nobody else likes the book or buys it. My family will, my cousins will buy it. I have a lot of cousins, you know. So that's why I did it in Italian.
Speaker 2:Well then, talking to other authors and talking to other friends, they said you should do offer the book in not just Italian but other languages. So the book does come. Now it does come in four different languages. So there's a straight English version, there's a Italian English, spanish English and French English and, honestly, the biggest seller to date is the Spanish. There's a lot of Spanish families out there, just like the Italian heritage. They're proud of their heritage. They have a lot of cousins as well. So it's been very warmly received and I'm so happy about that.
Speaker 2:What I like about the book is the way we did it. Every page I don't know if you've had a chance to look, but every page has the verse in English and Italian or English in the second language. So it's a fun way to kind of learn the language a little bit, learn the words. It's a fun way to teach the kids, you know nonna, or for grandma, or the different words. So it's been fun. And then I found a wonderful illustrator. I had found some pictures on the internet that I like, that match the story perfectly. But you can't just take those pictures off the internet. So I had an artist who recreated, through paintings, those pictures, and so her paintings are in the book.
Speaker 1:So Very nice, yeah.
Speaker 2:And the whole thing is, you know, it's based on family roots. So it's based on the story goes about. It talks about the roots of the tree and we are all, all of our families are a branch on the tree and we are all leaf on that branch, you know, and how we expand, how we grow. And then it talks about how the wind blows the leaves off the tree and so we scatter and sometimes families move all across the country or across the world and we scatter, but then the leaves sometimes get blown back to the base of the tree and huddle around the tree and that's like a family reunion, when we all kind of come back together. So it's, I think, a very simple and easy way and easy way for a child to comprehend their roots and their family that they may not see or know in person. So that's the story behind the story.
Speaker 1:That's so cool and it's like an art book too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is. The artwork is very nice so it's very colorful and it's all done a lot with the fall leaves and that kind of thing, so it's kind of seasonal too. So it's yeah, it's a fun book. It's fun having it in different languages and see the amount of community and people that are created with it. You know coming together for the different languages as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like you, I'm so bummed that I didn't learn Italian. I mean, I tried. I was taken a little bit in college at one point in time, but now my daughter, she's a nurse in Texas, so she's learning Spanish through Duolingo.
Speaker 2:And I'm trying that.
Speaker 1:And actually out of everything I've tried so far, it's the most engaging. So, I could order a pizza now in Italian and say whether my next door neighbor is uh nice or shy.
Speaker 2:So that's awesome, my mom always my mom always felt bad because she lived in California as well the last years of her life, and she says you know, if you don't use it, you lose it. And she didn't have anyone in California to speak Italian to her. You know, her family were all back in Pennsylvania, in Michigan, and so she didn't have phone calls with them and they would break out of English and break into Italian to communicate with each other, just to remember it, and so they didn't forget it. You know that was they didn't want to, they didn't want to forget their home language.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I don't, I don't blame them, and they were probably speaking dialect too. They probably really weren't, they were, they were speaking dialect from Pretendro.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely yeah. And I noticed that when my husband and I went to Italy too, you know, we started in Rome, we flew into Rome, we stayed at BNB there and really nice people, Some of them spoke Italian, some of them spoke like a broken English we were able to communicate and I noticed that the dialect was real close, you know, because we're not far from Rome, so real close. But once we got into a Brutso the dialect got closer. And then once we got into the village that I was home, that was it. That was sitting around Grandma's table. You know, every that was word for word, syllable by syllable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, and it's, and it's funny because we, when we were in my mom's home village, they were speaking Italian and but just over Christmas, one of the people that we met there, rocco, he was sending me some videos of the local, you know, feast before Christmas, oh, yeah, 23rd.
Speaker 2:These are the seven fishes.
Speaker 1:Well, actually there they have this thing. They're a different one the night of the bakers, or baker's night which is December 23rd.
Speaker 1:I don't know the whole story behind it, but the only thing I could figure out is the bakers probably baked all day on Christmas Eve or baked all night the 23rd. But anyway, this, this procession starts with with a man you know an older man yelling a very high, very loudly, you know announcing something in Italian. I guess that you know something about the bakers, or whatever. And as soon as I heard that, I was like that's my grandparents, that's the way my grandparents talk, yeah. Yeah, isn't that what it wasn't Italian.
Speaker 2:Well, it was their own dialect, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, their own dialect, and they say Italian, say they can tell where each other is from based on that dialect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and the and the driver was. He was from Puglia, so he was. You know, he would say something in Badaeus and then say it in Italian, and it wasn't even close. It wasn't even close. So before we go, I want to ask you now have you researched your husband at all? Has he researched anything?
Speaker 2:My husband's family, his, he has a cousin. He lives in Las Vegas and we spoken to him a few times. He's come to visit and he has done extensive genealogy, um, on my husband's mother's side on on his, on his mother's side. So they've done extensive. As far as we know, his sister was the last one to do genealogy on his father's side. However, she passed away a few years back as well.
Speaker 2:Um, but what he, what he remembers from that is that somehow they were traced back to the Vikings. Um, his last name is Barnard with a V, so, um, apparently they're. They've got Pennsylvania, dutch in them. Um, they've got, um, I think, irish. They've got a bunch of different nationalities in there, but, yeah, they were shipbuilders. At one point. You know, way back in the early days, they were shipbuilders and so, yeah, there's not a whole lot that we know, but, um, yeah, and then my, my biological father, was born in America, but his family is from Italy as well. Uh, his parents and his oldest brother, uh, there were nine siblings, but his, his oldest brother, was the only one born in Italy, and then they made their way to the U? S, so, uh, and they were from, um, calabria.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I have some. I have some from Calabria too. Um, well, send me your husband's stuff I'll take a look at because I could trace back to my paternal grandmother, back to to Rolo, the Duke of Normandy direct line. Wow, yeah, Because, because she was from a noble family, Um it, what's interesting about about Rolo and Ragnar, is that, you know, for anybody who's listening that's familiar with the show, the Vikings they weren't brothers. Uh, in fact, they may have even lived at different times and they're not even sure if Ragnar was actually a real person or at all. Oh, wow, His sons were, so that they could historically although they don't portray them historically correctly in in the Vikings. Um, but his sons were real. Most historians are most genealogists that that trace, that believe that Ragnar was not a real person, that he was probably, you know, more than one person. Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:Um interesting. Yeah, yeah, and but they definitely weren't. Even if he was real, they definitely. Well, rolo and him weren't brothers. Rolo was the Duke of Normandy, like they show in the, the movie. I didn't realize that William the Conqueror was a descendant of Rolo, the Duke of. Normandy. Um, so you know, when you start getting into that European, when you start getting into those European families, everybody's connected to everybody in some sort of way, because it was all a power struggle, right so they go, they go Well even here today, you know, even in our lives today, here in California, there's varners everywhere.
Speaker 2:And my husband was in real estate with me for 20 years and we'd run into people all the time and they'd say oh are you related to so-and-so varners and so-and-so varners.
Speaker 2:And my husband would say I don't think so. You know I don't think so Because as far as he knew, the only varner family he had were in Washington State or Oregon, not so much California or you know this way. So who knows, you know, who knows, we never. Like I said, he never really did. His sister did a lot of genealogy but we don't have any of that information.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it will be. If he wants to submit some things, I'll take a look, because my ex-wife was she. Her family grew up in New York and I was able to trace her family back to England and Germany and Dutch and her families going back were very, you know, prominent people in New Amsterdam. You know New York way back when. And they owned tons and tons of property. I mean throughout Long Island and New York City, and I don't think she ever knew it until I, you know, until I told her so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're like which generation dropped that fall? We should have passed all the property down.
Speaker 1:Believe me, my cousin in Italy, my fourth cousin, chinsy, was still trying to figure out how to get back the land for my third great grandparents Because they owned. They owned at least at least six houses in six different places in Italy that we know of. Wow. So they were very, very well to do, and that's my grandmother's father's side, my grandmother's mother's side. My ninth great grandfather owns, or was lord over, much of what's Campania today.
Speaker 2:Wow. You know, but there's no jewels there's no castles. There's castles, but we don't own them.
Speaker 1:Wow, unfortunately, unfortunately, that's what my wife kept saying. How come you don't have any of this stuff? I think I know.
Speaker 2:You had a look pretty hard to find it too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my grandmother's, let's see my grandmother's grandfather apparently like women and gambling a little bit too much. But you know all of these things, even like, today, the Kennedys. You know everything gets watered down unless yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. Something else happens. You know the Rockefellers, I mean, they're not what they used to be, as far as you know. So all those families and somebody else takes their place, right? I don't think either one of us has taken everybody's place, but no, no. Nice to think about.
Speaker 2:No, but I am so proud to be the granddaughter of a sheepherder, a farmer in that, the way that he lived, you know, and the kind of man that he was, I'm so proud. And one of the real quick story for you when Rick and I were in Italy, my husband and I went to Italy in a Brutso. We did have a guide for a couple of days that showed us all around and he took us to a farm it's one of those where you farm to table kind of things. So we went there, for it was closed that day but he opened it for us and we were there and we were like royalty and we had the whole restaurant to ourselves and we had this wonderful, you know, eight course meal. That was amazing.
Speaker 2:And after it was all over, the owner came out from the kitchen and the guide knew him very well. So he introduced us and when he told this gentleman that my grandfather was a sheepherder in a Brutso, this guy, you know, he just grabbed my hand and he, in Italian, if it was translated for me in Italian he grabbed my hand and he said he was an honor to have me in his restaurant, that the sheepherders are the I can't remember the words now the sheepherders, like the core of the earth, like they were the you know, they were the most important. They provided the food, they took care of the food, they provided the food. So he went on and on and I just we took pictures of everybody we met we took a picture with and we forgot to take a picture with him and I have to go back just to get a picture with this person. I mean, he was larger than life, he was a big, big, big man and he was just.
Speaker 2:His eyes had so much warmth and love and just made me feel like family and made me really feel my grandfather in that moment and how special my grandfather was, you know so, and all the farmers and all the sheepherders, and so, yeah, that was pretty cool, that was.
Speaker 1:You know, that's the point. That's what people don't get they when they say they want to go to Rome or they want to go to this place. That's the experiment. We had the same thing when we went to Rito, the they didn't know his friend.
Speaker 1:They knew my grandmother's house, my grandparents house, where my uncle lives. The priest spent like two hours with us in the church just showing us around the church and telling us about the church and they have the same stress in, you know, cloth costumes that are 200 years old, that you know these are the same saints that they bring to the street and you know giving you the history. But you know I'm glad you mentioned that because you could see the warmth in everybody's eyes how genuine.
Speaker 1:They are Right. You know that they thrilled that you've taken the time to go back to the hometown of your. You know your grandfather, your grandmother, that absolutely thrilled about it.
Speaker 2:They are. They're so happy that they're not forgotten.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:They're happy that their hard lives, their very difficult, hard lives, are appreciated and respected and remembered. You know, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And those people weren't sissy. You know, like I said, they you know washing the clothes and the thing I mean, even today, when you go to Naples and you see the clothes hung out on the windows you know yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like I. You know, I sort of I was like, wow, new York used to be like this. You know, 70 years ago, when I was growing up, they had clotheslines, were not anymore, but you know they, you know our grandparents and the generations before them. They were hardworking people and that's what I got from. You know my grandparents and my, you know my aunts and uncles right, you know you. You, you are what you make yourself to be.
Speaker 1:That's right, that's right and if you know, if you're a hard worker, you know you get paid back in kind and, like I said, I think part of it is Even with the people that you meet over in Italy. There's something that sparks them about us that they appreciate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, One of the things that kind of blew my mind a little bit, and it kind of still does, is that when I met Laura Lucci over in Pachendro, who became our guide that week, you know, I thought about this and I thought, you know, our families left there because of hard times after the war and they came to America to give themselves mostly their children a better life. And her parents did the exact same. And now here she is back there, born and raised in America.
Speaker 2:you, know, graduated and everything in America and living back in this little tiny hill town, medieval village, raising two daughters there yeah, with modern conveniences but still a lot in the old ways and the old traditions and everything. And her dream was to get the girls back to America so that they can see and learn life in America as well. So it just kind of blows my mind Everything is full circle, you know, especially through her and her family. It's full circle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I know exactly what you mean. So what's your website?
Speaker 2:Where can?
Speaker 1:people find your books.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you, yeah, absolutely Like I said, I have nine books published the Italy. The Italian book is there as well. It's wwwdianadelrusacom. I kept it as simple as I could. It's my name Just dianadorusacom. So there's some free download pages, coloring pages for kids, if anybody wants that. There's lots and lots of pictures, photos of places.
Speaker 2:I've been things I've done charity events, I've been a part of things like that. But yeah, the books there are currently and I will throw this out there just so people aren't confused there are currently three books that are featured on the website. Those three books, two of them are Christmas books and one is about kindness through a gentle dragon but those books, unfortunately, are out of prints at this time only because when I first started as a writer and an author, I didn't really know a lot. It was before, pretty much before the internet and all of that. So I signed up with a what they call a vanity press and I had those three books published through them. That wasn't going well. People weren't really hearing about the books or seeing the books or anything. I basically did all the sales through word of mouth, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:So once the internet took hold and once we had this huge author community through social media. I learned a lot about self publishing and that seems to be the way of our world now. So I pulled those books from those publishers and shut that down, and now I'm in the process of getting back with illustrators, freshening those books up, and then I will republish them myself, as I have published these cousins books and all the other books that I have. So if people go on there they get a little confused that the book is there but yet they can't buy it. But they'll come back. They'll come back because Christmas is a special time for me, so the Christmas books are real special as well and they were family driven as well. I think all my work is family driven.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's great, that's good to know. Well, listen, thanks again. I really appreciate you taking the time and we'll get everybody out there to take a look at the books.
Speaker 2:Oh, I appreciate you, Bob. I appreciate your time and this has been a lot of fun. I reminiscing about our families in Italy. I really enjoy that. I hope people give the books a try and if anybody wants to reach out, they can reach out through social media or through the website.
Speaker 1:Super great.
