From Puglia to America The Story of Italian Migration

Embark with us and our esteemed guest, Anna Riggs, on a journey spanning continents and generations, as we trace the deep roots of her Italian lineage back to the quaint town of Ceglie Del Campo. Hannah's intimate narrative is more than a globe-trotting adventure; it's a heartfelt homage to her family's odyssey from Italy to Venezuela, and finally to the United States in 1955. Wrapped in the nostalgia of a Catholic school's corridors and the sanctity of orchard-laden convents, Hannah's tales are a mosaic of cherished memories. Her lilting school song transports us back in time, revealing the inevitable transformations of places once familiar.

Savor the episode's gastronomic expedition that contrasts Italian and American culinary traditions, where the simplicity of ingredients is a testament to Italian authenticity. Anna's insights reveal how a plate of pasta can tell stories of cultural adaptation – sometimes sweetened for American palates but always steeped in the legacy of its origins. We meander through the daily rituals of Italian marketplaces, with their unforgettable fish freshness and the symphony of regional dialects, offering a slice of life in Italy that's as rich and varied as its cuisine.

Finally, we journey through the evolution of banking from the 1950s to present day and uncover the challenges of preserving Italian heritage amidst the bustling modernity of Santa Clarita. The Italian Catholic Club's communal heartbeat echoes through our discussion, underscoring the importance of Italian cultural societies In America. And in a captivating revelation, we pay tribute to the ingenuity of Baldassare Forestiere with an exploration of Fresno's Forestiere Underground Gardens, a subterranean marvel hand-carved from the earth - a testament to the enduring legacy of Italian immigrants in America.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:14

This is Bob Sorrentino from Italian Roots and Genealogy. Be sure to check us out on Facebook and our YouTube channel. Please subscribe and check out our great sponsors, your adult JVita, italy Rooting and our Viettivo Casa. And I have a great guest today from California, hannah Riggs. So welcome, hannah. Thanks for being here.

Speaker 2: 0:37

Thanks for having me. I think it's something special.

Speaker 1: 0:42

Oh, thank you. Thank you. Well, I'm not that special, believe me. My wife could attest to that. No, actually, she thinks this is a big deal. So the first question I have for you is you know, where is your Italian family from? Originally in Italy, I am from.

Speaker 2: 1:02

Bari. Ah, me too, ah, ah, ah, what part of Bari.

Speaker 1: 1:10

Torrito.

Speaker 2: 1:12

Okay, I'm from Cella, cella del Campo. It's not too far from Torrito, really, as far as I can remember.

Speaker 1: 1:25

No, are you from there? Originally? Were you born? Yes, I was born 1941. Oh, that's cool.

Speaker 2: 1:34

Yeah, I was born there in Cella, and years later my father wanted to move to United States. That was his big dream. But at the time the quota to come to United States was 15 years. So a friend of his told him that in Venezuela the quota was shorter. So he set up to go to Venezuela. He didn't have any money for the fare. So my grandmother, my maternal grandmother, gave him the money. She said go ahead, if that's your dream, do it.

Speaker 2: 2:19

So he went there two years for two years, and then he called us after two years, which was the rest of the family. And in fact it was funny because when he left my mother was pregnant and when he put our names in the quota when he got to Venezuela he didn't know what it was going to be. So he says, well, I'm going to take a chance and put that's Leonardo, and if it's a girl, then I'll say they made a mistake and it's Leonardo. But as it turned out it was a boy. So altogether we were there four years and my father, of course, six years. And then our turn came to come to United States. And that's what we did In 1955, we left Italy in 51 for Venezuela and came to United States in 55.

Speaker 1: 3:25

Well, see, now, that's almost the same as my uncle, because my oldest uncle was left there by my grandparents. So he stayed in in Tirito and my cousins were all born there and they came about the same time. Only he went to Canada first.

Speaker 2: 3:44

A lot of them did.

Speaker 1: 3:46

Yes, yes, and he spent, I think, four or five years in Canada with the family, and they probably got to America just around the same time as you did. 54, 55, something like that. Yep, so you were about 10 when you went to Venezuela then, yeah, I was.

Speaker 2: 4:05

I was 10 years old, but I tell you, those 10 years I have such great memories. I am very nostalgic when I talk about it. Well, that's why we're here.

Speaker 1: 4:24

So we could get some of that nostalgia direct from the source. So you remember now you don't remember the war at all, though you were too young for that. No Right.

Speaker 2: 4:38

Right, I was too young. Yes, but did you now? Did you daddy and mom talk about?

Speaker 1: 4:41

the war.

Speaker 2: 4:46

My dad, my dad did Kind of funny. My dad used to work for the Italian government. In Italy he was on the payroll for the city workers and sometimes he had a few enemies because they went according to how long they worked and that's how they got paid, and of course, some of the employees. You know we need more. Well, we did one hour more. My father would say that was his job and sometimes he wasn't too popular but he was okay.

Speaker 1: 5:40

So what do you remember about the hometown in Italy?

Speaker 2: 5:44

Oh, my gosh, oh my gosh. Well, first of all, we went, me and my sister. We went to a Catholic school, but the Catholic school was not in Celia. We had to take the train car to it was. It wasn't even. It was regarded as body, but it really wasn't. It was an outside on the outskirts of body. We had to pass carbonara and then we got to the convent where we went to school, and lots of memories from that school. I mean, I dream about them all the time. You know, as old as I am, I still dream about them.

Speaker 2: 6:34

First, we took the train car and my mother would make us a lunch. You know very, very how you say it. I got good lunch. You know it was for us. Now, when we got to school, everybody wanted our lunch, and it's just like I hear here in America the same thing. You know they would want our lunch, but anyway, that's a small part of it. The school had beautiful, beautiful orchards, beautiful orchards that the nuns would take us there and it was so I don't even know how to describe it lightning, beautiful, peaceful. You know a lot of things and in fact, to this day, to this day, I remember the one song that the nuns would teach us, and I sang it to my children, and though they didn't understand what I was saying, and it was V國家, a conditional algebra, and that's the song. That's great, and I lost my voice a little bit older. No, no, no, you're southern wonderful, but it's just one of the most beautiful songs that.

Speaker 1: 8:41

I've ever heard. I go back quite frequently.

Speaker 2: 8:48

And the first time I went back I cried because I was so sad, I was so sad, I was so sad, I was so sad. They needed the room for building projects, mostly apartments, so they cut down. When I went to school it did not have an orchard. The church that they had there had been cut down to a small chapel and the actual rooms that they had there now they were maybe five or six and the school was huge. That school was huge.

Speaker 1: 9:37

So that's unusual for Italy to do that. But I guess if they were, I guess, as as body was growing as a city, I guess they just, you know, overtook the suburbs. I mean, we were the first time in body this this well, just last year September. I had never been there before so I didn't know what to expect. But you know, they took us to when we went to Torrito. They, they grow the almonds there and I heard you mentioned the almonds. I don't get a lot of Italian, but I heard the almond part. So that's sad that they, that they took all of that down.

Speaker 2: 10:14

Oh they did. It made me cry because the beauty of it you know, as I imagine it being a child, you know, and I imagine it would be the same, but it wasn't, you know. But everything changes, I guess you know.

Speaker 1: 10:33

Yeah, and you know, and, and as you're talking about it, I'm almost picturing it in my mind. You know what it must look like, but you know there's no more nuns anymore either to take care of the place. I suppose, yeah, yes, so now, do you still have? Do you have family there still at all?

Speaker 2: 10:49

I have many cousins but only one, one first cousin. The other ones are distant cousins, but one. She is the daughter of my father's sister and she's the only one, and when I go, of course, I always, always treat her. This is something because she lives in Monopoly. My father was from Monopoly and so when I go and see her and I take her to a restaurant, you know they don't go out to restaurants. It's a small town, not Monopoly itself, but where she lives, you know, in the community. They don't go out to eat much, you know, and it's such a joy for her that I take her out to lunch. She just it's in heaven.

Speaker 1: 11:42

So for so, for people who haven't gone back and some don't, some feel that you know when they go to Italy, you know they're looking at Rome, in Florence and places like that. Explain to everybody what's the difference between food in Italy and food in America.

Speaker 2: 11:59

Ah no, you're talking Well. You mean Italian food in America or just American food in general?

Speaker 1: 12:11

No Italian food in America, because we all know that most of it we're not eating really Italian food. We're eating Italian, american food, right.

Speaker 2: 12:18

Right, right. Well, you know, for American people the food has to be how you say, it has to be reimagined, kind of, and that's for the taste of American people. I mean, I can say that for my husband myself it. They have different palates, different tastes, and so the American people like, for example, I have a friend that has an Italian deli right and she makes her sauce her sauce that she puts sugar in carrots. If my grandmother had ever heard of that, she would die, just die Sugar Carrots. What in the heck is that, you know? No, it's good, it's completely different. Now I live in a suburb of LA it's called Santa Clarita, and we have only well, we have like five Italian restaurants, but only two are authentic out of the five, because they all cater to American palates. We eat spicy, a lot of spice. All of our foods are wet spices rather than putting gravy and All all sort of junk in it. So the two restaurants that we have that are good, we enjoy. We enjoy, yes, but it is different.

Speaker 1: 14:14

Yeah, well, yeah, and what we found is to your point and and we were watching a time cooking shows where we were over there they use very few ingredients. A lot of times, um, you know, with they've they're making like, like, let's say, a pasta dish or something like that, maybe a little white wine, a little, and then you know parsley and that's kind of it, you know, you know.

Speaker 2: 14:41

I've been teaching my, my children, especially my grandchildren, even the Spouses and my granddaughters. They want to learn my sauce because I keep telling them it's a very simple recipe, very few ingredients. You hear these people cooking a past Pasta sauce for four or five hours, the whole day. Are they crazy? You know there's no need for it. But I tell you where that originates from. You see, in it in Italy we didn't have as fresh items that we have here in the United States, so they would make tomato paste, they, they would can their tomato sauce. So for them, in order to cook something, the tomato paste had to really, really cook a long time, and that's where they, they brought it back to United States, which Now you don't have to. In fact, I Don't think I ever used tomato paste. There's no need for it.

Speaker 1: 15:56

If you just use crushed tomatoes, a few ingredients, the sauce is perfect but you know, and it's interesting you say that because when we did find something similar to what we have here was in Naples, the Naples Vagoo with the meat sauce and all that was Was, you know, they cook it for eight hours. I mean, it's cooking all day and they have the meat in it. But my father's mom, she was from Naples and I got her recipe from my cousin and it was very few ingredients but was what was interesting about it is she actually shouldn't put carrots in it, but she put celery in it. No sugar guys, sugars like I don't know where that comes from. But yeah, I know people want to get the acidity out and all of that kind of stuff. But and the other thing that I found over there I'm not a big fish person, but the fish over there is just phenomenal.

Speaker 2: 17:11

Never tasted anything like it you know when I go, when I go back to Italy, and I now have been staying to in a B&B in In in a town San Giorgio is called, and Let me tell you, there's a whole row of fish markets and every day, every day, fresh fish, raw, cooked, baked, whatever. I love, fish love it and and they.

Speaker 1: 17:51

They don't need refrigeration or anything because everything's gone by the end of the day, right?

Speaker 2: 17:55

Exactly, they. They shop every day. Every day they shop. Of course we're spoiled here, we, we don't have to shop every day, you know. But fish, fish, you almost I, you know I. I don't buy fish Days ahead, you know. Whenever I want it here, I just go and buy it fresh.

Speaker 1: 18:19

So now, when you, when you're over there, we now Did you have, did your parents speak dialect? I'm assuming they did. Oh yeah, yes, so.

Speaker 2: 18:29

Yeah. So my friends, especially One of my friends, she says, well, because I speak Spanish, I speak Italian, I speak English, I Know some Latin. And then she says to me, she reminds me. She says well, how about your dialect? I said, oh yeah, I keep forgetting about it.

Speaker 2: 18:52

Because my father well, that's another long story. My father was educated by. He had a friend. Oh, his father was in the service, you know, in the army, and he had a good friend. And this good friend became I'm gonna say it in Italian, that's the only way in president, tribunal of the net, you Big shot, big shot. So, being that they were friends, my grandfather had him promised that he would educate his children and that's exactly what he did.

Speaker 2: 19:42

My father went to private schools. When we were of age, me and my sister. We went. We went to private schools in red and we traveled to run and so. So we traveled to red and, of course, we only knew dialect.

Speaker 2: 20:01

Okay, so the first few days of school were kind of cruel, you know. We didn't know the Italian language, being on the new dialect. So we were there one year and we learned it very, very good. So, on the way back to Italy, I mean to tell you. My father, on the train, said to us if you utter one word of dialect, I will beat you. Oh my god. You said no, we can't do that. And then he turned to my mother. He says and if you allow them to speak dialect, you will get it too.

Speaker 2: 20:45

So when we go to our hometown, our schoolmates didn't understand what we were saying, so we would make fun of it, they would make fun of us and they would say Anna, well, my nickname is Nina, but anyway, they would say Nina speaks, nina Pallonuttian, because Italiano to them sounded like Uttian was the cray part that you ate in. You know, it's Dalai, and so, and they couldn't say Italiano, so they would say Nina Pallonuttian. So they couldn't understand us. We could understand them, obviously, but they couldn't understand. And it was pretty hard for a year, you know, because we had to teach them.

Speaker 2: 21:47

You know what we would our Italian, that we were speaking. They didn't know it. So, yeah, I could speak my dialect if I want to, but Corsino, since my father imposed that rule. But my father was big Italian to me and my mother would speak dialect and my grandmother, obviously, would speak dialect too. So, yeah, I know the Barese dialect. And let me tell you, I have a video of a young girl trying to learn the Barese dialect and this guy trying to teach her. It is really hysteria, you know, it's just.

Speaker 1: 22:39

I'd love to see that. I'd love to see that. Yeah, and the reason I asked is because we spend most of the time, my mother's mom and you know I always thought they were speaking Italian. Yeah, they were speaking Barese. What did I know? Seven, eight, nine years old, right, exactly, I was only later that I found out that they were speaking Barese and not. You know, true, you know not Italian per se, but you know, I always remember my, my uncle Dominic, my mother's uncle Dominic actually was in Munguch Munguch, and I thought that was I. I had no idea that his name was not.

Speaker 2: 23:25

I have a good friend that to this day we call him Munguch. How do you get Munguch from Domenico? Tell me.

Speaker 1: 23:37

I have no idea. I have no idea. But my mother's aunt, raquel, was the Raquel, so that was close and the funny story about that. My mother was supposed to be named Raquel Caroline, raquel Carolina, but my grandmother had a fight with Aunt Rachel, the system law, so Raquel was still in there, but it came Caroline Rachel instead of Rachel Caroline, so you still had the middle name, but the first name changed.

Speaker 1: 24:14

But and that was the other thing when we were, when we were back in and body and I heard them, you know, speaking the dialect, and just recently somebody from over there sent me I don't know, I don't know if it's everywhere, but in Torito they have on December 23rd, they have the night of the bakers and they I don't know the significance yet, I can only guess that maybe the bakers worked all day Christmas Eve or all night the night before Christmas Eve so they could have Christmas off. But it started out with somebody walking down the street and he's shouting very loud in bodies and I said that's that's what my grandmother sounded like, that's what I remember my grandmother sounding like when I heard that. So that was, that was a lot of fun. So now he said father always wanted to come to America now. So what did he do when he got here, since he was in the city business back in Italy?

Speaker 2: 25:18

yeah, but you know, when the Americans came, then of course he became a prisoner and they put him in the kitchen to cook and in fact he was so good that you know, he was very I say it easy going, you know, a nice guy. So they sent him home at night instead of being in the prison, because because by then, you know, he had two girls, you know, and a wife, so anyway, so he learned how to cut there. So when he came here first he I don't forget it, he worked in a factory where they slaughtered chickens, you know, and packaged them and so on.

Speaker 2: 26:16

He didn't stay there long and then, yeah, a little bit at a time, he started working in restaurants as a cook, then became a chef, then got his own restaurant and and became a chef in his own restaurant, because I forgot, because in Venezuela that's what he did, he worked. He worked for an American company, well, an American hotel restaurant, monte Carlo it was called, and he worked there as a cook. So he had the experience. And then, of course, from Evelyn and as well, when he came here, you know he, he was good to be a cook, a chef. Actually I have a picture here somewhere around here of him with the chef hat. You know, he was good, he was good and that's what he did until he, you know, until it couldn't work anymore. That's what he did.

Speaker 1: 27:28

And that's funny my uncle. He guarded Italian prisoners in Africa when he was in the war and he used to go eat with the Italian prisoners because they were getting spaghetti to eat and the Americans were getting stuff in cans, so he used to cook with the Italians and eat with them. Yeah, yeah, that's a neat story. Yeah, that's really really great.

Speaker 2: 28:01

And that was in.

Speaker 1: 28:02

You went direct to California.

Speaker 2: 28:04

Yes, we came directly to California and they'll forget it because we had an aunt here and she lived not too far from Santa Carina. It's called Pacoima, and at that time this little town Pacoima was really, really nice. You know now you don't want to enter it, but at that time it was really nice. So we stayed with her for about a month and then we rented a duplex in Burbank, not too far from here either, and then we stayed there for about a year and then we bought a house in LA, and no sooner after that my mom and dad got divorced. He went to school at night time to learn English, and there was someone else, there was a woman from Colombia that was also learning English and also looking for a husband, and so there, you know, that was it. So I became the oldest of the family, I had to go to work.

Speaker 1: 29:41

So how old were you on that?

Speaker 2: 29:44

Well, between 15 and 16. But what I did do is I did go to school the full day and then went to work during the night. I worked In fact they got a special permit for me because I was so young. I worked for a bank. I was a check processor. I would go to school about 7, 10 in the morning, get out of school about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. I would drive 12A, 4th and Main. I'll never forget it. I got there at 4 o'clock and worked until midnight and then went home, had to do my homework, get up and go to school at 7, 10 again.

Speaker 1: 30:45

Yeah, now they don't want to work 3 hours a night. That's too much.

Speaker 2: 30:51

But you know, with my mom being by herself and she had a good job. She worked for Bendy Camp's Bakery and she had a good job but she still needed assistance. You know, and of course you know, I gave her my paycheck. She gave me $5 a week for spending money but she was able to build on her house. You know, make it better. So that helped, that helped.

Speaker 1: 31:27

Sure what bank did you work for?

Speaker 2: 31:31

It was called Security National Bank and then it became another bank I forgot it combined with another bank, you know and it became one bank and then it changed again. So but it was a good bank I made. I'll never forget it. I made $260 a month and that was what 1958, 59, somewhere around there.

Speaker 1: 32:07

Yeah, and the reason I wear I asked because I worked for Chemical Bank in New York City and then later I left and I went to Chase and then Chemical Merge for Chase and Chase Drift Merge for JP Morgan and Bank One and all of that kind of stuff and we inherited Jamie Diamond. But yeah, I started there in 1972, and I made $115 a week and I took a cut in pay, big cut in pay, because before that I was working I was loading trucks for Pepsi Cola and I was making $200 a week in 1971. That was like I was like a millionaire.

Speaker 2: 32:44

Yeah, of course of course, yeah, yeah, we thought it was a lot of money. Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1: 32:53

Well, yeah, when you think about how cheap everything was so I guess it's all relative, but exactly. Exactly my parents when they bought their house in Queens. They pay. It was $15,500 in 1953.

Speaker 2: 33:14

Yeah, well, the house that I mean that we bought. What was it? It was like $2,000 when my mother bought the house, yeah, and then I remember selling it, ah, a lot, lot more.

Speaker 1: 33:37

Especially in California, I'm sure, and now who knows what it's worth now?

Speaker 2: 33:41

Well, you know, like us here, we bought our house Branghue and Santa Corita and we paid $260,000. And now they're selling, you know, about $1.2, $1.3 million. I can't believe it, it's just mind-boggling.

Speaker 1: 34:05

I know it is, it is, so now I want to. I want to because I know you remember the Italian Catholic Club and Santa Corita. So what do you guys do there?

Speaker 2: 34:15

Well, we actually did a little bit of everything. We are going to fold because there's a lot of Italians in Santa Corita, believe it or not, a big percentage, but they are not, their heart is not in LA and as hard as we tried, we would have monthly meeting with dinners. You know cooked, especially you know from body, and we would cook beautiful dinner. And a lot of times we would have entertainment With a Christmas party. In fact, we'd have La Befana. We would do La Befana on 6th January. We would do the St Joseph's table, which nobody does here in Santa Corita. Now they're not going to have it anymore because we're folding. But we, we did Italian lessons. I had classes that I would do. We would play bingo, we'd go to the casinos. We did a lot, a lot, but it just wasn't enough. People are just not interested. You know, they want to be part of the American culture and the saddens made that they don't have that much pride in being Italian.

Speaker 1: 36:02

I know isn't that sad and you know, that's why I do some of this. In fact, I just I just applied today to the Italian club here. I just don't remember if I was an Italian club. My brother's older than me, he just joined one in Florida and I said to my wife I said you know, they have a Monday dinner for $10 and they go on trips and they have the fare and they're, they're pretty vibrant, these guys they're. They have a pretty good membership and it's less than a couple of miles from me, they're on the road basically. But that's why I do this, because I fear, you know, we're losing our identity. You know that the generations after us they're not connected to Italy, exactly, exactly, exactly.

Speaker 2: 36:49

We're losing our identity. You know, I belong to a group of Italians in LA, in Los Angeles, they have I don't know if you have it's St Peter's Church and they have a Casa Italiana, which is the hall. You know that we have everything next to the church and I I lost my thought, but anyway I I belong to. There are a lot of societies, you know. You know all the different saints and they're mostly from Southern Italy and mostly from the Puglia region, which that's where body is from. And there is one saint name. It's called San Trifone. It happens to be my maternal grandfather's name, so I'm pretty loyal to that, so I belong to that. I support the other societies in different ways, but San Trifone is the one that I belong to, so and that's the one I go to to stay connected. In fact, we, just after three years of COVID, we just had our New Year's dinner dance, which is phenomenal, what they do, just beautiful. Yes, we've really enjoyed ourselves this year. So it's the. That's the only one I belong to now, because you know it's like beating my head against the wall because I can't get through people. You know, I just can't. I even have. I even have a neighbor whose name happens to be my mother's name, dominica.

Speaker 2: 38:56

She was born maybe two miles from my hometown and come to find out we lived in LA when we rented. When I first got married, we rented a place and she only lived three blocks from me. We just found this out in the last couple of years or so. But what's what's sad is she lived a very poor life. I think we all did not. I mean I. I didn't suffer. I had food and clothing. We weren't rich, you know, but we were okay.

Speaker 2: 39:38

But evidently she suffered more than I did. Let's put it that way, and it's completely. She put it completely out of her mind like it never existed, Like she never, and I just, I just cannot believe it. And in fact, you know, she became a board member of our club, but yet her heart was not in it. She did it because of her name and then, after a while, she lost interest, because it was what I was trying to do is to Italian and I had to do a lot more American. Well, that's why we opened an Italian club, you know. Yeah, so she lost interest. You know she's too much Italian? No, not for me, and but that's one example. I mean, she was even more in there, she would think she would be more interested in it, you know. But it's not no different than other other Italians that have Italian shirts, surnames and some of them were even more than Italy that I know that live here in Santa Corita and don't care to do anything about it, just.

Speaker 1: 41:09

Yeah, that's. That's interesting. This place over here has they have Indobachi courts.

Speaker 2: 41:16

So you can't beat that. Well, there is a place in LA, another Italian club I don't belong to, because anyway I don't belong to it. They have a botched place there that they play. Yeah, yeah, but those are the only two. That one and the Casa Italiana are the only two. At first I didn't think I was going to join because it's called the Garibaldina Club and it's been known to be mostly elder people. You know really, really older people. But now I'm thinking you know, at 82, I think I'm becoming one of them too. But you never know, never say never.

Speaker 1: 42:09

So Well, I keep telling my wife that she's elderly, not me, she's younger than them, she's younger, she's like five, six years younger than me, something like that. But that's all, that's all little thing. Yeah Well, anna, this has been a lot of fun. I really appreciate it and I love talking about this stuff. And you know, I circulate this stuff for the same reason that you want to keep the clubs alive is to get the young people interested and make them recognize our heritage or want to know our heritage.

Speaker 2: 42:45

Right, and it's such a rich heritage, it's got so much to offer. You know all the famous people that came from Italy. You know it's just. You know you can do only so much.

Speaker 1: 43:08

Well, yeah, and you know, my friend, frank DPR does a little thing, the Italian American moment and he highlights, you know, just regular common day. You know Italian Americans, and you know he just recently did a piece on the I don't, I don't recall his name, no, you may, you probably know the man who built the Watts Towers.

Speaker 2: 43:31

Oh, yes, I had no idea he was an American. I had no idea. Yes, how?

Speaker 1: 43:37

about it. And do you know? He was on the cover of Sergeant Peppers.

Speaker 2: 43:43

No, that yes.

Speaker 1: 43:45

He's on the cover of Sergeant Peppers.

Speaker 2: 43:48

There's also a famous Italian place called the Fortis Deere Gardens, and that's quite unique. It's in Fresno. It's a Sicilian man that build an underground living quarters, all by himself. It is the most fascinating thing. You wouldn't believe it no air conditioning, no heating, all clay made out of clay and stone. And yet it's just amazing what this guy did and his name is named after him. Of course, fortis Deere was his name, so now they're calling. They're called the Fortis Deere Gardens and the family just could not afford to stay there, so they give it to the city.

Speaker 1: 44:45

Yeah, you know, I think I saw that on television one time. I think I recall seeing quite unique. That's what they show. I drew homes and all of that. I think I've seen that.

Speaker 2: 44:56

Well, I took a group, the Italian club. We went there and they were all amazed. One man, one man with no modern tools, you know just, it's amazing what he did, Just amazing.

Speaker 1: 45:15

I know it kind of blows your way when you see stuff like that. Yeah Well, thanks again. I appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 45:23

Well, I enjoyed talking to you.

Speaker 1: 45:26

All right, thanks again.