Once Upon A Time….
There were two families in Southern Italy. They didn’t know each other; even in the sparsely populated area of Calabria, it was possible to not know your neighbors. But they had the same dream-to make a better life for themselves and their children in that place called America.
The passage would be hard-through the Mediterranean, and then out to the wide Atlantic, until they reached New York City and the statue they’d heard so much about in letters from friends already there.
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There was a man in England, who, even though he was born in England, thought himself to be a Scot, because that’s what his family was; his birth in England was somewhat incidental. He was young and filled with ideas, and he wanted to be free of the restraints English society, free to make his own way. He knew that he could do that in America. So he began to prepare for the journey.
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There was a family in Germany, and while they weren’t doing poorly, they wanted something more. And they, too, began to dream of America.
All these families set off for America, reaching Ellis Island within a few years of each other, in the early part of the twentieth century. They were all Catholics, but other than that, they had little in common.
The Italians settled in Little Italy, and a girl was born to one of the families on Mulberry Street. The Scotsman, and the Germans, headed to Pennsylvania, to the steel mills and thriving industry of Pittsburgh. And eventually the little girl born on Mulberry Street ended up there, too, and she got married and gave birth to her own little girl, Elizabeth.
The other Italian family had a little boy, Carmen.
The Germans had a trio of children: one girl and two boys.
And the Scotsman married, and had three children: two girls and one boy.
Time passed, and things for the families didn’t go exactly as they thought. Carmen’s father died, and he went to work in the steel mills. He grew up and got married, but his young wife and child died.
The German family saw their boys go to war, and potentially fight against their own family. But fortunately, the war ended before either of them were sent abroad, and one of the boys, Francis, headed to college, where he pursued his dream of studying music.
The Scotsman’s family did well. The children excelled in school, and one of the girls—Patricia—went to Duquense University in Pittsburgh, to study music. She was a talented pianist.
At Duquense, Francis met Patricia, and they were married after he received his degree in music education.
Carmen met Elizabeth, and married her, and they had three children, who grew up in an Italian area north of Pittsburgh. The third child, a boy with his father’s name, came 17 years after the first child was born.
Frank and Patricia had eight children, six girls and two boys, German/Scots-Irish wee ones. All of them had the gift of music, and a love of athletics.
This love of athletics—especially football and baseball-led their third daughter, Michele, to a college football game one cold autumn afternoon. In that huge stadium, she sat next to Carmen—the youngest of the Italian family. And nine months later, they were engaged.
The couple moved down I-70 to Columbus, Ohio, where Carmen had a job with Bell Labs. There they raised three children in the suburbs, surrounded by interstates and cornfields and Scarlet and Gray.
From the early twentieth century, when their ancestors dreamed of a better life, to the early twenty-first, those dreams have come true. Their ancestors received a better education, had opportunities they never dreamed of back in Europe. Were there bumps? Yes. The family’s Catholic faith lead to some to discriminate against them, and for the Irish sides of the family, it was compounded by their heritage.
I am the oldest daughter of the Italian/German/Scots-Irish blend that is my family. My father is all Italian, and my mother is German/Scots-Irish. Italian/German/Scots-Irish women are not to be trifled with, let me tell you.
My siblings and I are not so far removed from our European roots. In fact, we’ve barely been in America for 100 years. But the same hope and promise that lead our families here is still possible, and tangible, today.
I can’t imagine the courage it must have taken for my ancestors to pull up their families and go somewhere unknown to them. How many of them even spoke the language? And yet they did it, and their descendants thrive here, because of their courage.
This isn’t a unique story; all of us here can tell you the same thing, from Mayflower descendants to people who became citizens last month. Somewhere, at some time, a person made a bold move to head into the unknown for a better life. And it happens here, everyday.
Living Adventurously 