Italian Roots and Resilience

Have you ever wondered what hidden stories lie in your family's past? In this emotional episode, we sit down with Gina Ciambella as she takes us on a poignant journey of discovery, tracing her Italian heritage from Michigan back to a small village near Naples. Gina unveils her father’s harrowing experiences during World War II, including his escape from a concentration camp truck and the tragic fate of her grandfather, Antonio, at the hands of German soldiers. Through meticulous research, Gina unearths surprising truths, revealing a legacy of resilience and bravery that has profoundly shaped her family. 

Love, cultural expectations, and familial resilience come alive as we recount the host's mother's incredible tale. From an arranged marriage that faced numerous obstacles to a whirlwind romance full of unexpected twists, her journey highlights the complexities of familial duty and personal choice. Despite job loss and immigration challenges, her parents' love endured, leading to a 43-year marriage and the raising of four children in America. This narrative offers a captivating glimpse into the complexities of love and the strength it takes to overcome barriers.

We also explore the charm and simplicity of European life, contrasting it with the American lifestyle. From the close-knit communities in small Italian towns to the emphasis on fresh, pesticide-free produce, we highlight the importance of preserving cultural heritage and maintaining connections to our roots. Reflecting on how these values can be passed down to future generations, we discuss the tranquility of towns like Scilla in Calabria and the lasting impact of family stories. Join us to appreciate the enduring passion for Italian culture and the significance of keeping our heritage alive for our children and grandchildren.

Turnkey. The only thing you’ll lift are your spirits.

Farmers and Nobles
Read about my research story and how to begin your family research.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:14

Hi everyone, this is Bob Sorrentino, from Italian Roots and Genealogy. Be sure to check out our blog and our YouTube channel and our newsletter and our great sponsors Yo Dolce Vita Italy, rooting Phil Italy and Abiativa Casa, and my guest today is Gina Chiamballa. So welcome, gina. Thanks for being here.

Speaker 2: 0:37

Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: 0:39

It's my pleasure.

Speaker 2: 0:39

It's my pleasure so where are you located now? I'm in West Bloomfield, Michigan, which is in Oakland County. It's a suburb of Detroit, a really nice place. We love it here.

Speaker 1: 0:52

Oh, that's great. You know I don't boy. Last time I was in Detroit was probably 40 years ago or more, but I used to have a friend in Dearborn and it was really a nice place.

Speaker 2: 1:02

Really nice. Yeah, we go there often. We have grandchildren there actually oh nice very nice very nice, uh.

Speaker 1: 1:10

And then there's the um. What really impressed me, that I forget the name of the place where they, they have, uh, all the old buildings, um, uh, rebuilt. I can't remember the name if it still there who knows if it's even still there but they had, like the Wright brothers thing.

Speaker 2: 1:27

Oh, greenfield village, Ah, yes, yeah, yeah Village, yep, yep, we love it there. My children have have a membership there and the grandkids love it there. Yeah, everybody loves Greenfield village. And they just did the old train station in Detroit and they had Diana Ross come back and sing for Motown and they just redid the Motown USA building. And you know that's our claim to fame is Motown and automobiles, you know. So we love it, we love the music here and the people here.

Speaker 1: 2:03

So I'm sure it's changed a lot, because I was there in 1977. So I'm sure they've had a lot.

Speaker 2: 2:09

Oh yeah, it's changed a lot, but thank goodness for that.

Speaker 1: 2:13

Oh, that's great. So you know when and why did you start researching your family?

Speaker 2: 2:21

I just kind of wanted to learn a little bit more about my roots, and my siblings and I were talking about my sister's planning a trip to Italy, possibly next year. We still have family in Naples and in the town where my dad grew up, which is called Tiano, and it's Tiano's next to Caserta, which is about 20 miles from Tiano, and that is a main line from Naples right directly to Rome. You can take a train directly there. It takes about an hour, an hour and a half to go there. So everybody knows Naples when you say where you're from.

Speaker 2: 3:03

And my dad was born and raised in Tiano. He came over at 27 years old. Yesterday was 27 years that we lost him and so I just started last year kind of digging into ancestry and heritage. And when we were growing up my siblings, my dad always used to talk about his parents, particularly his father. His name was Antonio. Antonio was an only child and he lost him during World War II. My dad was extremely young. He was the oldest son of four children and during the war my dad and his siblings were in a trench and he always told us the story that his father went back to the home you know small village and walked back to the home to check on a pig so that the Germans wouldn't take it because it was late October actually October 31st, we were told and he was going to make sure the pig was okay and it didn't squeal and he was going to go feed it. So the Germans wouldn't take it because it was their food for the winter. And that was when the Germans killed my grandfather right at the door of his house. That was the story. Well, all of a sudden I put in my grandfather's name and up comes all these articles about him. I was actually searching, you know, to see, you know when he was born and anything on his parents, because I knew about my grandfather and I shared with my siblings. I'm like, oh my gosh, grandpa didn't go to the house to feed the pig. I said grandpa actually fought the Germans off in the war. It says here on this paper that he was actually killed by them and killed during you know the time that the war went on. And his name is written on this paper, this document from the army, along with seven other people.

Speaker 2: 5:17

And my siblings were like you're kidding, do you think dad knew? I don't think dad knew. I think that was the story they told him because he was so young and they didn't want to traumatize him. He was already traumatized and my father heard the people in the village screaming. You know, antonio Chimbella, masada, masada.

Speaker 2: 5:38

Antonio Chimbella and my dad was going on 15 years old and he had a bullet a stray bullet had hit him in the leg. The bullet never came out of his leg. He always had a gunshot wound in his leg that had healed and he got picked up by a concentration camp truck right after he heard his father had died and they made him get on the truck and my father, from the ages of 10 to 12, lived with monks because he was naughty and they put him there to learn and to study and so my father knew five languages because he studied with the monks. So he got on the truck and he overheard people talking and he what they were saying? That they were going to take them to a camp. So this was October 1943. So my dad said there were two little girls on there about his age and he tried to get them to get off and they were Polish girls and he said they would not leave the truck.

Speaker 2: 6:44

So when the soldiers stopped about 300 kilometers, he said to go get gas. He jumped off the truck and he hid behind a tree and two nuns found him and they put him in a hospital, a church hospital, and he was full of bedbugs and sores and he was gone for about three months. He said his mother must have thought he died. They brought him back home by then they had buried his father and, you know, life went on. His mother actually I have a picture of his mother, actually I believe I sent you that his mother had to wash the uniforms of the soldiers to make money. Later on they opened up a little gas station during the war but she washed the uniforms of the soldiers.

Speaker 2: 7:32

That killed his father and he always talked about him with such grandiose stories and how much he loved him and how great he was, and it was very traumatic for him. In fact he never liked Halloween when he came to America and would not really condone us celebrating it. He'd let us go trick or treating but he despised the holiday because that's when his father died. So and he never let us have a christmas tree because it was a german tradition and so those kind of things went along with it. But, um, you know. So I was just amazed at the history and started researching the babera line and the battle and put it all together and I was like, oh my gosh, my grandfather, um, died with 17 bullets in him and and they basically destroyed him, and I realized he was part of the anti-fascist group that developed throughout the war that tried to save the town of Tiano.

Speaker 1: 8:38

Wow, that's an incredible story.

Speaker 2: 8:41

It really is, and my father was. So he was just a little guy, five foot six, and but he was just such an incredibly brave person to have come over to Italy with nothing. He had a suitcase, two pairs of pants, two shirts and a pair of shoes. That's all he came over with, and he raised a family of four children and my mom never worked, and he was a bartender in the restaurant business and was a fabulous cook and just made a life for himself here from absolutely scratch. Nothing. And you know, I just we were all so incredibly proud of him, but now I think I know where he got his gumption from, you know.

Speaker 1: 9:32

Sure, for sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. So how? So? What year was it when, when your grandfather got killed?

Speaker 2: 9:58

No, my dad was only only 15, going on 15. So we never met any of our you know grandparents on that side. And then I went back to Italy in 2005. I took my oldest son and I met all my relatives there and it was so incredibly emotional and now I stay in contact with them.

Speaker 1: 10:21

But you didn't, you didn't know that story when you went right. No, no, no.

Speaker 2: 10:26

And I haven't yet shared it with my cousins there. I don't know how they'll take it or if they'll be destroyed by that. So I want you know I I really wanted to research more and get my handle on it, because it's all still very new to us, and see if I can find out anything more through the government and through the paper research. My health has been pretty awful. I had to retire early from teaching and I had cancer and everything. So I've been homebound quite a bit since my trip to Italy shortly after that.

Speaker 2: 11:06

But it was just an amazing discovery, like my dad wanted us to know that since he's been gone, he found all this out and he was like, hey, I want you to know, I found this out. So I want you kids to know. The story I told you wasn't the story I knew, and it makes me feel like now that he's reunited with them that they know all the answers. You know, I always believe when you go, if you've gone to heaven, you find out the truth with everything, and I believe he now knows what really happened and he just wanted us to know too.

Speaker 1: 11:43

Well, yeah, no, and I believe he now knows what really happened and he just wanted us to know too. Oh, yeah, no. And I believe that things, things, you find things um quite strange sometimes the way things work out and how you get information.

Speaker 1: 11:52

Um, you know, I had I had hired a professional genealogist to help find my father's family because I I couldn't find my uh great grandfather or his father. And, um, it was about a year and they hadn't gotten back to me and I was just getting ready to tell him look, if you can't find anything, just just tell me. And my cousin who live with my grandparents passed away and two days later I got this whole dump of information from them.

Speaker 2: 12:21

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1: 12:23

So somebody poked somebody someplace.

Speaker 2: 12:25

That's chilling. Yeah, somebody, yeah, somebody connected with somebody up there, right? So I? I just we're thankful that we know that much. I would love to find out. I've been researching and researching to find out my grandparents' family, but finding that out, I wound up finding out all these cousins that my grandmother had and they're all in Teano and I was researching my grandmother's side because I couldn't find my grandfather's side. And I came upon this article and this person looked just like my dad when he was young and it turned out to be my cousin who was murdered and it was all over these papers. And I'm like I showed my brothers and sisters. I said who does this guy look like? And they're like where'd you find that picture? I go it's all over the newspapers in Italy. I said who's this guy look like?

Speaker 2: 13:20

And they're like that's dad when he was young. I go can you believe how much this guy, this guy, looks like more like like dad's kid than we do? And and they go who is he? I go he is our grandmother's great nephew. And they're like you are kidding. I said, unfortunately, he was like viciously murdered in 2014.

Speaker 2: 13:45

And his father owns this wonderful restaurant outside of Tiano called Bacala and he's a highly successful restauranteur, like written articles all about him. And I said, can you imagine somebody looking so much, so far removed, looking so much like our father? And and you know, I, I, so I stumbled on all these relatives I didn't know that are on our grandmother's side and it's just been a wonderful connection and and been able to. Now, with technology, you can converse with people and everything, so it's just been just amazing. And we always say how much our father would have loved to have had this technology to call Italy and FaceTime.

Speaker 2: 14:30

And you know he used to get up. He was so he's a bartender and he used to get home at three o'clock in the morning every night and that was nine o'clock in Italy. So he'd wake up with his loud voice and call Italy and my mom was like the kid's got to go to school. Why are you doing this? And he's like this is the only time I can call my family in Italy and he would be so happy to have talked with them. And you know, back then it was so expensive to make those long distance calls but that was his only connection to his family back then and he just missed his country so much. But his family just kept him here. He wanted to go back so bad and he did in 1988. And that was the last time before he passed in 1997.

Speaker 1: 15:15

So did they say why he came here, Since the whole family Well he married my mom, my mom.

Speaker 2: 15:21

My mom lived in Detroit. She was the international telephone operator for Ma Bell, and her parents arranged a marriage for somebody else in Italy and she traveled all the way on the Andrea Doria to Italy and she met the guy and the guy didn't like her. After all that she took this big, huge trunk for 10 days. It took her to get there on a ship and when she got there the guy said I don't want to marry you, so here she had a shower, a bridal shower, everything. She's all the range. She took her wedding dress. The guy said no, no, can do so. Her uncle was from tiano and said I know these girls who have a brother. I I think I could set you up with them.

Speaker 2: 16:11

My dad already had a girlfriend, kind of almost close to a fiance. He met her, he felt sorry for her and his sisters were so devious. They knew if they got my dad out of Italy they would inherit the house and everything else, because back then the son got everything. So they managed to get him out of there. And my poor dad, he, he was on leave for his mother's funeral. He had a great job for the government. He was on leave for his mother's funeral. He went back to his job. They saw the wedding ring on his finger and they said I thought you took time off because your mom died. He goes. I did. My mom died, so he goes. But you got married, he goes. Yeah, I got married too and he goes. They said you're fired. So he became jobless.

Speaker 2: 17:04

My mom came back to america. It's a whole nother story. My mom came back to america. It took my dad almost three years to get here and he couldn't get here through all the paperwork because he spoke so many languages. They thought this was 1957. They thought he was a spy. So our communists? So my mom had to hire a lawyer, get the paperwork done.

Speaker 2: 17:30

He came in and my grandmother hated him. She just hated him. Why did you marry this guy? This is not the guy I set you up with. So she tried to. She called the NIS on him, she tried to get him sent back to Italy and it was just a mess and he decided that a year later he's like this is not working. I can't stay here anymore. Your mother is just horrible. So he said it's just call it a wash, let's break it off. I'll go back to my country. You go back to work. So my mom drove him to the train station to go to the airport and she's crying and crying. My dad says don't cry, it's okay, it'll work out. Everybody has their own life. She goes I'm not crying because you're leaving, I'm crying because I'm pregnant. Four kids later he left three other times and every time she got pregnant when he came back. So he says I can't afford to leave anymore.

Speaker 1: 18:30

So he decided to stay oh, that's wild, that's crazy, they're married for 43 years.

Speaker 2: 18:38

Talk about two. Two people so unlike each other. So why did you?

Speaker 1: 18:43

so. So why did your grandparents feel that they had to arrange a marriage in italy in the first place?

Speaker 2: 18:49

well, well, my grandparents were from Italy too. On my mom's side. They came through Canada and my mom was born in Montreal and she was nine months old and she came into New York and then they came to Michigan. So they were old school. My grandma was 29 when she got married and she was just very old school. She never fully learned English. She died when she was just very old school. She never fully learned English. She died when she was 87, born 1900.

Speaker 2: 19:17

And and so she? She just wanted to arrange my mom's marriage. She was the first girl. By the time her last girl was born, my aunt said you're not arranging anything for me, but my mom was a dutiful daughter and she never dated in her life and never had a boyfriend. And that's what she was going to do. And she wouldn't say no to my grandma. And she went over there and that's what happened. And and again, my, my dad felt sorry for her and he went through with all that and then he came over here and it was just a mess. Just a mess that you know. If my grandpa had lived, if he had never done that, there was no way my dad would have. You know, I am here due to the roads less taken, you know. So we all four are, and so my grandchildren are, my children are. It's amazing the destinies that the you know, the time lays out well yeah you know, that's, that's, yeah, that's for sure and so so.

Speaker 2: 20:18

So your grand, so your, your mother's side of the family, were for the same town too my, my grandma was from abruzzi, so, um, uh and so, and so she met my grandfather, luigi I, which is a whole other story, but my grandparents were both from Teano my dad's side, yeah, and there's a bunch of Ruggiros on my grandma's side that are all still there. But, yeah, my grandpa was an only child, so I still am struggling to find his information or where his parents were from. He was an engineer on the railroad. He made very good money and um, but then they lost everything. But I still got to visit their house. I was able to go back because my aunts never married one of my aunts and she still lived in the house that my dad lived in. So I was fortunate to see it and visit it. And you know they were very poor and didn't have much. But Tejano is a beautiful town. In fact, judge Frank Caprio, he's from there, he's right from the same little town and, yeah, it was beautiful, I was fortunate to see it.

Speaker 1: 21:29

Yeah, those are some wild stories, that's for sure. So I was going to ask, I was asking did you find anything way back that would like really amazed you? But like you don't have to go way back to have these amazing stories.

Speaker 2: 21:41

No, no, no. He was such a blessing to all of us and what amazed me about him the most was that he always he was such a joker. He always had such a great attitude and such an uplifting spirit. You could not be in a room with him not cheering anybody up. I mean, you know, people went to the bar and walked away laughing.

Speaker 1: 22:05

So did your grandmother come around after a while? No, you know, you started up. No, even after the kids, nothing.

Speaker 2: 22:11

No. No it was always a struggle. It was always a struggle, it was always a struggle. Some years they went for years without talking. But my dad always tried his, you know, tried his best with the, with the relationship. But you know what about and how about with you guys some years we had a grandmother some years.

Speaker 2: 22:32

We didn't. I mean when she passed we were talking to her, you know, and but there were years that I didn't see my grandmother and that was the only grandparent I had. That's why my, my grandchildren are so blessed. They have all these. When they have birthday parties, it's like 50 to 100 people that show up and they're so loved and happy and lavished with gifts.

Speaker 2: 22:55

And, um, my oldest grandson, enzo, he, he loves these war stories, he is, he wants to be president of the united states and he's only seven and he just loves to hear stories about Italy and he's just so enthralled with all that. And you know, the history is just amazing and it's so. It's not even that far back. I mean, you know, I'm first generation and you know I, I'm just amazed at how my dad would be so proud of how far his grandchildren have come and his great grandchildren. And you know, he was so easily. He took nothing, nothing for granted. And that's what I look at this world today, nothing for granted. And and that's what I look at this world today, I was raised that if you had a plate in front of you and a roof, over your head.

Speaker 1: 23:54

You were blessed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and, and, and your grandmother just I guess you don't know, but she just didn't like him that was it.

Speaker 2: 24:03

She never liked him. She was so disappointed and my grandfather, luigi, and my dad came over. He loved them, he worked for Chrysler and he was getting ready to retire and he wanted to invest his retirement into my father because he was such an amazing cook. But my dad didn't have the business sense, coming from Italy. So he said, joe, you cook, I'll run the business part of the restaurant. And my dad didn't have a driver's license coming over here, so he would drop my dad off at the restaurant that he worked at and like at four o'clock and then come back and pick him up late at night.

Speaker 2: 24:41

Unfortunately, my, my grandpa, my dad, came in in July and in September my grandfather didn't look so good. He dropped my dad off and and the story was that my grandfather, when he walked to the garage, his hat came off his head three times. So in Italy that means your spirit's trying to leave you, and he drove my dad to work. Six o'clock the phone rang and and and my grandpa was gone. He had a massive black widow heart attack, went upstairs to bed, didn't eat dinner, said he was going to go lay down. He never woke up, so I never met him either he died in his 50s. So yeah, my dad always said my grandmother killed him living with her. But you know she, just my dad, spoke his mind and and you know she didn't, she didn't want anything to do with him. So she was left alone. My uncle lived with her till he was like thirty five, thirty six and he got married 35, 36 and he got married. But yeah, she, she was a difficult person.

Speaker 1: 25:50

Rest her soul you know, and my mom could not say no to her.

Speaker 2: 25:53

Yeah, well, that's. I suppose that's not unusual from that right no and I never heard.

Speaker 1: 25:58

I've heard a lot of the old wives tales from italy, but I never heard the one about that the hat blowing off three times right right.

Speaker 2: 26:05

That's how he used to tell that he goes. You know, he'd pick it up, it fell on the ground. He picked it up, it fell on the ground.

Speaker 1: 26:12

Yeah, that's crazy, that's, that's something, that's something.

Speaker 2: 26:15

And my dad adored him. He adored him.

Speaker 1: 26:18

So so now have you done a DNA test at all.

Speaker 2: 26:22

No, I haven't at all. No, I haven't. My sister has and and she's got a couple people that she's connected to, but I have not done one of those.

Speaker 1: 26:32

Yeah, it's interesting and you know your sisters, you know, could be completely different from right right. That's for sure. I, you know, we did it, and my kids, my kids are adopted. So we all did it. I just wish I had I had asked my mom to do it, because they say the more people that do it, you know you get a, you get a better sense of things, um, and so now. So now you're still, you're still on the hunt. Yeah, for, for people.

Speaker 2: 26:57

I am, yeah, I I've had a block and it's so frustrating. And then I wanted to do that citizenship thing because I actually have my parents' marriage papers, you know. So I have that. I don't, you know, the actual, not copies the original, and I think it would be pretty easy to go ahead with it. But I know people say it's not as easy as you think it is to get the citizenship. You know, I would love to do that, my siblings and I would love to get citizenship, but you know I don't know how hard that whole process would be to go through.

Speaker 1: 27:35

Yeah well, you know you're closer so it wouldn't be as probably as hard as you think it would be, only because you know you're first generation and plus you still have cousins in the hometown.

Speaker 1: 27:47

so you know, with the commune thing and stuff like that. If you need papers from there, it would be a really a snap. I mean, that's, that's the. That's the most difficult part is, you know, finding that stuff in italy. But if you have the original papers getting their birth certificates if they were both born in the in, you know, if you have the original papers getting their birth certificates if they were both born in the in, you know, if you have contacts there, right, you can walk into the community and get that stuff One, two, three and you won't need, uh, see here for all the papers that, like in my case, um, I'm almost there, I must have everything.

Speaker 2: 28:21

But you're trying to do it yourself.

Speaker 1: 28:23

No, I'm using a lawyer there, and I'll tell you why. Well, a couple of reasons. One is I'm 73 and you know I can't wait five years to get it right. The other thing is, if you do it through an attorney there and go through the courts rather than waiting for the counsel, that, um, they could do up to 10 people at one time. Oh, okay, if they have the same thing. So for, for example, if your siblings and your children, and even down to the grandchildren, they could do them in one swoop.

Speaker 2: 28:53

Oh, really yeah.

Speaker 1: 28:54

Yeah, which you can't do through the counselor. Oh, okay, so that's a big plus thing is with the, with the paperwork here, like you know my parents' birth certificates and their marriage certificate and all of that you have to get. You know, my parents' birth certificates and their marriage certificate and all of that you have to get, you know, you have to get that. Then you have to get another piece of paper called an apostille, which is, you know, certification from you know that this is really a real document. Then you have to have all of that translated. So you know, with the, since you're so close, you know your grandparents and your, your parents, birth certificates of marriage, if it's all in italian, that's you know, that's one quick thing that you don't have to do so. Um, but yeah, it'd probably be easier for you and your siblings than it would be for someone. That's, you know, like, like, in my case, my parents were born here. I had to prove that my grandparents naturalized or didn't naturalize, or naturalize afterwards, so you don't have that issue.

Speaker 2: 29:52

So do you have to only go back one generation, or would I have to go back to my, my grandparents as well?

Speaker 1: 29:58

You have to go back to your grandparents as well. Oh, but, but well, but you only have to do once. You're only doing one side, so you know, it depends on which one is easier, whether it's your father's side or your mother's side.

Speaker 1: 30:12

Right, but yeah, you do have to go back to your grandparents, but like I said if everything's in Italian and you don't need all that apostille stuff, it'll go much quicker. It'll be much quicker, especially if you go through that. The other way to do it, in italy too, is who could do this? But if you spend, you know, 45 to 60 days there, then the process is quicker too, but that'd be nice yeah, I would love to be able to do that, but.

Speaker 2: 30:45

My cousin has a bed and breakfast in Tiano, but I'm sure she'd let me stay no matter what. But yeah, she's wonderful. She has a beautiful house that her mother built for her and I've been there before. But I mean, that would be great, I could just hang out there as long as I wanted to. Yeah, well, I'd do that. Yeah, great, I could just hang out there as long as I wanted to.

Speaker 1: 31:14

yeah well, that's, I do that. Yeah, I do it that way. I'm sure she'd let you come there too, bob, yeah, I'm a great cook. I was originally going through my my father's side and then they said you know, in Naples it's going to be much more difficult than going through my mother's side from Puglia and Torito. So uh-huh, and then we met when we went there last year we met them.

Speaker 1: 31:30

Uh, we met a guy who's got really close connections with the kimone there and he said you know whatever you need, you have and you know when it comes when it comes time, when the because after you get the citizenship, then you still need to go to the comune and get your birth record there. And they said don't worry about it. As soon as it comes through, we'll take care of it. One, two, three, you don't have to worry about it. You're a citizen of Torito, a son of Torito, so don't worry about it.

Speaker 2: 32:01

Oh wonderful.

Speaker 1: 32:02

So they were all very, very nice.

Speaker 2: 32:05

But yeah.

Speaker 1: 32:05

I mean, I would say, in your case you could probably do it really pretty quick.

Speaker 2: 32:10

Yeah, I'd love that, Cause you know my grand. I would love for my grandchildren to have the opportunity if they wanted to go to school there or live.

Speaker 1: 32:18

That's the best thing, for you know I'm, my kids are in their twenties, so you know they're, they're done with school and all of that. But right, uh, for the, for the grandchildren I mean, it costs nothing to go to school. Nothing right, and and it's ridiculous over here how much it costs yeah and and if you ever wanted to retire there or or whatever, then you know you're, you get all the rights or stay part-time or anything you know.

Speaker 2: 32:46

Yeah, we were looking at some places over there and just chip in and stay and even just take turns staying somewhere. But yeah, that would be wonderful.

Speaker 1: 32:58

I have a friend who moved there five years ago. She, you know, got her citizenship and you know she's for all intents and purposes an Italian citizen. Wow, she gets every right, she can vote, she gets the health care, all of that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2: 33:16

Awesome, that would be awesome. Europe is beautiful.

Speaker 1: 33:21

Yeah Well, especially Italy. I mean, I would just love to sit on the mountaintop up and just forget about everything that's going right eat a dish of pasta and hang out yeah, and the pasta over there doesn't make you.

Speaker 1: 33:37

You know it doesn't put a lot of weight on you. So right, I mean their food. I, you know, I, I say this all the time. They're italian, they're, that is italian food, but you know that's not the same as the food here. It's for, you know. You know, I say this all the time. They're Italian, that is Italian food, but you know it's not the same as the food here. It's, you know, four or five ingredients, that's all they use.

Speaker 2: 33:54

And everything is grown with all these pesticides, Like over here. It's terrible.

Speaker 2: 34:00

You know my son, my oldest is starting to grow a lot of his stuff in his backyard because it's just so bad for the kids. Yeah, yeah, the soil is so and I lived in Europe for a year and in the Netherlands, and the food tastes completely different, the produce is completely different and everybody is so much more content with so less. Because, first of all, you can't afford it. I mean space. You live in so much less space. You just don't. You don't have as much.

Speaker 2: 34:36

But it's about. It's about the atmosphere of your life. It's not about the things. That's what's so beautiful. They get together in the evenings, they socialize, everything's about going out and walking and being together and visiting. It's about community. It's it's and it's about what everybody has, not what you have.

Speaker 2: 35:00

And and I, I just absolutely loved that feeling and you don't feel judged so much as, and you offer what you have. And that's how I was raised and when someone knocked at your door, everybody ran to the door. Now it's like people are like don't answer it. The kids nowadays, they don't answer a phone call, even my youngest son. He's in the Navy for the last 10 years. But you're like don't you answer your phone for the last 10 years but you're like, don't you answer your phone? You know that's what we used to do. We used to run when the phone rang, we used to fight when the phone rang and, yeah, it's like a whole different feeling of humanity is taking over the world, and I always say Jesus must be up there crying how people treat each other, because it's just a a level of indifference that I have never seen and it's uncomfortable to me because I wasn't raised like that.

Speaker 2: 36:05

You know everything was go get him this stuff. Or if a neighbor came by, go get him something. Right, kids run in and go get him something. Now it's like don't talk to them. You know?

Speaker 1: 36:15

Yeah, no, I know exactly what you mean and, like you said, we lived in England for two years, so you know I can relate to some of the things that you're saying and it's different when you live there, of course, but you know, even you know. Back to the food again. We were driving past a store like a fruit store, a vegetable store, whatever, and the driver said said you see this, this dan. I said yeah, and he said they don't need refrigerators because everything's gone by the end of the day tomorrow morning he goes and gets more stuff right that's how fresh.

Speaker 1: 36:47

I remember wife and I talk about all the time with the milk. Remember milk used to last like three or four days. Now it lasts three weeks yeah, what's wrong with that?

Speaker 2: 36:54

what are they? They putting in there?

Speaker 1: 36:56

It's making it last three weeks it's not supposed to last three weeks?

Speaker 2: 36:59

Right, the dates on them are ridiculous.

Speaker 1: 37:01

Yeah yeah.

Speaker 2: 37:04

And we wonder why people are so sick.

Speaker 1: 37:07

Well yeah. I think we know why. But you know, in Europe they don't put all those dyes in there. They don't use all those pesticidesyes in there. They don't put all that, they don't use all those pesticides. That's why you can't find the same foods.

Speaker 2: 37:21

You can't find the same foods here as you are there, you know. And when I first got there, I left a lot of my stuff by accident at home. So I'm like, oh, I got to go get my makeup and I couldn't find the same things because they don't allow them there. Makeup and I couldn't find the same things because they don't allow them there. You know, they don't allow talc powder, they don't allow the the just the same kinds of chemicals and they're against it. That's why they live a lot longer and a lot. They're a lot healthier, they don't have much but they live, you know. But it's the quality.

Speaker 1: 37:54

Well, yeah, and, and you know, they, they, they have plenty. I mean we, you know. But it's the quality? Well, yeah, and, and you know, they, they, they have plenty. I mean we, you know, we, just when we went there both, you know, the last few years twice, people are genuinely happy, at least they seem to be to us, you know they are.

Speaker 2: 38:10

Yeah, the stores are closed on Sundays because you're supposed to spend time with your family on Sundays, but people are that come from America, get mad because they're like I can't get anything, you just adapt. You get the stuff you need before I'll tell you.

Speaker 1: 38:24

I say that all the time. I miss that more than anything else, the fact that, you know, when I was growing up, everything was closed. The small grocers would maybe open up, for, you know, I think they could open from 12 to three or something like that but all the supermarket, all of that stuff was closed, right, so you didn't. You know you did your shopping and you know, another day or something like that.

Speaker 2: 38:50

Right, right, that time was reserved for being together, yeah, and now the days are way overfilled with activity. You can't even breathe, you can't even get together because everybody is so busy with other things. So our priorities are are definitely out of whack. My husband and I talk about that all the time, and so when, um, I, I don't even think it gets through to these kids, because they're so used to it. This generation is so used to it. They don't stop and stop and enjoy people because their lives are so full with activity and and so you just don't even miss each other anymore because you're not together. You don't even know what you're missing.

Speaker 1: 39:37

They sit around a table of phones.

Speaker 2: 39:39

Yeah, it's so true. That is so true when you are together, everybody's on the screen. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 39:47

Well, you know, the town just north of one town north of us. It's kind of like I don't know if religious town is the right word, but anyway it's. It's. Uh, it was founded as like a camp for um, I forget the denomination, the protestant denomination, but anyway they would. Uh, all the beaches along the jersey shore, most of them now, uh, you have to pay a fee to go on the beach. They'll open it. The fee goes from 9 o'clock to 5 o'clock. Before 9, it's free, and after 5, it's free. This town, for 100 years, would not open the beach on Sundays till noon. Somebody had to make a big deal out of it, and now they have to open the beach at 9 o'clock. Right, it makes me nuts, that stuff. I mean who?

Speaker 2: 40:45

there's another beach 500 yards to the north or south. Go there right, exactly exactly. Everybody's got to have their way. You know, with one it bothers one person. Nobody can you know? Just shut up about it. Yeah yeah, that's the way it is. It's one squeaky wheel.

Speaker 1: 41:00

And you know, of course we don't live there so it's hard to say. I'm sure they have their issues over there too. But you get, like you said earlier, you get the sense that that people are happy. I mean, when we were in body, you know, at night you felt different. You felt there were kids, you know as young as 10, 12 years old, you know along the seashore and people in their 80s along the seashore, just you know, sitting there enjoying the view, enjoying the weather, enjoying the food, whatever, and you felt it was serene.

Speaker 2: 41:38

It was serene. Yeah, you feel like that a lot. In a lot of those places where you travel. The violence isn't as big of an issue too, because in a lot of places in Europe guns are just not allowed. You just feel like you know, somebody's not likely to have one because it's not allowed, so you don't feel like there's going to be an attack on you when here you feel like I'm nervous taking my grandchildren places because I'm like, oh, we're in a crowd who knows what somebody's got nowadays, even in the store or the mall or anything. It's so nerve wracking and you just. There's just too many, too many attacks on people in the United States and nobody seems to even care. We've become numb to it.

Speaker 1: 42:31

Well, that's why like one of our favorite places was Sheila in Calabria, and it's just like you know what he said. I mean, where I am, there's nobody in this town either, but it's just. Yeah, it's just kind of like I said earlier, it's just kind of a serene type of thing where you know people just walk down and they go to the restaurant and it's, it's. It's different, of course, naples and places like that.

Speaker 2: 42:59

Naples is not the best place to be. You have to watch yourself a little bit. The bigger cities.

Speaker 1: 43:04

Sure, Rome, you know that's no different than any place else, I suppose.

Speaker 2: 43:08

Right, but there's so many beautiful villages and countrysides there that that are, you know, are just wonderful places to be, and hopefully they'll stay that way.

Speaker 1: 43:19

Yeah, yeah, let's hope so. Well, I keep trying to tell people over there that they need to make it easier for us to become citizens, because we'll go there and spend money.

Speaker 2: 43:30

Right, yeah, absolutely, and establish some residency there, and then the country will be. Maybe they don't want that, who knows? But I don't see why not.

Speaker 2: 43:41

You know, as long as you're connected to the country, I don't see why not. So so that's my story and I'm going to continue researching and hopefully, you know, continue. The legacy is what I don't want my children and grandchildren to lose the love and passion that my parents and grandparents had for that nationality, because now you know everybody's like what does it matter? And I think it does matter. I think cultures bring a lot of flavor to life and I also think that knowing where you came from keeps you strong in who you are and grounds you in in knowing other people from other places.

Speaker 1: 44:22

No, I agree a hundred percent. And that's you know. That's why I do this kind of stuff, because it's important for us not to forget where we came from, wherever you came from, it's just well Gina thanks a lot. I really appreciate you taking the time. Fantastic stories.

Speaker 2: 44:39

Thanks for what you do too. That's really special and I know it's a lot of work. You make it look easy, but I know it's a lot of work and sharing people's stories they're so enjoyable and they're inspiring. So thank you so much for your time.

Speaker 1: 44:51

Oh, thank you. Thank you, it's my pleasure.