possible outline of the book

Interview of several live on recorder of life growing up with Italian immigrants in the seattle renton area. Life during world war two being Italian, struggles, discrimination, accomplishments of being first born Americans.Life now. My experience of knowing these people, or first hand impressions. As one person is a family member the others are ones i just recently have found.My own journey of finding my Italian roots.

following names:
Mildred "Anarde" Ainardi Cooper
Mario Tonda
Joe "buddy" Paricelli
Annie Riffero Frank

and either Bill Belmondo or.... who i don't know but my grandfather did, Remo Borracchini

There is a place where the sidewalk ends

I've been thinking immensely about people and when our time expires. My time is running out, all of ours. Every time i look in the mirror my face and body reflects days and years of passed happiness and sorrow. Death is upon me. The news of my father with cancer is the biggest smack to my own mortality. I am my father, as i type i can look down at my hands and i see his in mine.Sometimes when i smile i feel his face on mine, the other day a old friend of his that i spoke to online who had never met me, told me i was his twin.I feel the death approaching. This isn't all that bothers me, it's been a long curse on my family, my dads brother sits at home with his 89 year old mother paralyzed on one side from a stroke and left almost completely blind. My grandmother was the strong one, the one who was a Rosie during ww2 at Boeing grew a family , a home and still had a huge garden until last year. Death has approached her.Tonight the woman i've only heard cry twice in my 28 years , called me in almost tears to tell me her best friend Norma died her memorial was today. Grandma told me she was tired and was ready to go somewhere else.Shes too proud to ask for answers but i know she wants them.



There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends

Shel Silverstein

newspaper story

Forgotten story

It seems the greater history has taken its stories with them. As this is what I am finding out as I’ve been researching the roots of my Ancestors.

Here is what researching the family has done though, I have reconnected with cousins family members that I have not seen or spoken to in years. I first started with the American-Italian family members. I was always wondering why some of the family spelt their name Anarde, some Anardi as this was never clear and no one ever talked about. Then the search deepened and I found the people of Mattie! The one thing I knew in our American family, some things you just didn’t talk about.. Such as the past.. I had to find ones that would talk and had the stories.

As a child I would tell people I was Italian and say my last name I always got funny looks, the name Anarde doesn’t sound very Italian does it? To be fair I know the other reason I got funny looks. I’m very white in skin, blue eyed and blond. My mother is Irish and Native American, she is tall, white, blue eyed and red-haired. My father the half Italian from my grandpa Louie, his mother, my grandma Gladys is a mixed breed mostly Irish and Scottish. So here I am white skinned from the Irish and Scottish, but the lingering facial structure reads Italian. My mother is 5’10; I stand at 5’6 a bit of a shorty. I didn’t get my mothers button nose either, or round face. I was granted the Italian features long thin nose, broad forehead and the same sneaky half grin my grandfather displayed.

After my grandfather died of Cancer in 1999 there wasn’t anymore car rides to visit cousins or stops at the hardware store. There were no more phone calls of him yelling into the receiver “Paisano” or “Hey Nello!”or calling us at dinner asking “what’s for dinner?.” I suppose my research is my way of paying debt to my grandfather and his family. As a child I took it all for granted, my grandpa angered me we didn’t see eye to eye very often. Now that its gone I do want to know him, his history, the family and the things we never did talk about.. the past. I hope in some way he knows I am sorry.

My research actually began July 2007, because my brother had commented on the fact that we may have Dual citizenship to Italy. This idea was crazy; I really thought he was full of it. After reading a few articles online I discovered it really was true as long as the great grandparents never did become US citizens. I had a lot of digging to do. With this I was off.

The first thing to find was great grandparent’s birth and marriage certificates. This I knew wouldn’t be easy so I had to start with it first. The problem I kept running into was the names Louis Anardi and Melanie Anardi did not exist according to the archive records. I could not find the names anywhere, Ellis Island, and ancestery.com only listed their deaths. No one came through Ellis Island with the names Anardi, or Anarde from Italy.

I began to think these people never existed. I knew that was a insane thought but who were they really, I knew they were from Italy and lived in Renton that was all I knew. My grandmother Gladys turned out to be a great help, as she told me on a visit when I began questioning her that they were from Mattie Italy and my great grandmothers madden name was Benetto.

I knew there had to be records somewhere in my grandma’s house. I then remembered my grandpa Louie had a scrap book, mostly full of World War 2 pictures and awards. I started looking at his name Anarde , I could just feel inside that this wasn’t the real name. Towards the end of the scrap book there was many lose papers, and all my years looking through that book I had never bothered to read them. This was important not just considering the dual citizenship but I had to know who this people really were! I was a part of them and I knew nothing. After reading several articles and letters from his old friends there were some old folded paper. It was all Italian, but I could tell right away it was birth and marriage papers! On the inside was attached a note from a Second Cousin Gail who apparently had found this records in Mattie Italy and translated them. Luigi Ainardi and Meliana Benetto Ainardi , this was my great grandparents true name. Not Louis Anardi, or Melanie Anardi. I truly did not know what to think; I started to cry and rejoice and had Justin my husband read them to me. As I felt I had just found me.

more later...

©Copyright Crystal Ainardi

- History in the making-

A short essay written for Darrell Gene Anarde my Father

Crystal Smith Ainardi

“You’re really getting into this?”

Is a response I’ve heard from many family members lately on my hunt of history, including my father. As most of my life I have displayed lukewarm tendencies to everything. It wasn’t until the past few years the passion, or shall we call it obsession I had seen in my family pop out of my mind and into the world.

I had grown an obsession with art, everyone one on my dad’s side of the family was quite artistic or musical. My uncle the guitar player for years, my brother’s new found obsession with guitars and my father the classically trained accordion and piano player, I turned to drawing. Even before that was my grandfather Louie the wood craftsmen. There is something deeper here though, another common thought.

My uncle has a passion for trains old trains and things of that nature; he often says he was born in the wrong century. My brother loves classical books, old languages and histories of the world. My father collects radios old ones, the kind families gathered around for family time before TVs were even brought into the homes.

As a Kid my dad liked to drive me to old cemeteries and landmarks, it scared the crap out of me. Once we went to this old over grown one in Ravensdale WA and I swore I was stepping on dead people I threw those shoes away! The museums and the photos he would point out to me explaining that those people were family.

Then they wonder why I’m really into this?

My father installed in me to never forget the stories, the past, and the history of which made us.

©COPYRIGHT Crystal Ainardi