I found this

and I ordered it i wonder what kind of information this has. I find it interesting that they made a book with this name, the name comes from a very small section in Italy so this amazed me.


I found it online at Target, they have over 300,000 names turned into books.

http://www.target.com/Ainardi-Name-History-Ancestry-com/dp/B000WRR7CA

The Dream

Last night I had a dream about nonno .. In my dream he was sitting on the sofa at my grandmas house. Everyone was there perhaps it was a holiday. Everyone acted as though all was normal.. but he was alone at the sofa. I was so happy in my dream to see him, I approached him with all my documents and newly found secrets the family had hide. He didn't say a word but looked at my papers and smiled.

I woke up.


I used to dream of him often right after he died in 1999.One has always stuck with me. When I was little my brother and I would take over the couches in their living room with blankets watching morning cartoons. He always would come over and tuck the blanket under our feet.

I had a dream one time when I was staying over at my grandmas.. I was curled up on the couch I would take over as a kid with the same blue blanket. I feel asleep but briefly as my nonno had come to visit in my sleep, he walked over to me on the couch and again as his ritual he proceeded to wrap the blanket under my feet.He only smiled and called me my nickname from him "sis".

I woke up with my feet wrapped under the blanket.

A story I found

goes very much in line with a entry I made a few below"the theory"

It should be interesting to see what kind of information I get from the people I'm interviewing , on the topic of post war.


Italian Memories

By Cookie Curci

http://www.italiansrus.com/articles/subs/ethnic_images.htm

----As an Italian American growing up in a post war America, it wasn’t unusual to experience some prejudice. Like many, whose grandparents emigrated here during the great migration, my family was second generation. Because Italy’s tyrant Benito Mussolini had joined Germany’s forces against the United States we were viewed with some suspicion. For that reason we never spoke our native Italian language outside the home and, even then, we would reprimand our parents and grandparents for speaking it to each other. Because of this, we lost a good deal of what should have been our inherited second language. In order to fit in with our peers we concealed much of our Italian heritage. Public opinion was formed quickly against all those whose former country sided against the U.S. Italian Americans were often ridiculed, even though our fathers, uncles and brothers had joined America’s Armed forces and were fighting these hated oppressors.

The Italian American image had suffered greatly during these years. Name-calling was common and I, like many Italian American kids, was called unfaltering names such as "Wop" and "Dago." We responded in kind with this verse, " If I’m a Dago and I’m a Wop, I eat spaghetti and you eat slop!" Ethnic and racial epithets can be painful and damage the spirit for years to come.----

cousin marianne email

""""That family tree is mind blowing. I had seen the picture of the castle before when I had done some research on Mattie but I could never find much information on it. I don't remember Grandma ever talking about it that I can recall. Maybe she did and I just did not remember. I know that since Grandpa's family did not treat her very well when she and Aunt Ernesta stayed behind while Grandpa came here, part of her payback to them so to speak was not talking of the Ainardis very much to her children. Pretty powerful considering the lack of communication back then other than letter writing. I remember my dad telling me a story about Grandpa. He said that one morning Grandpa said he had a dream that he had lost his shoe and that he was saying; "I lost my shoe, my mother died". Italians are quite superstitious for a Catholic country. My dad said that about a week later, Grandpa received a letter edged in black, which was how letter communicating a death was sent, saying that Grandpa's mother had died. That story has always stuck with me. As far as Aunt Maria's (Grandma and her neices and nephews called her "Madrina"), Annie will be your best bet. I only met Eda and Mary a few times. Aunt Till also is a wealth of information. She knows the nickname that Grandma called Grandpa, something like Nachu. She said that they also had a nickname for Maria's husband, too."""""""""

Castle that was owned by Ainardi family

I need this ASAP

Native Religion?

Religion happens to be a interesting topic among my Italian friends and family. Many are obviously raised Catholic .My family in the beginning was no different. My great grandparents went to Catholic church in Mattie Italy and were married there. They came to America and found Saint Anthony's in downtown Renton. http://www.st-anthony.cc/ there they raised their Children in the church. God fearing people they were. They were poor had 9 mouths to feed and really began to question giving their money to the church, who guilted them.To be a good Catholic you must give, yes? Over the years great grandfather Luigi turned his back on god and the church , for he felt god turned his back on him. Melania eventually did the same. Their kids by then were grown and had children of their own and many of them kept the practice of Catholicism.Not all, my father went to school at Saint Anthony as a kid, but his father my grandpa was a non practicing Catholic since WW11.. but when my father was grown he questioned more.. and the religions of the world.He married my mother a Pentecostal , and it was in very southern style pentecostal. The speaking of tounges and fainting in church"Praise the Lord" My father found great energy in this style of religion and passed this onto my brother and I in our child years. I recall several times standing on a street corner with my father while he preached to the passing folks about the god he had found, I wasn't even three.

I became the best of friends with a nice girl of my age named Sarah who was mostly Native American and who happened to go to Catholic church... obviously not her native religion. As kids on Sundays we would walk a few blocks down from here house to the Catholic Church. We attended together and together we took the blood and body of Christ. Once my parents discovered I had ventured out of their church.. the pentecostal I was put down . Told Catholics were evil, dirty , and God was mad at me. Even at 10 this made no sense to me.. but I was god fearing, I listened. Regardless I never went again with Sarah after the secret was out. I was baptized pentecostal at 11 and sometime after this I rebelled and refused to go to Church. I was finally released at the age of 13 from having to go every Sunday.I once was torchered into going to a Christian camp when I had ran away from home, a woman at my parents church said " god told me she must go in my dream last night". I never felt a connection with the "god" or religion my parents had found. This is when i became a believer of nothing.

It was Six months ago I felt a tug at my heart when I first moved to Pullman WA. The town is small and there is many Churches but the most beautiful of all that caught my eye was the Catholic church. We decided as a family we would all go try this new thing to us,"religion".Sunday at 10 am we walked up the steps and the eyes of the priest periced through me. He knew we were coming we had emailed him, but I felt this man was judging my very soul and it was frightening. The smell was ancient. I knew I was in the right place, but I was not ready for the feelings, was this my native religion? Yes ,I could feel it. 3o mins into service we walked out with hair standing on end.


My father was Catholic before Pentecostal and before what he is now ,Agnostic .My grandfather was a non practicing Catholic, and his Parents and them before them and so forth..

Domestico

Today I am in this place I consider home. The faces have changed, and even some sencery. I know. I know the smell, every road, every tree, and every secret hidden. I know the wind and the sun here. I know.

I feel all feelings here, the heavy sadness and the wonderful embrace of happiness of Freedom. Is this what they saw? Is this what they felt and knew? I know.The Hills know our faces and hold our feet , 102 years. They know.

I have no idea what these say as writing is unsual..

The Theory

I'm feeling deeply inspired today.

Nothing feels certain; I feel upside down and tossed. What I've done to myself and I've allowed others. But this isn't about me it's a thing I have read and something that really makes sense to me

Two Authors I've recently come into contact with who have greatly influenced my writing and thought process.


Angelo Pellegrini was introduced to me last summer by a family friend. A man I had found on the site ancestry.com who happened to be a descendant from one of the families in my "1935 Mattie Picnic" photo

Anyways this book has changed my life immensely, yeah it did. I also was able to find the answer to other cousins in this book as Pellegrini had written on some family I had in the Seattle area the Patricellis.

"Americans by Choice"

The second Author which I was just made re aware of recently by a fellow Italian, is John Fante. I picked up il libro "Wait until Spring Bandini" this morning and I haven't been able to put it down. I'm such a loser I stayed in tonight in the comfort of this book. I have cried and giggled while reading this, similar experience to what "Americans by Choice" did to me. John Fante is what has inspired this post. Please be aware this is a extremely short version of something I hope to expand on later.


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The theory is this. In my experience this past changing year I have discovered many things. When I started to look for answers it became clear to me that I needed to go to the closest source .My bis nonni's are dead so the source was gone. My nonno is dead so this source was expired, and of his 9 siblings only one was alive. She is a woman who scares me. Extremely intimating, but I knew, and know that this generation ...her's would have my answers. I found old friends of my grandfathers and great Aunts, Uncles.. Ones that knew my great grandparents and something became very apparent in the pattern in the way they spoke of their heritage. It was the kind I grew up seeing in my grandfather.

1st generation denial= I had noticed in many of the first generation born American Italians I have met, many were ashamed. To hide this they joke"Wop" "Dego" my grandfather i would hear him on the phone echoing in and out of English and broken Italian with his friends. He never wanted to speak of the past, NEVER.I noticed this with others, they just wanted to be accepted, sure their parents were born elsewhere.. but these guys, these guys they were Americans not Italians. They were not dirty like people said they were. Ellis Island isn't the only place where name changes happened. They happened right here in Shame. They wanted to be like John Smith down the street who had the nice cloths and toys, and ate something other then Macaroni. This shame and the Denial continued onto generation two.

2nd generation We Are American= I'll admit here my experience with the second generation isn't as extensive as the first or third being i'm in that group. I have my father my uncle and their childhood friends and the few I have made contact with since planning for the reunion picnic. Many spoke of being proud, love embracing their Italian heritage, some attend "Italian festivals" , brag of their cooking skills and love of vino. Still.. Some aren't even aware of the town their family came from, know a word in their families tongue, and never knew the pain of being called a "wop" when it truly was meant to be negative. They are American they go to work every day, they pay their bills, and life just goes on.. this went into third generation

3rd generation find themselves asking.. who am i?= This would be me, In all that I have found in this group its like a lost sea of people trying to swim to the ship. Who am I? What does this mean? Where are the answers? Who knows? I'm trying to find the answers to all these questions and in doing this I have found other delighted 3rd gens and some I was able to give answers to (family trees)Obviously I can't completely fill this one because... well I'm still looking..