Upon invitation, my wife and I, we went down into the city. We travelled with her brother and cister-in-law to a restaurant aptly named Paradiso and I joked in advance that this must be the space where angels or at least good spirits serve their guests in heaven. The invitation was sent by Adriana Sergnese Van Veggel, from the hometown, a paesana who volunteered to organize the celebration. It read: “You and your families are invited to attend an afternoon of food and refreshment and a few chiacchiere or chitchat with those of us who contributed to the Castropignano Heritage Book.”
I suppose it is always the food that trumps the thought, and I must back up a bit to share the bigger picture. My purpose is to document the sistimi of new possibilities, a framework and a method for collecting and preserving family stories, so that perhaps other hometowns or “clubs” or “micro-communities” may replicate the project in similar, yet uniquely personal ways. I am sure other methods for the preservation of narrative exist, but as my father-in-law was prone to saying: “this is the way I was taught, so it is the way I teach you.”
Out of a blue hill-town sky, on September 10, 2023, an email plinked in, sent by Roger Battista, a relative from my wife’s hometown. It read: “Ciao Castropignanesi and Descendants. I was born in Castropignano 82 years ago. I immigrated to Canada in 1960 at the age of 19. I have had my share of good and bad experiences since I arrived in Canada, probably similar to the experiences of your parents or grandparents that came at the same time. Let’s leave some of these memories, good and bad, to future generations…”
It was clear that Roger Battista and his wife Carmela had given a lot of thought and commitment to lead the call for the collection and preservation of family stories. The email was sent to 176 members of my wife’s “Club.” A deadline was given and 37 families contributed their narratives. From the outset, it was a book for us and by us – an effort of the collective, and not any one man or woman.
On September 13, 2023 a subsequent enclosure was sent to clarify the method of gathering. It is reprinted here so that perhaps the interested reader might benefit from a guide or recipe for the purpose of replication. The simple elegance of our invitation read: “Dear All: Please find below some additional information that may help you to prepare your narratives.
RE: Heritage Book
1. It’s offered to all the Paesani and their ascendants in the world that have immigrated from Castropignano.
2. The families will be listed in alphabetical order.
3. Up to four pages per immigrant is offered, but more will be considered on request.
4. The same space will be offered to all the families.
5. Each immigrant, regardless of their age when they migrated, has the right to his/her own space in the book.
6. The most important thing is the content and not the format.
7. Two books per family will be provided free of any cost.
8. To assure space in the book, the first draft of the narratives must be presented by October 15, 2023 with the final deadline of March 31, 2024.
9. Try to promote this idea with your family and (paesani) friends.
10. Any question or suggestion you may have, please call me.
Let’s express ourselves the way we think, have been and are. This is not an exam or contest, few spellings or grammar mistakes here and there are okay; let’s pay more attention to the “CONTENUTO.”
Un forte abbraccio a voi tutti.
I don’t know how it went with the other families, but in my family we were so excited. I, myself, had some of the luck with writing and quickly wrote a piece as “someone who married into the family.” Of course, I sent it in well ahead of the deadline to light the fire under mia moglie to share her story. (“Eh, you are the writer, not me!”) We sent word to her brother and our cousins and we all felt proud and humbled to represent our family, along with each of the souls in our bloodline who stayed to make a life in Italy or immigrated to Canada and beyond. It truly felt like the sacred celebration of heritage and we knew that we would have an anthology of stories for the nipoti, so that they both might have an artefact representative of portions of their own blood and their own memories.
Sometime in April 2024, the efforts of the 37 families who participated translated into a beautifully wrought 9 by 12-inch softcover book. The project was led by few as a catalyst for many. Again, for the purpose of the replication, let me describe in more detail the form and framework of our collected work, Castropignano. Your Emigrants in the World. Your Roots.
There was the crest of the hometown on the front, and a black and white photograph of one of the oldest trees in the hill town, with a colour rendition on the back of the same tree, replete with myriad branches reaching skyward, as rich green leaves belied the promise of sap, growth and the vigil of permanence.
The 37 chapters were organized alphabetically by family name. The submissions were unique to each family but harmoniously so, so that the entire artefact actually holds itself together in pride and unity.
Some wrote in Italian. Some wrote in Italian and English. Some wrote just in English. Each family was in freedom to submit the words and the pictures and the artefacts and the stories that were sacred to them. One soul simply submitted their family genealogy to posterity. There were different fonts and different formats. There were black and white and colour photographs of the hometown as well as documentation of the new life emerging in Toronto and surroundings – from Welland, Richmond Hill, Oakville, Burlington, St Catherine’s, Niagara Falls, Thorold, Cambridge, Montreal, and Port Colborne – even Argentina, California and Castropignano – our diaspora in geographic-real time, some might say.
A particularly distinguishing feature of the anthology is a series of full-page colour photographs, 21 in total, spaced at intervals and between the narratives throughout the entire book of 267 pages. Now, my wife, she and I, have been to her hometown, along with our children. Truly, the full-page photographs enhanced the proverbial thousand words and we saw panorama and close up, flowers and trees in blossom, interior shots of the town, the church, and strong archways made of stone.
All of which to tell you that, my family, we received our copies on May 30, 2024 noting again, for the interested reader, that the span of time from invitation to writing, to sending, to collating, to publishing, to receiving copies took nine months. As a writer, this struck me as a refreshing new (and fast) paradigm of story collection and heritage preservation: a spontaneous collection of community experiences with harmonic themes easily noted and differences adding variety, wonder and fascination. Within any community, there are sub- or micro-communities, and we all had a chance to share what became of us, along with our gratitude to our parents and our hopes for our children. The small group of souls that organized this project made it clear, with an invitation of simple elegance, that the call to heritage is to leave a legacy for the children.
We note, in this particular method of invitation, gathering and production that the project had a “benefactor.” It may not always be the case, nor should that act as a barrier, for there are alternate ways to raise funds; either through donations at the feast, or the dances, or sponsors or participant-contributions based on what they can pay, or full self-funding. Having said that, we know that covid took its toll on continuity, connectivity and the small gatherings of love in community, so innovation in replication is the order of the times in the unification of family, friends and paesani. Period.
And so, interested reader, we return to the beginning of our conversation, and finally let ourselves give in to the food and the glorious celebration.
On or about September 7, 2024 we received a final email inviting those who wrote to a gathering (October 26, 2024) in celebration of our storytelling and story sharing – of where we came from and where we hope to go. And as I say, my wife, she and I, we went down into the city to the restaurant with the heavenly name where angels and good spirits greet newcomers in a radiance of love. We mingled, were initially shy, and the most ironic thing happened. Yes, there is this notion that we are fewer and fewer in the sweep of time, that perhaps our families are slowly getting smaller and smaller in the tug of the present and distance from our past. But behold, my wife, she actually saw and re-united with two relatives that “we” are related to on her mother’s side of her genealogy, and we made new friends and restored the ancient blood line… like the sap in the Castropignano tree. I myself, sat across from an older man and we both had hearing aids. I let mine dangle like earrings and we shrugged our shoulders and laughed. Between his Italian, his knowledge of English, my impoverished Italian, supplemented by hand sign and gesture, we spoke the dialect of cantina-speak, of sauce-making, pepper-making and giardino-speak, and we made merry in the opera of our lives.
I beheld the entire moment from a love’s eye view, from the perspective of a corner table where my wife, she and I sat. I smiled when I saw my brother-in-law and sister-in-law at a different table; my nephew and his sweetheart were across from us along with friends I recognized and care for from the feasts and from the funerals. There were no strangers, and I knew I would make even newer friends by dessert. And one by one, we all stood up, introduced ourselves, shared what our connection was to the hometown and who we “belonged to.” After enthusiastic applause, one by one, each of us sat down to the wine and to the antipasto, to the penne and the pork chop. A sound of glorious music filled the heavenly space, and I saw that the gift of presence is eternal.
Glenn Carley’s published work includes Polenta at Midnight (2008); Good Enough From Here (2020); Il Vagabondo: An Urban Opera(2021); Jimmy Crack Corn: A Novel in C Minor (2022); The Long Story of MountPester and The Long Story of Mount Pootzah(both 2023), co-imagineered with and illustrated by his son, Nicholas Carley; Stumblebum Waytes (2024); The One About Stella: A Little Fish (2024, co-imagineered with his daughter, Adriana Carley, and La Casa di Riposo: the House of Rest, (long poem, 2025). Carley is retired from the position of Chief Social Worker in a Toronto-area school board. He and his wife Mary reside in Bolton, Ontario.
