When it Began

Tomorrow is Independence Day here in the US and it reminds me of that scene in The Godfather, the one where the two Italian guys are talking.

Maybe I should be more specific; I mean the very first scene where Bonasera says “I believe in America”. My Italian born great grandparents shared that belief in America, they gave up their lives to come here and they never regretted it. In Italy he was a Great War veteran who came home to find that everything had changed and she had carried water from the well and took care of the lady of the house where he once lived. In the US they married, ran a business, owned a house and raised a family, they never looked back. They turn up in stories here from time, I wrote about the events leading to his arrival at Ellis Island:

Halfway across the world from the place I now call home a soldier came home to find that the world had ended, while losing the war he also lost the only reason he called the place home. He expected that she would be there, in the kitchen or at the table, surely she would know that he was on his way home he thought. Even if she didn’t get his letter she must have known that he was being sent home. While his army had been defeated they had been treated with kindness and dignity by the occupying force. The individual soldiers on the losing side were no less brave than the victorious troops, who treated them with the respect dictated by the code of a gentleman’s warfare.

When he found out she was gone he went looking for his father, and unable to find him he went back home and waited. As he waited in his father’s house he cleaned his uniform and loaded his rifle.

(The rest of this post can be found here.)

And how she found her way to New York:

The lady of the house passed away with only my grandmother who was hired help at her side, her oldest son was still fighting in the war which would end four months later, both of her surviving daughters were expecting children and her husband was nowhere to be found. My grandmother sent a messenger for the husband and with no one left to care for she went home. She did not know months later that the son had come home to find the house dark and empty; she only knew afterwards that he had gone. Six years later she still only knew of him, she had never seen his face or heard his voice but when she stepped off of the boat in New York Harbor all she had a small bag and his name and address.

(The rest of this post can be found here.)

Nearly ninety years after my great grandfather arrived in the states I’m about to head to Chicago to on the 4th of July to have a little post wedding family celebration. Despite my complaining I lead a pretty good life when I’m not being a jerk. It’s a life that my great grandparents could never have even imagined. They rode mules and carried water from a well… three generations later I’m talking about them on the big fancy internet from Los Angeles. If they were alive today I’d say thanks for making my life possible and they’d probably ask why I don’t come home more often. I’m working on it.