Thursday, May 12, 2022
Me And My Cousins
My mother is one of four daughters all born in a small town in the northern part of Italy. As a matter of fact, prior to WWI, that area of Italy was part of the Austrian Empire. As such, people in that part of Italy are considered more “Germanic” than Italian.
I digress…my mother had two children, me and my sister. The other of my mother’s sisters had 6 children among them. Having a total of 8 children among 4 sisters in an Italian family is not unheard of, but certainly not “normal”. All of us immigrated to the United States from 1946-1955 and for all intents and purposes were raised in America. That is not say that we forgot our Italian heritage or roots. None of the mothers would have allowed that and the grandmother (nonna) ruled the roost and that would not have been tolerated.
When we first came to America, all eight of us were very close, partly out of necessity as most of us did not speak English and also because it was hard to acclimate ourselves to the American way. There were birthday parties, Christmas visits and many other reasons to get together. As we got older and married, the closeness seemed to disappear and now, it seems that we barely speak to each other. Of course my moving from the family group to another state across the country did not help matters. I am speaking mostly about the cousins that stayed home…they are not close. Once my mother’s generation died out, it seemed that the glue that kept the family together wore out. I guess that is the same for most families, but I sure miss the closeness that we once had.