Concettina Di Nino & Salvatore Ranelli

Nonna Concettina "little conch shell" Chiesa San Pellino, Corfinio, Fratelli Salvatore & Riccardo Ranelli, Paterno/Celano, L'Aquila Nonna, you left Corfinio at 18 to marry Salvatore & go to America. He had fought in WWI for the Americans & his brother Riccardo fought for Italians, at least Allies on the same side. You were married in Corfinio's Chiesa San Pellino at 18, even though Grandpa was told to marry the other sister, that there was something the matter with you. I wonder what? You never changed, with your dialect and broken English. You stepped out of that place in time & never left it. When your younger sister Anna visited in 1970 she was modern. She cut your hair, and the length of your clothes. You never even wore slacks. You "read" the Sunday St. Paul Pioneer Press, though, and told me the news on television, something I never had time to watch. You would take us on the Vista Dome train to Duluth for the day. You earned every line on your face as I earned every grey hair on my head. Someday it will be as white as yours. Riccardo, with your handlebar mustache, was always a mystery to me. Giovanni, your father, and Maria, had 18 children, and you and grandpa were the only 2 to come to America. So close, yet so different. You brothers both lived on Railroad Island. My father, Mario, was born in 1922 in Swede Hollow, on 24 Phalen Creek. Salvatore (Sam) started out in the mines in Northern Minnesota, thankfully left, but ironically was buried in sand twice while working at the City Water Deparment, where Mario also worked for 35 years.