When I was growing up in Humboldt County, I did not learn much from my parents about their lives in Italy; however, I was exposed to the Italian language every day, especially at mealtimes when my father and mother spoke in the dialect of the Trentino region of northern Italy. Although I always spoke to them in English, my memory stored the Italian.

By 1964, it was too late to ask questions about the lives my parents had led in Italy — my father had died and my mother was incapacitated. Fortunately, over the years, I worked on my Italian. In 1964, 1 began what was to be a series of trips to Italy to meet several aunts and many cousins, to visit my parent’s birthplace, Cogolo in the Val di Peio at the foot of the Alps, and to learn about the lives of the people I loved.