Nilo L. Vidi, who spent nearly 50 years making sure Baltimoreans’ knives remained sharp, died Friday from complications of dementia at his Woodbine home. He was 89. The son of Pietro Vidi, also a knife grinder, and Maria Ferrari Vidi, a homemaker, Nilo Louis Vidi was born in Pinzolo, a small village in the Italian Alps, and spent his early years there.

His father came to Baltimore and settled in Little Italy in 1907. Nilo Vidi joined his father in America in 1935, arriving at age 8 at Ellis Island in New York Harbor on his way to Baltimore. He was a graduate of St. Leo’s parochial school in Little Italy.