Mt. Rainier and Lenticular Clouds - Dec. 2008 copyright: JMM

January 18, 2013

Flashback Friday



Martha over at Seaside Simplicity is hosting "Flashback Friday" this year, with the goal being to post an old photo every Friday, all year.  Unfortunately, I don't have many old photos (really old ones, anyway), so my participation will be more sporadic.  My mom's got all the old pictures at her house and I currently lack scanning abilities at this time.  I mean I can scan them, but they go to a large desktop computer that has no modem and for some reason gives me an error message anytime I try to copy photos onto a CD that I could use in my laptop.

This is a very old photo of my maternal family's hometown of Corvara, Italy in the Abruzzi Mountains.  I have no idea if my family's homes were up there or elsewhere in town.  If you look up the town now, there are still people named Marganella that live there, and it currently has a population of 288.  The Marganellas, and DiMartinos, came to America in the early 1900s, and were processed through Ellis Island in New York. My grandmother was 5 when her mom journeyed from Corvara to the Port of Naples, with my grandmother and her 6 year old sister, to make the Atlantic crossing in 1911 (my great grandfather was already in Yonkers and sent for them). What must that trip have been like?  How did they travel off this mountainside and even get to Naples?  There had to have been a train station nearby.  I've seen a recent photo of this same scene and it looks pretty much the same.

10 comments:

  1. Wow very cool JoJo! That's an amazing old photo... those homes perched on a mountainside. I can't even imagine what that trip must have been like back then.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, I love history, especially hearing people's stories. My immigration wasn't quite as exciting, except for the baggage strike at Heathrow, and then throwing up on the bus from the plane to the terminal...
    I was almost 9.

    Tina @ Life is Good
    http://kmdlifeisgood.blogspot.com/
    Co-host, April 2013 A-Z Challenge
    @TinaLifeisGood, #atozchallenge

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like the story and the photo, JJ. Would have loved to have seen the train. What a history contained in that one photo.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I hope it was the camera that was wonky, not the houses!

    ReplyDelete
  5. How cool that you have this picture and know so much of your family's history. So glad you shared this story.

    Kathy
    http://gigglingtruckerswife.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous4:23 AM

    It's amazing where people start out and then somehow manage to end up somewhere else!

    ReplyDelete
  7. HEY! You forgot to link up! I'll link it for you now :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Such a really cool photo by the way!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Wow, great photo. I bet that was a long hard trip.
    Valerie
    Everyday Inspired

    ReplyDelete