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chapter VIII Sopranome and more family | |
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 European Sparrowhawk |
My family is from a town where most everyone one has one of a dozen surnames. To tell families apart, they used Sopranome, which are simply nicknames. Apparently, my great grandfather (or his progenitor, depending on who is telling the story) was quite the treeclimber. he climbed into trees so fast that it appeared that he flew. the Dialect name for the Sparrowhawk in Sersale was “cristadella” and that is the sopranome for my family. If you tell people you are a Torchia, they will ask, which ones. The correct answer is Cristadella. Interestingly enough, Cristadella is not just the Torchias, but includes other members of this family, 1 or two generations removed from Torchia. |
 Giuseppe Mercuri, a cristadella |
I asked my cousin, how does this sopranome thing work, since his name is Giuseppe Mercuri, but he’s a Cristadella same as everyone else. He told me it was hard to explain, very profound.. Okay, that’s the best answer I am going to get! He however, acted out the whole story, to our delight. he was absolutely hilarious. “caw caw” said the Cristadella.
My Sersale relatives as a whole seemed to be very industrious, hard working people. Just look at their hands, you can see. They worked as loggers, and truck drivers, various trades; and in their free time, they all maintained gardens. As they get towards retirement age, they have purchased more property and extended their gardens for “passatempo,” a fine pastime. |
 | They found it important to point out to me that these gardens were not a necessity, but a pleasure. Each cousin seemed to out do the others as he showed us his giardino, and pointed out each plant, new tree, or graft, that he had planted, or that his father or his grandfather had planted. The generality about lazy southern Italians really didn’t seem to fit any of my family. While the men are maintaining their giardino, the women are cleaning, ironing, cooking, caring for children and grandchildren. My cousins insisted that EVERYONE helped in the garden from time to time, and some of them had nice little "houses" where they could be under shelter when they needed a rest from their garden chores. Here they, are, living in beautiful, well furnished houses, that most of them built themselves (HOW DID THEY DO THAT?) |
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with large producing gardens, cabins by the sea, cars, (heck, one cousin who made a comment about Americans and all their money, drives a new Citroen, and his summer “cabin” is larger than MY only house..)
So why does this myth persist about lazy southerners? In my dealings with northern Italians, it is universal. But my southern relatives are doing the same dance of work and children as the northerners, with lower wages and the garden thrown in as well. |
 | My week in Sersale was a very emotional time for me, getting to know some wonderful wonderful cousins, but then knowing that I might never see them again, or when I do see them, they might be so advanced in age that they will be just a memory of their former selves. We reveled in their vitality, inventiveness, generosity and magnanimity. And oh, how we both wished that we lived closer. And we invited them all to come out and see us, but the answer was invariably the same. “Oh we couldn’t do that”, they’d protest “Who would watch our grandchildren/children?” But some of the youths, when we invited them, their eyes sparkled, and you could tell that we’d lit a spark, that some day, one of them might actually take the risk and come to America, and visit us! Children. We met a lot of kids, mostly cousins, of all ages. The little ones were cosseted loved adorable little things. The teenagers, to my utter amazement, were polite, respectful to their parents and downright friendly to us. |
| As a matter of fact, we tended to depend on the young adults to help us with “translation” as they could speak Italian more easily, not just dialect, and having been in school more recently, were more aware of the difficulties of learning another language, and would slow down and repeat for us. The amount of English we heard even from the kids was pretty sparse, though. We found more than one little girl who was supposedly learning English, but it was hard to know if it was shyness, or if they really didn’t know how to say even “thank you” in English. | |
| As the week in Sersale progressed, we started to become accustomed to the dialect, and strangely, found ourselves understanding what people were saying, even when they weren’t talking to us. My husband and I both started picking up phrases in Dialect. IF we had had another week, we would have been just hopping! We kept the family in stitches while we tried to imitate their dialect. | |