Palermo

Arrived safely in Palermo at about 7:00.  Since my blackberry was dead with no alarm, I awoke to sounds of ship dropping anchor.  Arrived at the Astoria Palace, but way too early to check in. I sat in the lobby with their wifi for a bit to get my bearings and figure out what to do.  I left my bags there and set out to explore (get lost) in Palermo. One thing about having a terrible sense of direction, it is a good way to keep in shape, as I'm sure I add at least an extra mile to any place I'm walking to.  Since this was early Easter morning, it was very quiet.  I wandered through center of Palermo, and here are a few sights.

                                      My hotel room is without a kitchen, so I couldn't take anything home to cook

This last picture is most interesting, as we knew my grandma as Maria, and her middle name as Caterina.  But, on Nancy Ann's family tree web site for the Clementi's, someone has been adding info on the Pingatore's (and I'm still not sure who is adding the info) and they have my grandma listed as Caterina "Maria" Pingitore.  Her maiden name was Datallo (which I've also seen spelled a half dozen different ways.)   Anyway, this memorial to Caterina Pingitore is on a wall on one of the main streets in Palermo.  While my Pingitore and Datallo relatives are from Calabria, there are apparently a good number of Pingitore's in Sicily.  Anyway, grazie a Caterina for originally coming across this memorial and sending me directions to the site.  One of these days, I'll have to track down birth certificates and get to the bottom of this.

A final note from previous post on my grandpa, Francesco.  What possesses someone at age 20 to pick up and leave the only place they know, and their only family and friends to set out for America.  What was he thinking at the time.  I can guess it had to do with conditions being very poor and bad in Italy at the time.  I'm sure it wasn't that he had heard about how beautiful Minnesota winters were.  He probably crossed the Atlantic in much, much poorer conditions than my short trip last night.  That had to take some courage to set out for a place having little idea of what he was in for.  It would be very interesting to know what all was going on at that time.  I always wished someone could have at least steered him to California to grow grapes, rather than to work for the city of Minneapolis, where he eventually had a work accident during the winter, and went blind.  Well, enough of boring you with all this now.  Buona Pasqua.  Ciao

I just realized, that if my my knowledge of Roman numerals is correct. the date on this memorial is the same date as when my grandpa took off from Napoli.  Ah, the plot thickens.