About

My Valentino

About Me, Why Italy, Why Itri

I am a happily married woman – my husband is from Italy – we are parents to four adult sons. Our family now includes two great gals and five granddaughters – we are blessed! Extended family includes too many siblings, nieces, nephews, cousins by the dozens to list all of them here – but each name is written in our hearts and they are loved!.

I grew up in the small village of Easton, Connecticut.   Once a week, Samuel Staples Elementary School would walk a class over to the Town Hall basement to the town library. I would check out the maximum number of books allowed because I so loved to read. Soon I was through all of the books in my own division and the librarian made the decision to permit me more mature books. I discovered Don Camillo! Written by the Italian author Giovanni Guareschi, they were wonderfully written simple vignettes of Italian life in a Po River Valley town. The communist mayor was constantly battling the local parish priest. Aside from the flavorful way Guareschi presented an ageless moral and political struggle, this series seeped deep into my soul. I so loved these books, I hated to return them and would renew them over and over. Recently I was able to purchase old fragile copies of a few of them online and fell in love all over again. As a child they burned a dream into my heart of living in Italy but in time I got caught up in life and the dream was buried until I met Valentino. The visits to Itri awakened those dreams again. It was as if I had always known these familiar little villages and towns.

Introduction

 My Italian sisters-in-law and I are more than mere in-laws. We are bound by love of family. Although not bound by blood, we are bound together by our love of this family. Realizing that family is fragile and could easily slip away, we search roots to bind us closer together. My natural sister and I share many common interests and see things alike, so we have begun our genealogical journey together to find the present and future from our past.   

 My mother-in-law told me my first week of marriage that I became her daughter as she had become a Di Crocco woman via marriage. As her sisters-in-law had with her then, now her daughters and daughters-in-law embraced and enfolded me into their family of Di Crocco women.

Now as I stand at the threshold of changing family, my four Di Crocco sons have become young men. It has become my turn to offer unconditional love and eagerly embrace and enfold daughters-in-law into this beloved family Di Crocco! As I share my sons, I see now the future shining brightly and beckoningly in the eyes of love of my new daughters!