The annual IABC Awards Dinner/Dance honoring the IABC Family of the Year will take place on Saturday, October 11, 2014, at the Elk’s Lodge (Goleta), at 6:00 p.m. (Adults $50 per person). Formal invitations will be mailed to IABC members.
For more information, please call: (805)565-2968.
On August 17, 2014, the Italian American Boot Club, UNICO, and the Italian Cultural Heritage Foundation joined together to present La Festa di Ferragosto at Manning Park, an event benefiting the Italian Language Program at Santa Barbara High School. The weather could not have been better – warm with a cool breeze and not a cloud in the sky! Guests enjoyed delicious food, great Italian wine and beer, games, music, gelato, grape stomping and more!
A special thank you to those of you who volunteered your time to make this event a huge success! We could not have done this without you! We are especially proud of the IABC volunteers and committee members. Your experience and leadership is appreciated and valued!
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Spaghettata was a great IABC event – so much fun! There were many new faces and old faces that we had not seen in some time. Thank you to all those who helped – we had over 80 guests and of course an amazing spread of food. This is a relatively new event for the IABC, but one that is quickly becoming a club favorite. Check out the photos from the event (courtesy of IABC Board President, Jim Ducale – thank you, Jim!)
Thank you to all the IABC members and guests who came out to celebrate Memorial Day with us on May 25, 2014 at Manning Park. It was a beautiful day, spectacular food, and wonderful company!
It was a perfect day to gather at Manning Park in Montecito, California for the IABC’s annual Easter Egg Hunt! Attendees were treated to lunch, games, crafts, and prizes as well as a traditional egg hunt. The children played a few rounds of “bunny bocce” and enjoyed running around the fields of Manning Park. What a great way to kick off the holiday weekend!
Beverly Gose joined the Boot Club in 1992. Her Italian heritage comes from her maternal grandparents, Filippo and Vittoria Dal Vecchio who came to Santa Barbara from Crespano Del Grappa in the early 1920’s. She has been active in the Club, serving as secretary of the Board of Directors for eight years, and helped run the Lasagna booth for five years.
Beverly and Ed have two sons and four grandchildren, Anthony, Elizabeth, Jameson and Alexis. Working in the medical field since 1972, Beverly is currently the office manager for two internal medicine physicians.
“Joining the Boot Club has been a wonderful experience, a life changer. My world has been enriched by wonderful friends and made me appreciate my heritage.” – Beverly Gose
On February 22, 2014, IABC members gathered at Holy Cross Church to celebrate Carnevale!
Sofia Comin and Eileen Prinslow prepared a gorgeous spread of antipasto and desserts, while Renato Moiso and George Kasiliyake skillfully poured wine for members to taste and enjoy. Beverly Gose’s decorations created the perfect atmosphere for members to don their Venetian masks and immerse themselves in the theme of the evening.
Che bella notte!
For more photos, please see our Photos of IABC Events page.
Carnevale in Italy is a huge winter festival celebrated with parades, masquerade balls, entertainment, music, parties, and crazy pranks. Carnevale has roots in pagan festivals and traditions and, as is often the case with traditional festivals, was adapted to fit into the Catholic rituals. Although carnival is actually one date, in Venice and some other places in Italy the carnival celebrations and parties may begin a couple weeks before.
Masks, maschere, are an important part of the carnevale festival and Venice is the best city for traditional carnival masks. People also wear elaborate costumes for the festival and there are costume or masquerade balls, both private and public.
Don Henderson grew up in Philadelphia, PA. He graduated from Widener University. Don came to California in 1965 and received his masters degree from Long Beach State.
Don met his future wife, Louise Mazzella, on a business trip in New York. Don and Louise were married in 1973 and moved to Santa Barbara. They opened delis in Five Points and La Cumbre Plaza (still there) and had five others. Don and Louise sold everything and Don went to work at the Sheriff’s Department. He retired eleven years ago.
Don’s hobbies include oil painting, he’s a member SBAA, DB Club, and the Italian American Boot Club. Don enjoys horseracing and working on his rentals. Louise and Don have one daughter, Donna, who lives near Sacramento and is a high school librarian. Don also enjoys traveling – he’s visited over fifty countries and counting, Iceland this spring.
Don loves italian food!
Some readers may remember the article I wrote which described how I was able to find distant relatives of my Italian family in Italy. That article was published in the Boot Club newsletter and Italia magazine. That article described the beginning stages of my Italian genealogy research. The research has continued and introduced me to the topic of Italian foundlings, a topic which is at the heart of many Italian families whether they realize it or not. I used Familysearch.org extensively but not exclusively for my research and was able to trace my great grandmother’s family (Salatiello) back to the early 1700’s in Calvizzano. Unfortunately, it was a different story for my great grandfather, Vincenzo Ducale. All digitized genealogy information ended with him. After much head scratching and searching, I was finally able to receive a “birth” document from Napoli which told his beginnings as one of thousands of Italian orphans.
Locating genealogical information about an Italian orphan is almost impossible due to the extremely rare occurrence of finding the names of the birth parents. Orphans were also known as Trovatelli or Proietti and most large and some small cities in Italy and throughout Europe had an orphanage for many centuries. Italy alone had over 1100 orphanages. The orphanages were sanctioned by the state and were often run by nuns as part of a church structure. In Rome the Santo Spirito in Sassia received orphans since the time of Pope Sixtus IV. As many as 3000 foundlings a year were abandoned there. Florence had l’Ospedale degli Innocenti. In Venice the hospital Casa degli Esposti received 450 orphans a year since 1346. The word esposti signifies that the infant was exposed when abandoned. Women were able to leave a child at one of the orphanages with complete anonymity. A child was abandonded usually due to the child being born out of wedlock but some were abandoned because the family was poor. Often, the child was left with some form of token such as a devotional medal, coin or magic charm which would afford the parents the ability to identify and claim the child at later time if their circumstances changed. Around the neck of my great grandfather was a tag on which was written Vico Pontecorvo, a nearby Naples street. When a child was taken to the orphanage by the mother it was placed in a revolving basket, the ruota, which was usually hidden from the street. The child was placed in the basket which could then be turned and the child disappeared behind the wall. Turning the ruota would usually ring a bell alerting those in attendance that a child was left. The child was then cleaned, baptized and given a name by the local official.
Naming a child seems to have been the responsibility of the local official assigned to the duty. If the name of the father was known, a type of code was sometimes used which was recorded in the record book from which the parents names and address could be determined. Exactly how most names were given may have varied from region to region and town to town but most were generic. The name Esposito signifies an orphan or one who was “exposed”. At times the mother would state that she had become pregnant by a nobleman due to the stigma of an out of wedlock pregnancy. In cases such as this, the name might have been chosen which may have sounded noble such as Della Luna or even Ducale. Often after arrival at an orphanage the infant was temporarily given to a wet nurse or woman who had recently given birth.
After the 1850’s the ruota began to be phased out and the responsibility fell to the office of Civil State. This gradual change was in response to the high mortality rate in orphanages which was as high as 28% in some regions. Infants were even found deceased within the ruota which added to the number of deaths.
It is apparent from the large number orphans that many Italian families have their origins in an orphanage. How many children were returned to their birth parents is not known but is likely extremely small given the economic conditions of the time. It is because of these harsh conditions that many of us find ourselves in the United States. Whether we are descendents of orphans or not is not important. We are Italians.
This article was written and submitted by James Ducale, IABC President
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