Reunion of the Sabines

Monday, October 9 – Wednesday, October 11: Magliano Sabina (Amanda)

Bill and I said goodbye to Rome and headed north towards the province of Rieti in search of my long lost Italian relatives. My great-grandmother was born in the village of Magliano Sabina but moved to the United States around 1920. We knew finding any of her relatives would be difficult because my grandmother had only been in contact with her mother’s family once in the last fifty years, and even that was fifteen years ago. But I still wanted to see the small village where my great-grandmother was born and I figured meeting family would just be a bonus.

After about an hour’s drive from Rome we arrived at our hotel, an old converted postal stage located on the hillside of Magliano. We checked in and headed up the mountain armed only with my great-grandmother’s birth certificate, letters written to her in 1949, and the names of a few people that I was related to (but I was not sure how). Added to all of that, I speak zero Italian. A long shot, right?

Once we reached the top we found Magliano Sabina to be a very quaint old village with winding narrow roads barely passable by car, even by European standards. We stumbled upon the only pharmacy in town and went inside to begin our search. Everyone there was so helpful to us, despite the language barrier. They made phone calls and spent time looking at my letters to investigate. We eventually left 30 minutes later with two phone numbers in hand, one for Morino (my grandmother’s first cousin) and the other for his son Antonio.

Back at our hotel, I phoned Antonio. I was a little hesitant because I wasn’t sure whether he could speak English or would have any clue who I was. The funny thing is that when I called, someone had already beaten me to it. Word had already got back to his family that some crazy American girl was looking for him :) He and his family graciously (bravely) invited Bill and me to their home in Rome for dinner the following evening.

Bill and I took advantage of being in Magliano the next day before heading back to Rome. We toured the beautiful and ultra peaceful country side, stopping to see goats being hand-milked in rolling pastures. Later, we stopped to take some pictures of a gorgeous vineyard when an older Italian man drove up on his tractor. Initially we were a little nervous about being on his property, but he invited us further into the vineyard and proceeded to give us a lesson (in Italian, unfortunately) on grapes and winemaking. We left with handfuls of grapes that would instead have gone to the local wine production.

Later that evening I finally got to meet my relatives. We had a wonderful dinner with Morino and his wife, Antonio and his wife and three daughters, and Ottavio, Antonio’s brother. Rita, Antonio’s wife, prepared an amazing meal consisting of specialties from Magliano Sabina. It’s difficult to put into words how incredible the night was. The highlight was when I handed Morino a letter that he had written to my great-grandmother (his aunt) in 1949 while he was living in Mexico. We didn’t need to speak a common language for me to understand how moved he was to see a letter he had written halfway around the world 57 years ago. We shared pictures and stories from each side of the family. Ottavio even managed to draw out a family tree so we could all fill in the blanks while we were there. They are all such wonderful and generous people, and I feel blessed to have finally met them. We will definitely keep in touch and I hope that with some planning we can reunite more of our family members in the future.

We drove back to Magliano late that night for some rest before our trip to Tuscany the next day. Bill will tell you about that in our next post.

Ciao,

Amanda