From Italy, With Love––

Great-Grandmother Maria Ricci Travels To America

By Dottie Evans

July Fourth must be our most exuberant national holiday, with family picnics going on in the back yard and bottle rockets going off in the neighbor’s field.

It may also be our most patriotic holiday, as millions of us tune in at 9 pm to the televised fireworks extravaganza that takes place each year in front of the George Washington Monument in the nation’s capital.

As we celebrate our country’s birth 227 years ago, we might also want to remember another much older country, Italy, whose origins go back to the Etruscan civilization that sprang up in northern Italy more than 3,000 years ago.

We might recall a certain Italian explorer named Amerigo Vespucci (1451–1512), who sailed across the Atlantic and explored the coastline of the New World, whose name we have taken as our own.

Amerigo Vespucci got the idea for his seafaring adventure from another Italian explorer, Christoforo Columbo (1451–1506), who sailed to this hemisphere in 1492 and came ashore in the West Indies, possibly on Santo Domingo Island.

Historically, the Italians have shown an adventuresome spirit and courage enough to go where they have never been, despite the risk. If crossing uncharted territory meant finding out what was on the other side, they would do it.

The Italian people and the Americans have a lot in common that way.

An Italian Great-Grandmother Visits Sandy Hook

Maria Ricci is an 87-year-old Italian woman who possesses both courage and curiosity –– though she would be the last to admit to anything except a very grandmotherly desire to visit her grandchildren in the United States.

She was born May 27, 1916, in Val Bianca Calasca, a tiny village of two houses, which is near the town of Macugnaga. The nearest large city is Domodossola, located in the Italian alps of northwest Italy on the slopes of Monte Rosa.

Mrs Ricci’s grandson is Sandy Hook resident Allessandro Trombini. He, too, grew up in the shadow of Monte Rosa, which he calls “the pink mountain,” and he did not leave Italy until ten years ago.

Today, Mr Trombini and his wife Laura live with their two children, Virginia, 10, and Matteo, 5, on Yogananda Road in Sandy Hook.

He is an employee of Dow Chemical in Danbury, and he has lived in the United States for two years, having worked eight years before that in Zurich, Switzerland. Even though the family left Italy, he has kept in touch with Maria Ricci, visiting her whenever he could. Mr Trombini stopped by The Bee office in late June with a special request on her behalf.

“It is very lovely in Monte Rosa and she is happy there. But she very much wanted to visit America and see her great-grandchildren,” Mr Trombini said.

“It is the longest trip of her life,” he added.

 Photo Beneath The 9/11 Flag

It seemed that Maria Ricci, 87 years young, boarded an airplane for the first time and flew across the Atlantic Ocean. She was at that very moment waiting in Mr Trombini’s car outside The Bee, hoping a special photograph might be arranged to commemorate her visit.

She wanted her picture taken with her great-grandchildren alongside something distinctly American. The American flag painted by artist David Merrill that decorates the row of tree trunks on Howard Lasher’s property would be just perfect.

The painting was created as a monument to 9/11 and it has been called Newtown’s newest landmark. It can be seen by passers-by driving along Route 302 in Dodgingtown, and the colors are as bright today as they were when it was first painted shortly after the World Trade Center disaster, September 11, 2001.

The two Trombini children were rounded up and the picture was taken in the soft light of the late afternoon sun. Mrs Ricci took the photographer’s hand in thanks.

Speaking through her grandson who translated for her, she said how much she had enjoyed her visit and how friendly she found the American people.

And what did she think of the town of Newtown?

“Bellisimo!” she pronounced, eyes sparkling.

Then she grew more serious as she spoke several sentences in Italian.

“She is telling about what it means to her to be photographed here by the 9/11 flag,” Mr Trombini said, “because it honors those who have died and that is important.”

This reminded Mr Trombini of his own experience surrounding the 9/11 disaster.

The family had recently arrived in America. It was Sunday afternoon, September 9, and he and his wife and children spent the day at Flushing Meadows, N.Y., watching the US Open Tennis Tournament.

“On our way out, we saw the magnificent New York skyline with the two trade center towers, and my wife said, ‘We should go into the city and see those towers.’

“I told her, ‘You’re right, but we’ll have plenty of time to do that another day.’

“It turned out, two days later, it was too late. We would never see New York City in quite the same way again.”