Antonietta Maria Teresa CAPUANO

<p>It was 1922, and Alfonso decided to ask Antoinetta Capuano for her hand in marriage. Of course, she accepted.&nbsp; To celebrate their engagement,Antoinetta prepared her first meal for her in-laws-to-be. To honor this occasion,Mr. and Mrs. Palumbo, Alfonso&#39;s parents, gave Antoinetta a beautiful gold necklace and medallion, a ring, and bracelet set with amethyst stones.</p><p>Then, on February 3,1924, Alfonso and Antoinetta exchanged vows and were married in Castel St.Giorgio at St.Rocco Church. The ceremony took place at two in the afternoon and lasted about two hours.&nbsp;&nbsp;Father Amabile married the happy couple on the altar were lighted tapers&nbsp; shined and floral vases were filled with white carnations.&nbsp;There were two kneeling benches for the bridal couple. &quot;Ave Maria&quot; was sung during the ceremony. &nbsp;According to italian customs at that&nbsp;time,the chairs in front were for the ladies and the kneeling pews in the back were for the men.</p><p>Antoinetta was dressed in a beautiful white georgette floor length bridal gown with&nbsp; long sleeves and a jeweled neckline.Her white veil was held in place by a crown of&nbsp; fresh orange blossoms&nbsp;. Alfonso was dressed in a&nbsp; three piece black suit with a white tie held down by a gold clip. His black vest had a gold chain attached to his pocket watch.</p><p>The Maid of Honor was Rose Palumbo.She was dressed in a floor length , in rainbow shades of purple&nbsp;,silk gown. His best man was Nicole Palumbo who also wore a black suit.&nbsp; The flower girl was little Rose Palumbo and ring bearer little Nicole Palumbo.</p><p>After the wedding ceremony, Antoinette and Alfonso came out of the church. Mrs. Domenica Palumbo,the groom&#39;s mother presented the happy couple with a silver tray of money. Awaiting the 72 guests and bridal party were 13 horse drawn coaches.</p><p>As they traveled in the bridal coach which was filled with confetti and rice,they rode through&nbsp;the streets of St.Giorgio,CostaSt.Angelo,Spizio,StAustacia,St.Croel,Tanzare,Femiaso,Taverna,Trigio,Codola, and Roccapiamonto to Coali and then finally&nbsp; back home.The couple threw confetti to the people and children on the streets. They recieved gifts of silverware,baskets full of bread,bean,grain,macaroni,flour,oil,wine, a half pig and four hundred chickens!</p><p>The reception feast had one particular delicacy which was aged salami; it was aged for three years for this occasion.the party was filled with music,laughter, dancing and many toasts for the happy couple.&nbsp; One musician filled his guitar with proscuitto(ham); his guitar would not play anymore!</p><p>Some of their guests were: Pasquale Zombrano,Felice Capuano,Benedict Capuano,Liberto Capuano,Salvatore Capuano,Nicole Capuano,Alberto Polickiti,Luigi Apostolic,Catiello dottero,Gaetano Carvino,Luigi Carvino,Ursula dottero,Felice Caolo,Carmino Bruno,Sabito Pasquale,Nicole Pasquale,Domenico Pasquale,Gennaro Torino, and Vincenzo.</p><p>Around one o&#39;clock in the morning, Antonietta and Alfonso left the celebration party. Then all the guests left and went to the home of the bride&#39;s parents,Mr. and Mrs. Capuano and continued their merriment.</p><p>The musicians were Mario Palumbo (the comedian), who played the guitar. Ciccio (the town blacksmith) who played the mandolin, and Michele Guiseoppe Apostolate, a tailor,who played &nbsp;his clarinet.</p><p>The couple&#39;s honeymoon lasted a week and &nbsp;was spent traveling to the Shrine in Pompeii,Salerno and Naples. Alfonso bought Antoinetta a lovely coat at a place called &quot;Mix and Match&quot;while on their honeymoon travels. When they returned home,they visited Alfonso&#39;s parent&#39;s home where Domenica,Alfonso&#39;s mother,broke a dish of money,rice and flowers at the feet of the her new daughter-in-law, Antoinetta,&nbsp;wishing&nbsp;her good luck and saying&quot;Leave your customs and take ours.&quot; This was a traditional welcoming ceremony into the Palumbo family circle.</p>

<p>Our italian family was superstitious. I read a book about the southern italians, and found that this region of Italy&nbsp;were (Catholic)&nbsp;religious but also superstitious by nature. My grandmother &quot;Nonnie&quot;-Antonietta M.t.Palumbo, would do the following near her kitchen sink:( She referred to the &quot;evil eye&quot; as mal ochio....</p><p>She would begin by making the sign of the cross.</p><p>Then she would take a large bowl, fill it with tap water from the sink.</p><p>Next..She would drop olive oil by her small finger into the water bowl. Several drops of oil .</p><p>Then she would take a knife and cut through the oil in the water. If the oil clumped together, she believed &quot;evil&quot; was around. So, she would throw ashes or salt over it, and then throw the water mixture down the sink drain so no one else would &quot;catch&quot;the same evil eye.</p><p>SHE REPEATED THIS SAYING/RITUAL THREE TIMES. Then she ended the entire ritual with &quot;the sign of the cross&quot;.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Submitted by Grace M.(Nardi) Wood. Told by Raffaela (Palumbo) Nardi</p>

<p>&quot;Nonnie&quot; Palumbo (Antoinetta M.T.Palumbo) would mix together the following ingredients to cure a cough. She referred to it as&quot;Ricotta&quot; </p><p>Ricotta</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Fill a boiling pan with water (3/4 filled)</p><p>Add camoumille,bay leaves, an apple cut up in pieces,barley,a fresh orange cut into pieces. Boil for awhile then strain through cheese cloth. Add honey or sugar if desired. Serve warm!!!! </p>

<p>My gandmother,&quot;Nonnie Palumbo&quot; wore false teeth. As long as I can remember, she had false teeth.&nbsp; When her teeth got bad, she went with my mother,father,sister, brother and I to Italy (1967)&nbsp;to have a new set made.</p><p>Anyways, whenever I went over her house I would look down on the couch or her favorite rocking chair (which I loved to rock in) and look for her teeth. She would leave them whever she sat. Whenver I found them, I would scream and she would laugh, pick them up and return them to her bowl in the bathroom.</p>

<p>&quot;My mother,Antoinetta Palumbo would&nbsp; buy flour,cornmeal,etc. to make spaghetti and bread. She&nbsp; made her pasta dough and cut it&nbsp;up.Then she would put it on a cloth outside to dry the noodles. Sometimes, she would take a mop handle and use it as a&nbsp;stick to hang the freshly made spagheei strips over. She took two chairs&nbsp;and placed a mop stick (handle) across the chairs so she could hand the noodles&nbsp;to dry. The pasta was delicious!&quot;</p><p>reported to Grace (Nardi)&nbsp;Wood by Raffaela (Palumbo) Nadi.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

<p>&quot;We didn&#39;t have a bathroom in our house...we had a small outhouse outside.We had a deep hole in the ground made up of cement blocks. It was covered and we had a hole that we would use as a toilet seat. Whenever we needed manuere we would get a&nbsp; bucket to scoop it out and throw it on my mother&#39;s garden. This was common in Italy.</p>

&quot;In Italy we would bury our family members in a wooden coffin&nbsp;when they died. My mother would clean her father Nicola&#39;s bones with alcohol and then but him back in one piece into his suit. He was buried in the wall in the cemetery.&quot;--submitted by Raffaela (Palumbo) Nardi

<p>My Uncle Pantaleone helped my mother when my father was gone in America. &nbsp;</p><p>One time, my sister Domenica went to the circus that was in town. My Uncle Pantaleone went to find her for my mother. </p><p>My father had built an outdoor toilet attached to the house. Inside this small toilet room was a cesspool that we would empty out when it was full with a pail and use it for our garden as manure. That particular day,the cesspool was clean so Domenica hid there from my Uncle Pantaleone (Capuano). I knew she was there and promised her I wouldn&#39;t tell. </p><p>My Uncle Pantaleone rode his motorcycle (He loved motorcycles) around looking for my oldest sister Domenica for my mother. &nbsp;After awhile, Domenica got out of the cesspool &nbsp;and my mother scolded her. &nbsp;Then Pantaleone returned to find her home.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>submitted by Raffaela (Palumbo) Nardi&nbsp;</p>

<p>Whenever my grandmother(Antonietta Palumbo) visited our house, which was usually early Saturday morning around eight, she would bring her &quot;borsa&quot; filled with gifts. Her borsa was a basket lined with fabric on two sides. &nbsp;She walked from her house to ours which is about 3 blocks away to get her hair done on Saturday. &nbsp;My mother,Raffaela (Palumbo) Nardi would do her hair.She would always dye Nonnie&#39;s hair silver and set it each week with hair rollers. &nbsp;</p><p>Nonnie would always walk upstairs in our house to say hi. &nbsp;She had all kinds of goodies to eat,fresh vegetables and fruit from her garden like tomatoes, fresh basil that smelled so good, fruit from her trees, and of course my favorite, &nbsp;raspberries and figs! &nbsp;She grew every type of fruit and vegetable in her garden so it was always a surprise to see what she had in her basket. &nbsp;Sometimes, she would even take out her small change purse and give us a dollar each. &nbsp;I can still picture her smiling and telling us to quietly put the dollar away after she took it our of her small black leather change purse.</p><p>When I went to London England for the first time,in the 1990&#39;s, I bought Nonnie a small plaid change purse that was made in Scotland. &nbsp;</p><p>submitted by: Grace (Nardi) Wood&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

&quot;When we were kids, we used to go to my Aunt Orsolina&#39;s house. &nbsp;She had a big wine barrel there that she used to make wine. &nbsp;My mother would buy the grapes and we would help make it.. &nbsp;We would crush the grapes with our feet. I remember that we made more red wine than white wine.&quot;-----Maria (Palumbo) Nardi &nbsp;April 2008.

<p>&quot;When we lived in Italy, my mother made us eat everything fresh. &nbsp;For breakfast, we would go to the chicken coop and grab an egg. &nbsp;Then we would make two holes on opposite sides of the egg. &nbsp;We had to suck the raw egg for breakfast. We also had a small glass of wine, cheese, and fresh milk from the cow.&nbsp;</p><p>&quot;My mother raised chickens and pigs. &nbsp;When the pig was fat enough, she would take the pig to the butcher. &nbsp;Then she would make her soprasata (salami) and everything.&quot;---Raffaela (Palumbo) Nardi &nbsp;April 2008&nbsp;</p>

When Antonietta, Maria&#39;s mother left Italy for America, her daughter Maria received a letter from her father Alfonso Palumbo that she should come to the United States right away. &nbsp;Alfonso knew that his wife didn&#39;t want to stay in America so he tried to get all his girls to move there. &nbsp;Antonietta came to America with her daughters Raffaela, Immaculata, Velia and Nina. &nbsp;Maria couldn&#39;t travel with her mother because she was older.( Immigration only allowed parents to travel with children under a certain age). &nbsp;So Maria packed her belongings and moved to America to be with her family. Maria&#39;s oldest sister, Domenica was married and also moved with her husband and two children to America.

<p>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Nearby Antonietta&#39;s home was a canned good factory. &nbsp;It was about three or four miles away. Antonietta would collect beans from the company and carry them home to clean. &nbsp;Her daughters couldn&#39;t work in the factory, so Antonietta had them clean each bean by pulling off the vertical bean string and &nbsp;breaking off the ends of each string bean,</p><p>When they finished cleaning the beans, she would gather them up and carry them to the factory for compensation (money),&nbsp;</p>

<p><span style="font-weight: bold">&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; Antonietta loved gardening. She grew everything from wheat,potatoes,beans ,peas,zucchini, corn, and asparagus; She basically grew anything she could sell. As a matter of fact, during &nbsp;World War II , she took her girls into public shelter and &nbsp;&#39; to survive she would go into their &nbsp;nearby home in the evening and cook corn mush (polenta) for everyone to eat in the shelter. Antonietta couldn&#39;t put the house &nbsp;lights on, for fear the Germans would spot her so she would cook on the wood burning stove and return with food for all to enjoy.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: bold">&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;In the springtime, she grew all kinds of herbs. She would dry them to use in the winter. &nbsp;Her garden consisted of sixty or better persimmon trees which were her biggest seller. &nbsp;She also had cherry, fig, kumquat and plum trees. &nbsp;Antoniette had grape wines but didn&#39;t have enough grapes to make wine or to sell.&nbsp;</span></p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; <span style="font-weight: bold">Her children never touched or ate from their garden (Or at least without her knowing it) because she would sell all the fruits and vegetables on a large table in front of their home. Antoniette would open her large front doors and when a car stopped, one of the girls or Antoniette would go outside to get their money. At the end of the day, she would share the remaining fruits or vegetables with her family to eat&nbsp;</span>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; <span style="font-weight: bold">The Palumbo family lived comfortably selling their fruits and vegetables on a large table stand by the road. &nbsp;They really didn&#39;t have to work for a living because their garden supplied their income.</span></p>