Dear Readers,
Another April assortment of Italian Connections awaits you: Albert Einstein, the famous scientist, once said, “The people of Italy are the most civilized people I have ever met”. Although Albert was born in 1879 in Ulm, a small town in Germany, his family moved to Munich a year later.
Albert did not like school because in Germany, at that time, school rules were strict and teachers were as stern as army officers. After his father’s business in Munich began to fail, Albert’s family moved to Milan, Italy when he was fifteen years old. Albert discovered his love for Italy and although in later years he lived and worked in several other countries, the famous mathematician and scientist never lost his love for Italy and its people.
In 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power, Einstein was visiting a professor at the California Institute of Technology and could not go back to Germany, because Hitler hated Jews and pacifists and Einstein was both. Einstein became a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey and an American citizen. He died on April 18, 1955 at age 76.
***
Bay State’s former First Lady
Jennie Benedetto Volpe passed away recently at age 98. Many of us who were charter members of the N.I.A.F. (National Italian American Foundation) remember her and her late husband, Massachusetts State Governor John A. Volpe fondly. John Volpe was first elected governor in 1960 and would go on to win two more terms in the 1960’s. He became the nation’s first Secretary of Transportation in 1969, Ambassador to Italy in 1973, and N.I.A.F. President in 1977.
Jennie Benedetto Volpe was born in the farming region of Abruzzo and lived in Pescosansonesco before she and her mother emigrated in 1915 to join her father in Massachusetts. She graduated from a nursing program at Winchester Hospital before doing further training at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. She met her husband who was a member of the Verdi Band while going to a local festival.During the time she was the state’s First Lady, she worked to improve the quality of services at state mental health sites. In 1967, she visited all then-26 state hospitals.
She and the governor were married in 1934. She is survived by one daughter, a sister and four grandkids.
***
Count Alessandro O. Dandini, who left us in April 1991 at age 88, had a lot more going for him than his titles and good looks. Count Alessandro O. Dandini was an ingenious inventor and renaissance man, who patented over 22 inventions including the three-way light bulb. Born in Mexico to Italian parent in 1899, Dandini spent his childhood in Mexico and Italy. In 1945, he moved to Reno, Nevada where he joined the faculty at the University of Nevada, teaching engineering and foreign languages.
He held four doctorates in Science and Languages from Grenoble, France, Hydraulic Engineering from Turin, Italy, Classics from Quebec, Canada, and an honorary doctorate in Science from the University of Nevada. In 1981, he received the Outstanding Nevada Inventor Award, and in 1984, was inducted into the Nevada Hall of Fame.
He is most well known for his inventions and patents of the three-way light bulb, colored building blocks, the rigid retractable automobile top and for the spherical system which concentrates and extracts solar energy.
***
Country Music singer and songwriter Rosanne Cash, daughter of music legend Johnny Cash and his first wife Vivian (he later remarried), has an Italian Connection. Rosanne was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1955, just as her dad’s first single “Cry, Cry, Cry” was climbing the charts. Johnny had three more daughters with Vivian- Kathy, Cindy and Tara, but by the time Rosanne was fifteen her parents had split and Johnny Cash was with June Carter. Rosanne’s mother, Vivian, grew up in San Antonio, Texas.
Her maternal grandparents were Tom and Irene Liberto, second generation Italian Americans. Her great-grandparents were Angelina and Frank Liberto, who came from Sicily in the late nineteenth century. Tom Liberto, her grandfather, was an insurance salesman who was also an amateur magician, rose gardener and breeder so renowned that he was asked to create a special rose for Lady Bird Johnson on her visit to San Antonio in the early 1960’s.
***
Declining Population in certain provinces (counties) in Italy has the big “formaggios” looking to dissolve certain provinces in order to save money by reducing administrative costs. It may make good economic sense but since my materal roots are deep in one of the provinces on the proposed omit list I’m a little unhappy about it. All provinces with a total population under 220,000 inhabitants may soon disappear, merging with adjacent provinces. Here is an example of “doomed” provinces: Biella in Piemonte, Fermo and Ascoli Piceno in Marche, Matera in Basilicata, Crotone in Calabria, Isernia in Molise, Rieti in Lazio, Massa Carrara in Toscana, and Vibo Valentia in Calabria.
***
Efrem Trettel, OFM fans will be happy to know that Father Efrem, born in Trento in 1921 and a pioneer in communications, A.R.C., will be celebrating birthday “numero” ninety this year. He welcomes cards, phone calls and visits from friends at his new abode Alma Via Apt. 10, One Thomas More Way, San Francisco, California 94132. Telephone :(415) 841-9156.
***
Frenchman David Lorenzi, after whom Lorenzi Park in Las Vegas is named, has a surname that suggests there may be an Italian or two in his family tree. but I have not, via my research, been able to find them. Nonetheless, since the Las Vegas Art Museum is located in Lorenzi Park on eighty acres originally purchased in 1911 by David Lorenzi, I will share some info on Lorenzi with you.
David Lorenzi successfully farmed the land, built a large lake with an island and surrounded its banks with weeping willows by 1922. The area became known as the Twin Lakes Lodge Resort. This oasis in the desert entertained many famous Hollywood stars, politicians, nationally known scientists, and gaming giants. In 1965 the City of Las Vegas purchased the land. Today Lorenzi Park is a lush wild life preserve full of roses and desert gardens, a most serene environment for one to appreciate and enjoy culture.
Situated in Lorenzi Park are the Nevada State Historical Museum. Derfelt Senior Center, Sammy Davis Jr. Festival Plaza, Las Vegas Garden Club, Park District facilities and the Las Vegas Art Museum. Established in 1950, the Las Vegas Art Museum is housed in two of the resort’s original buildings, which are Nationally Registered Historical Buildings.
***
Galleries in the Las Vegas Art Museum, in Lorenzi Park, present new exhibits every month, so stop by the next time you are in town. You will enjoy viewing nationally acclaimed artists as well as widely recognized regional artists. The Museum’s Main Gallery exhibits national and international artists. The Nevada Gallery serves as a showcase for regional artists. The Mini Gallery is a collector’s auction gallery. In an effort to encourage aspiring young artists the Las Vegas Art Museum also exhibits young artists work in the Youth Gallery.
***
Hans Christian Andersen, known worldwide as the author of “The Ugly Duckling”, The Princess and the Pea”, “The Little Mermaid” and dozens of other children’s stories, was born 1805, the son of a poor shoemaker, in the town of Odense, on Denmark’s Funen Island.
In 1816, when Andersen was eleven, his father died. The boy was broken-hearted and was left alone a great deal as his mother worked long hours as a washer- woman.
A wealthy widow,who lived across the street, gave him some poetry books to read and encouraged his interest in literature. In 1818, when he was thirteen, Andersen’s mother remarried. Andersen did not get along well with his new stepfather, and it became clear that he would soon have to make his own way in the world. His mother suggested that since he liked making costumes for his puppets, he might apprentice himself to a tailor. He rejected this idea. He decided to become an actor or a dancer- he wasn’t sure which, but he knew that there were many theaters in Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen, where he might be able to work.
In 1822, two years after arriving in Copenhagen, he was still giving impromptu performances and hoping to be discovered. He began writing stories and plays and a kind benefactor helped procure a grant from King Frederick VI so that Andersen could attend a private school.
Andersen continued writing but he was so uneven and prolific he depreciated the value of his works and booksellers were reluctant to stock them.
In 1834 Andersen traveled to Italy on a travel grant from the Danish King. He found the Italian people and climate so attractive and in such harmony with his own emotional nature that he began imagining what his life would have been like if had been raised in Italy instead of Denmark. He wrote sketches of the colorful characters he encountered, from peasants to princes, and started conceiving of a novel set in Italy that would tell and alternative version of his own life story.
The following year, after his return to Denmark, he finished the work, titled Improvvisatore. The novel’s hero, Antonio, raised in the slums of Rome, has a special gift for improvising words and music, and this talent draws the interest of the eminent Borghese family, who send him to a Jesuit college where he is unhappy but achieves social success.
Dedicated to his benefactors, the Collin family, Improvvisatore was published in April of 1835. It was an immediate success, selling out and going into a second printing. Andersen was delighted. He wrote: "Everyone is so kind, so nice to me, many even say that they had not anticipated anything like that from me. I am on the crest of a wave".
Improvisatore was translated into several languages, including German and English. It was one of the first novels to focus on the hero's childhood, setting an example for Andersen's admirer Charles Dickens, who later wrote his own novels with child heroes, such as David Copperfield.
Andersen's first book of fairy tales came out in May of 1835. Followed by "The Princess and the Pea", "Little Claus and Big Claus", "Little Ida's Flowers", "Thumbelina", "The Tinderbox", and "The Ugly Duckling".
Although many critics disliked his stories, children found them fascinating and they sold well.
Over the course of his life he wrote over 150 fairy tales and was one of the best known men in Europe. He died in 1875, at the age of seventy.
***
In Italiano, "una caramella"
written by Fr. Efrem Trettel, OFM:
SOLO?
Non ti spaventare d'essere solo, quando hai parlato con Dio
