A Pilgrimage to Atessa
Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 06.12.02 | 1:13 AM ET
Pasquale Serafini left Atessa, Italy for America at the age of 18, became a tailor and shop owner in New Hampshire, and died there in 1960. “In all his 81 years of life he never went back to his birthplace,” his grandson, Frank D. Roylance, writes in Sunday’s Baltimore Sun. “Neither did his American-born son or daughter—my Uncle Enzo (for Fiorenzo), and my mother, the former (let this roll off your tongue) Elvira Lucia Filomena Serafini.” Recently, however, Roylance did go back—guided by his grandfather’s old letters. His essay touches on the mixed feelings inspired by his visit. “It appeared that pictures and memories were all we would bring home,” he writes. “It was much more than anyone in our family had ever known of Atessa, yet I couldn’t help wishing I had done more planning, more digging for connections.”
Email to friend
Twitter
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! Buzz
Michael Yessis is the cofounder and coeditor-in-chief of World Hum.
