Profiles

On skis since she was barely walking, Marta Bassino has hurtled to the top of the sport, notching countless podium visits on the local, regional, national and international levels. After first stepping into skis when she wasn’t even 2 years old, Marta Bassino grew up whizzing down slopes in her native Northern Italy, perfectly at home on the snow. “It was always something very natural,” the 27-year-old says of her sport. “When you start so little, it becomes normal. It feels normal.” Over the years, her talent and hard work catapulted Bassino, a native of Borgo San Dalmazzo in the …

by Rosa Morici Rappa as told to Linda Grisolia An American citizen who died in a Soviet prison camp as a member of the Italian army during World War II, Vincenzo wrote a letter to his family that finally arrived more than 60 years later. My father, Vincenzo Morici, was the youngest of six children. He was born in New York City on March 14, 1918, to Diego and Rosa Lo Baido Morici. His father had emigrated to Chicago from Borgetto, a small town near Palermo, got settled, and then sent for his wife and five children. My father attended …

An award-winning anchor and reporter for WGN-TV, Dina Bair leads a fulfilling triple life as a cancer crusader and mom of four. As a little girl growing up in suburban Philadelphia, Dina Bair liked to pretend to be a journalist and narrate accident scenes for imagined TV cameras while riding in her mother’s car. Her role model was broadcast journalist Diane Sawyer, who inspired her to pursue a journalism degree at Northwestern University and forge an award-winning career at WGN-TV in Chicago. Bair is an anchor for WGN Midday News and the medical reporter for WGN Evening News, as well …

Initially enlisting for a four-year term, James Belmont is approaching 30 fulfilling years in the Navy, with 15 different jobs and four tours on aircraft carriers under his belt. James M. Belmont was born in Highland Park, Illinois, to James and Barbara Brain Belmont. He has one sister. Belmont was 15 years old when the family moved to Deerfield. In 1901, his great-grandfather, Luigi Belmonte, emigrated to Chicago’s Little Italy from Castrolibero, a small town in Calabria. He went home to marry his sweetheart in 1906, and when they returned to the Chicago area in 1913 and settled in Winnetka, …

kaymac60423@yahoo.com franoi.com/profiles/piccolin In 1926, 16-year-old Onorato Piccolin came to America from Falcade, province of Buluno, region of Veneto, Italy.  He arrived at Ellis Island, settling in the Kensington section of Chicago. A blacksmith in the old country, he eventually found work in Gary, Indiana, at the steel mills. Many of you share this same story. A father, a mother, coming to Chicago, perhaps knowing some relatives who were already here, perhaps not. Starting a life, a family.  Everyone worked hard and contributed in this family of two daughters, Mary Jane and Nella. Nella started in the hair business sweeping up …

A half century at any job is something to celebrate, but Sam Gullo is marking five decades as the barber at one of Chicago’s most iconic buildings, the Civic Opera House, home of the Lyric Opera. Gullo and his family arrived in Chicago from Caccamo, Sicily, in 1961. “I came here with my father and brother,” Gullo says from his shop on the 15th floor of the historic building. “My father worked in Chicago for two years, then returned to Sicily to bring us back. We first settled at Ohio and Leavitt streets.” Gullo learned his trade from his older …

NICK BUONICONTI JR. Undersized for a linebacker, he dominated the NFL gridiron for 14 seasons before making a name for himself in the fields of law, business, broadcasting and medicine. The hardest thing about profiling Nick Buoniconti Jr. is having enough space on the page. The man accomplished more in one lifetime than most talented people could accomplish in 10. Let’s start from the beginning. Nick was born on Dec. 5, 1940, in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Nicholas Anthony Buoniconti Sr. and Pasqualina Mercolino, both of whom traced their roots to Naples. Nick Sr. married into a family that owned an …

A political reporter by trade, Paul Salsini parlayed a fascination with one of America’s great musical minds into a long-running newsletter and now a book. Paul Salsini was a journalistic mainstay in Milwaukee for decades, serving as a reporter and editor for The Milwaukee Journal for 37 years and as the Wisconsin correspondent for The New York Times for 15. While his coverage gravitated toward government and politics, he nurtured a longtime fascination with one of the greatest musical writers of all time: Stephen Sondheim. Not satisfied with admiring the maestro’s work from afar, Salsini reached out to him in …

Originally trained by the Army as a typist, Patrick Mauro insisted on becoming a paratrooper and ended up guarding the border between West and East Germany during the Cold War. The fourth of six children, Patrick Mauro was born and raised in Blue Island, Illinois, to Peter and Caroline Jones Mauro. He grew up in a town that was mostly German and Italian. Mauro’s paternal grandfather emigrated from Carovilli, Italy, to Ladd, Illinois, his father’s birthplace. Mauro’s extended family lived in the Taylor Street Italian enclave, and they visited each other regularly. He remembers sharing delicious homemade meals at family …

The cover of Fra Noi reads “Embrace your inner Italian”: words that inspire us to explore every aspect of our heritage and community. In my case, the catchy phrase opened the door to the Italian Cultural Center at Casa Italia. An oasis of italianità in Stone Park, the center is home to a hardy band of volunteers who truly live this calling. I paid my first visit in 2015 and was introduced to Dominic Candeloro, a pensive curator with glasses that often slide down his nose. He, in turn, introduced me to the vast cultural riches of the center: its …