Profiles

Antonino Bondì’s teaching career stemmed from an unlikely place: a goal of practicing pharmacy in Italy, where he’d always hoped to live. Nowadays, Bondì teaches Italian 1 and 2, Italian honors 3 and 4, and AP Italian at Rolling Meadows High School and is a diving coach at Prospect High School, both in suburban Chicago. For the past year, he’s also served as president of the Midwest Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of Italian (AATI), an organization open to past, current and future teachers from the private or public sector, as well as college students who are studying …

A singer and pianist, Marie Sartor Pawelek used her talents to heal the wounded psyches of soldiers on the mend at Walter Reed General Hospital during World War II. Marie Sartor Pawelek was born 100 years ago in Eveleth, Minnesota, the only child of Luigi and Eva (Pivetta) Sartor. Her parents emigrated from a small town near Venice, Italy. With all of their relatives back home in Italy, Pawelek’s parents socialized with their Italian neighbors. Luigi joined the Order Sons of Italy in America and Eva was active in the Sacred Heart Society of their church. Their parish priest built …

Indefatigable after 40 years at the helm of Giordano Dance Chicago, Nan Giordano continues to advance the legacy of her father, jazz-dance pioneer Gus Giordano. Nan Giordano says she’s blessed with a high level of energy — energy that enables her to dance, mentor dancers and produce performances, but also to run the business side of an arts organization and manage its budget. As the artistic director and leader of nonprofit dance company Giordano Dance Chicago, she’s continuing the legacy of her late father, Gus Giordano. Known across the country among dancers and dance fans for developing the Giordano jazz-dance …

Undaunted by a catastrophic injury, Mario DeMatteo has carved a place for himself as a graphic novelist and organic farmer in no small part because of his faith. Mario DeMatteo is the founder of Beartruth Books, a Christian comic-book ministry, and the co-founder of the Agrarian Institute, a nonprofit educational farm in Bonsall, California. He also uses a wheelchair, after suffering a spinal cord injury in a swimming pool accident at age 20. DeMatteo, who lives in Carlsbad, California, with his wife, Karla Cordero, talks to Fra Noi about his passion for comic books, his efforts to make healthy food …

The Chicago Association of REALTORS® inducted Marion Valle into its Hall of Fame in 2023. “When it comes to real estate not only in Illinois, but also throughout the country, there’s one person who has had a significant hand in how we do business,” Chicago REALTOR® Magazine noted. “Valle’s impact on the real estate industry is seen with the historic appointments and positions he has held.” In 1974, he became the first full-time real estate commissioner for the state of Illinois, helping to establish the industry regulations that exist today. In 1980, he was hired by the National Association of …

  Defining her identity and pinpointing where she feels most at home — in Italy or the United States — has never been easy for Raffaella Spilotro, the director of the children’s summer camp at Casa Italia in Stone Park. That’s because, for the first nine years of her life, Spilotro grew up in Capurso, a small town in the province of Bari, Puglia, with her parents speaking only Italian. Her mother and father came with their families to America in the 1960s, met and married here, and decided to move back to Italy when she was 2 months hold. …

Like other social clubs felled by the worldwide pandemic, the Burgio Woman’s Club could have dissolved in recent years. Instead, the 71-year-old nonprofit organization based in the Chicago area is experiencing a resurgence of new activity. “Our members really worked hard to keep it moving forward, and now we are stronger and more active than ever before,” says club President Annmarie Parisi. “It is a community of women, brought together for the love of our town of Burgio and Sicily. We share friendships, family, history and traditions, and also want to learn more and keep alive the customs that we …

Serving as the first principal of The Chicago Academy for The Arts was never the plan for Frank Mustari. A guidance counselor at Niles West High School in suburban Skokie, Mustari asked to take a leave of absence in 1981 to help establish the academy, the first of its kind in the city. “I thought the concept was a great idea. I was working at a high school that had virtually everything — an art department, a theater department, a music department. Chicago Public Schools didn’t have any of those things,” the 86-year-old says. “When I saw in the paper …

After a brief-but-stellar career in prizefighting, Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini has found satisfaction and success as a movie producer, winemaker, philanthropist and family man as well as Youngstown, Ohio’s, biggest booster. The world knows Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini as the formidable boxer with the charming personality who became a World Boxing Association lightweight champion at age 20. But boxing was simply one chapter of his life, and everything that has come after — family, acting, film production and philanthropy — has been just as satisfying and rewarding, the 63-year-old says. Throughout it all, Mancini has always been mindful of his …

  Though the great flood in Florence happened well before she was born, it became a lived experience for Karen Greenwald during extensive research for her children’s book on the catastrophic event. Award-winning children’s book author Karen Greenwald has never been to Florence, and yet she feels a deep connection to the Italian city. That’s because for three years, Greenwald conducted research and interviews about the overflowing of the Arno River in 1966, which dumped about 600,000 tons of mud and sewage onto Florence. The tragedy left more than 30 people dead, hundreds injured and thousands homeless. It also damaged …