Who found who?

There is no doubt that locating long-lost relatives in Italy has its obstacles. For example, time is a factor because memories fade and people pass. Another force to be reckoned with in Italy is World War II, which destroyed many useful municipal and church records. Some seek their family name at local cemeteries, but that’s usually a dead end — pardon the pun. Finding relatives in Italy can indeed be difficult, but don’t give up. It does happen. Here is a true story of how things worked out for our friends from Chicago who recently visited us in Umbria.

The group included Frank Lombardo; his younger brother, Dan; and their wives, Amy and Joanie. Frank is probably my oldest friend, going back to first grade on Chicago’s West Side. The Lombardos’ maternal side happens to come from Montignano, La Marche, which is a short drive from our house.

The Lombardos brought with them an album of photos and a newspaper clipping they found on the internet relating to their grandmother, Giuseppa (Peppa) Paolasini. The article was about Peppa’s experience with the Andrea Doria, which collided with another ship and sunk off the coast of Nantucket in 1956. After traveling to Montignano to deliver the news that her husband, Eduardo, had passed away in America, Peppa and her traveling companion had tickets to return to the United States on the Andrea Doria’s fatal voyage. But, being victims of a petty robbery, they fortunately missed the boat.

The Lombardos had no expectations of meeting any relatives. They simply wanted to find where their grandparents lived. We hoped they could get some information from the provincial archives, so we took a ride to Senigallia, the capital of the province in which Montignano is located.

Senigallia is a beautiful beach town on the shore of the Adriatic. After stopping for lunch, we headed for the municipal building. We impatiently waited for the office to open after lunch, only to find out that the hall of records was going to be closed for the rest of the day. With no way of gathering information, Frank and Dan were understandably discouraged. In fact, Frank’s exact words were, “I’m done. Let’s go home.”

The women in the group, however, were not deterred, and suggested we make the short trip to nearby Montignano. They thought, “If we could find the church, they might have some information.” So off we went, looking for Chiesa S. Giovanni Battista.

The church was open, but no one was around. In front of the building, however, stands a stone monument dedicated to war veterans. Although somber to read, our little group came alive when we saw the names Augusto Paolasini, a soldier in World War I, and Aldo Paolasini, a marine in World War II. Now we were getting somewhere!

As the group searched for someone at the church, I needed to find a men’s room. With no facilities at the church and no commercial buildings in sight, I took a walk around the corner and came upon a neighborhood bar called ASD Montignano. That’s where I met Vanessa, the English-speaking bartender, who directed me to il bagno.

No one in my party knew I walked away so I was in a hurry to get back. The shortest path was through the bar’s patio, where I saw at least 15 elderly men talking and playing cards. When I told our group what I saw, someone said: “Maybe one of those guys knows a Paolasini?” A few minutes later, our entire entourage was at ASD asking about the family. Vanessa took the question out to the patio and returned with Andrea, one of her patrons. He soon began making phone calls.

While Andrea was on the phone, the Lombardos and some other patrons started matching faces in Frank’s album with people in a few framed black-and-white photos on the wall. What are the odds? Piero Paolasini, one of the Lombardos’ distant relatives, posed for one of those shots in 1954. Another clue!

Only a few minutes later, a vibrant man with long white hair walked in. His name is Mauro Mangialardi and he came to meet us even though he was still recovering from a serious heart ailment. He even brought his cousin-in-law Sabrina to translate. You might think of Mauro as the unofficial town statesman and journalist. Andrea assumed that if anyone knew the Paolasinis, it would be he.

Mauro put on his glasses to look at Frank’s album. A moment later, his face lit up like a Christmas tree. He pointed to one of the pictures in the album and said, “That’s my grandmother!” Frank reacted by taking a giant step back and calling out, “You’re my cousin!” It turns out that Mauro’s grandmother and Eduardo were brother and sister, making Mauro and the Lombardos second cousins. This discovery triggered everyone’s emotions.

After things settled down a little, Mauro went back to the album and announced that he was also the one who wrote the article preserved in the newspaper clipping. As it happens, Mauro writes for a local publication called Il Passaparola (Word of Mouth), and in 2018 was asked to write a story related to his family. He chose to write about Peppa and her brush with fate the day the Andria Doria sank. His article somehow made it around the internet and was found quite accidently by Frank and Dan’s cousin Jennifer. After some additional hugs and celebrating, Mauro walked us over to the spot where Grandfather Paolasini lived. His house had been lost to an earthquake in 1972 but Frank at least found where he grew up.

Giordano, the curator of the church, got wind of the encounter and appeared out of nowhere. He brought everyone into the church to look at the parish records. Although the Lombardos’ grandfather Eduardo was from Montignano, it turns out that Peppa was from a nearby town called Montemarciano. That’s probably where they were married, because there was no record of their wedding at San Giovanni Battista. Unfortunately, there was no time to visit the church in Montemarciano so that part of the story will have to wait until the Lombardos make their next trip to Italy.

We also learned that Mauro has two sons, a daughter and five grandchildren. His son Maurizio is the former mayor of Senigallia, and Maurizio’s brother, Fabio, owns a pizzeria on the beach where we ended the day eating pizza, taking family photos and feeling quite proud of ourselves. In one afternoon, the Lombardo brothers were able to find five blood relatives and locate where both of their maternal grandparents grew up, albeit 3,700 miles away, some 67 years later and two generations apart.

Given how Mauro’s article about Peppa encouraged the Lombardos to look for him, it begs the question: Is the American side of the family responsible for finding the Italian side, or vice versa? At any rate, the family is back together, and Mauro has already had an account of the reunion and a photo published in Il Passaparola.

It was a remarkable afternoon — and partly because one of us needed to use the bathroom.